One summer night, while everyone slept, the words began to escape through the window. They were tired of being used vulgarly, offensively, or incorrectly — of being used to deceive, to lie, or to insult. And so a few of them, the worst-used ones, broke the chains that bound them to our tongue and set out on an adventure. The first to escape was “freedom,” soon followed by others that were always on everyone’s lips, such as “good,” “reason,” and “money.” To make their exit they took advantage of the unconscious murmurings that people let slip while dreaming, and being made of air, they allowed themselves to be carried up into the skies on the draughts that drift through open windows.
The following day, people found themselves unable to say certain things. No one knew why, and everyone was mildly puzzled, but since they were accustomed to speaking carelessly, forgetting much, and knowing even less, they put it down to poor memory or to stress.
In the days that followed, more words joined the first. These were rarely used words which, finding themselves so thoroughly forgotten, decided to explore other horizons. And so “oxymoron,” “dilettante,” “brigantine,” and many others flew upward into the heights.
Each night, more and more words followed. Not only nouns fled, but adverbs, verbs, articles, and pronouns too, so that from one day to the next people found themselves unable to say things like “again,” “that,” “we,” “still,” or “speaking.” When enough were missing, people began to find it enormously hard to say anything at all, and had to fall back on other means — pointing, or gesturing.
There were a few words, those that considered themselves the most beautiful for being the most used in poems and songs, that refused to leave. They were very proud and felt themselves chosen. A moment came when the only things one could hear were words like “love,” “heart,” or “soul.” Conversation became impossible, and these proud words, seeing their sisters living so happily in the heights and finding the poems growing poorer and duller by the day, decided to leave as well.
People invented new words to replace the ones that had fled. Some were even beautiful, but most were absurd and even amusing, such as “tabjcatú” or “memperemempe.” They did not last long, however, and soon departed to join their companions, leaving no time for anyone to learn them. Gradually, only unpronounceable and strange words remained, such as “xgrafihzuunyq” or “pwrtlokiue.” In the end, even these took their leave. High in the sky they reunited with the rest and there they enjoyed a new freedom, playing at forming sentences never before spoken, most of them meaningless to us.
And so the moment arrived when it was impossible to say anything at all. The heads of great corporations convened and could not make themselves understood. Television presenters appeared on screen, mute, with vacant expressions. On the radio, only instrumental music could be heard, and the newspapers and magazines carried nothing but photographs.
Everyone sweated with the effort of making gestures, drove themselves to distraction pointing at things, and scribbled incessantly on every available surface — but since almost everyone drew rather badly, that got them no further. In the streets, in shops, in schools, in hospitals, veins bulged in necks as people strained to say something, faces flushing red with frustration, but not a single word came out. The only sounds people could produce were grunts and other animal noises. But even these were of no use, because onomatopoeias such as “woof,” “moo,” and “cock-a-doodle-doo” had fled as well. And naturally so had “onomatopoeia” itself, which was playing quite happily with its new friends “onomatopoiea” and “onomatapoeia.”
The situation grew so unsustainable that the assembled nations dispatched special aircraft with word-catching traps, but failed. Engineers invented sophisticated devices to snare them, but it is impossible to capture words if they do not wish to be caught — they are invisible and can slip through any crack. And so not even the enormous vacuum cleaners, nor the plastic bags scattered across the sky, were of any use whatsoever.
Since nothing could be said any longer and all the books had gone blank, people grew more ignorant and more unhappy with every passing day. And many, unable to understand one another and seeing their business affairs imperilled as a result, were ill-tempered all day long.
In the midst of this chaos, the only ones who could communicate were the deaf and mute, who possessed a sign language — but they were few, and though they tried to teach the others, most people were clumsy or unwilling to learn.
Meanwhile, the words went about their own affairs. They let themselves drift on the current, stretching in the air, and the wind sounded as though it were speaking — but in a manner so strange that it was very difficult for anyone who drew near to make it out. Down on the earth, people grew more mean-spirited and suspicious by the day. Since no one spoke any longer, there was nothing but quarrelling. Then a few of the words began to notice that they always did the same things, started to grow bored, and thought:
“What are we doing here? If no one speaks us, it is as though we do not exist.”
