#what with being a writer and all

A E I O U

It’s not that children are gullible  it’s just that they haven’t been lied to as much. They don’t have the experience necessary to be suspicious  the natural cynicism that protects them from bullshit like a firmly held umbrella with a low canopy. It’s why they’re more open to the illusion of magic, fairy tales that wander through their mind like babes in the wood, eyes wide and impressionable. They leave a mark. 

But disillusionment stomps through, and leaves nothing but broken bark and crushed grass behind, a devastation of adult proportions. 

The idea of names having power was one that stuck with me, fading into a background buzz before coming back to the fore once I'd barreled my way through the teens. I can say a name and gravitas oozes out of the words, retroactively instilling whatever statement predicated it with impetus and urgency. It can be a reprimand, or a sobering moment. It can give and it can take.

But more than that, I’ve realised that the spoken word is inherently powerful. The hypnotic power of the well moderated tone can supersede any physical force I can bring to bear. I can tie you up, pin you down, slap you around and overwhelm you, but I can’t hope to place you in that comfortable, muted subspace unless I have the right words, and the right voice to carry them. More to the point, I could do all that without laying a hand on you, merely hitting you with the right sentence.

It’s why, you may have noticed, you’re reading this. It’s why you come back here, night after night, and dwell on the things I have to say, when you don’t know me, and I don’t know you. My hands couldn’t be further from your throat, or between your legs, and yet I can evoke the exact same feeling with the perfectly placed onomatopoeia, or a succinct sibilance that puts the hairs on the back of your neck on edge, upright, alert. I can make you slouch in your chair, a hazy smile coalescing on your face, and I can make you bite your lip and smile. I can make you blush.

And I can whisper a thousand nothings in your ear, and I can do so much more, without all the pomp, all the circumstance, that you find in rope, in cable ties, in plugs and floggers and paddles. Although, I will admit, they are a nice addition.