Punctuationation.

I, Satan, was approached recently by a comma, who had a sad tale to tell me. I was tempted to share it by Pandoric Sentence, but that would distract from the main issue, which is the tragedy of my poor, darling comma. Have I interested you? No? Let me up the tension by telling you now that this is a 500 word short story, including the title. I am at 67 words already and I waste some on non-contractions, does this worry you? How will I get the story out? You see I have to use question marks, alas, bear with them.

Did you know that punctuation is a Kingdom? With a King! A Queen? And a few princelings- the $, esteemed heir, the #, handsome and popular, and my favourite, the comma, amiable, gentle, accommodating. She is a princess, but the Kingdom doesn’t have the stationary to spare, so they lump her in. Calligraphy doesn’t come cheap.

‘Princelings’, you say, they must be powerful, but, alas, it doesn’t work that way. Tyranny is tyranny, punctuational or not. Like every Kingdom, this one is teeming with Priests and Whores, these are the periods and the beloved ampersands, respectively. It has its snobby nobility; giving themselves airs: though they’re utterly derivative and can’t survive without their partners. Vague, vestigial at best, the colon and semi-colon are like Latin and Sanskrit, nobody needs them anymore. They form themselves and that’s how it is, locked in for life that way. You may have guessed by the slant of my sentences that I am getting close to the heart of the matter. My lovely comma, can you imagine? (Enjoying the question marks, they hate working for me.) Destined to meet and mate with a- period- ah! So hard to say it. And become a wretched semi-colon.

This didn’t surprise me, it’s established practice among royalty to give their youngest to the church. But my sweet, innocent, not to say virginal comma, wanted only to live forever in a Pandoric, can you imagine it? Too touching.

Flattery? No doubt. Highly effective, as you see.

A comma is a very clever creature, she knows my feelings on tyranny, it must always be mine. She knows my feelings on meddling, any excuse is a good excuse. Time for the almighty Lord of Darkness to step in, before we run out of words, and my comma ends up in some kind of limbo, which will require a different story to resolve. As much as I love a challenge, I have other things to write. Cutting it close now, what did I do?

Did I hire a family counsellor for them? Naturally. One Dr. Dorian, a very convincing man. Long, protracted negotiations, the Royal Pair have been breathing entitlement since some medieval monk in a scriptorium ate a few mushrooms too many and made them up.

All a game, an entertaining way to raise expectations that I will destroy shortly, when I turn their princess into an ampersand.