The Word

By Amaranth Rose

29 Apr 2002; after the Nebula awards

In the beginning was the Word, stark and untypeset,

And it was formless and humorless and without context or meaning.

It was in the Void, and it was the Void, and it could not be avoided,

And it was confusing.

Then came the Editors, who invented proofreading.

They corrected misspellings and took away excessive commas.

They created the forms of Novel, Novella, Short Story and Poem,

And there was order.

Next there were Publishers, who set the Word upon paper,

Where it stood unaltered and omniscient like a graven idol on a plinth.

The Word was sent out into the world to work its magic upon readers

And it made money flow.

Money funded Education and Knowledge, and Literacy spread like Plague upon the face of the land,

Creating a thirst for data about the great illimitable Universe,

Beckoning us ever outward beyond our blue, green, brown, white ball

And Sputnik was launched.

In lonely cells grew Authors, Wordsmiths beating plowshares into ray guns and dragons,

Recluses transforming Science and imagination into works of fantasy and fiction,

Weaving scientific facts into a tapestry of form and plot, always remembering:

In the beginning was the Word.