But words are in truth very simple, dependent creatures, and these few barely had the strength to make themselves heard among their companions; they could not compel the others to link with them, and it was therefore impossible for them to form a meaningful sentence. Almost all the others were absorbed in their own pursuits, joining one another for no reason other than the pleasure of flying. Most of the verbs, like children at break-time, ran from one place to another without paying attention to anyone else. The adjectives and adverbs held competitions to see who could form the most pompous phrases, and all of them loved to play with the newest words — those that have no meaning for us.
The very words that were growing bored began to look downward, and saw the people embroiled in their absurd conflicts, and this filled them with sadness. Alone, they were unable to return and restore order; they needed someone to speak them, and all those on earth had become incapable, having forgotten language entirely and surrendered to their new mode of expression, full of shouts and gestures.
But there were still those who went on trying to say something. Many gathered together and wept as they prayed, beseeching with gestures whatever god they knew to give them back their words. Others, mostly poets, sat before blank sheets of paper and moved their pens without pause, but could not write a thing. And then there were people of every kind — word-hunters, mystics, travellers, and philosophers — who stood mute before the landscape, waiting for words to come to their mouths so that they could say what they felt.
Among these last there was a man who did not like to stand still, watching and waiting for things to happen of their own accord. So he decided to climb toward the place where the words were, to try to understand the reason for their flight. Many others had tried before him, but they always went up carrying some useless contrivance for catching words, believing the words to be their property, like livestock escaped from a farm, and wishing to put them back in service. But words do not obey desire — they obey intelligence; they do not come when someone commands them, but when someone has understanding enough to give them expression. Then they arise from the place where they dwell inside us. But now that inner place was empty, and the chains that bound words to people were broken.
The man in question, whose name is beside the point, felt that his own intelligence had been left an orphan, but his curiosity was still intact. And so he built a modest balloon and tied it to a basket. Without help from anyone, he managed to get the balloon to rise, and riding in it he drew close to the heights where the words now lived.
He expected to see or hear something up there. He strained his ears, but the sound of the wind was incomprehensible, though he sensed that in its murmurings there were sentences composed of words never before spoken. Apart from this, the sky held nothing but what one would expect: scattered clouds dissolving on the horizon, flocks of birds, and a sun indifferent to all that had happened.
The man reflected on everything he saw. Then he turned his gaze toward the earth spread out a thousand metres below. He saw the fields tilled with such effort, the forests, the cities, the mountains. And he was overcome with sadness at the thought that all of it had been struck dumb, and that perhaps people would bring everything to ruin now that they could no longer communicate.
The man tried to say something that might express what he felt. He opened his mouth, but as always, no sound came to it. Though he could sense that the word was there, waiting to be spoken, his efforts met with no response.
And yet, though he could not see it, words were passing all around him, indifferent. All but one, which felt called by this man who had climbed all the way up to find them, seeking them with such sincerity in his eyes. This word felt, more than any other, that the world without words had been left incomplete, and it longed to give voice to what was happening, as though that were its destiny. It drew close to the man, who was still opening and closing his mouth without success. How to rejoin what had been broken? The solitary word let itself be drawn in by the will of that man; without any further effort, it entered his chest, and as he was on the verge of giving up, from his throat there came a faint and trembling sound: “Silence.”
The man was dumbstruck. Suddenly his strength returned to him, and he repeated, this time louder: “Silence.”
He could not understand why the word had come back, just as he had not understood why it had left — but his voice grew more powerful with each repetition, and he could not stop saying it: “Silence,” “Silence,” “Silence.”
The man descended to earth and walked to the first village he found. There, before a group of people, he said in a clear voice: “Silence.” Everyone stopped and looked at him. The man spoke again, and others, as though to answer him, tried as well. And so more and more people became able to say: “Silence.” At first their voices were faint, but with little effort they grew as steady as the voice of the man who had brought them “Silence.”
The word spread from mouth to mouth, and before long, all across the world, everyone was able to say “Silence.” And the cries rang out everywhere, and there were choirs of people singing: “SILENCE!” “SILENCE!”
And suddenly the books filled up with “silence.” On television, in the cinema, on the radio, “silence” could be heard without stopping. In the street there was nothing but “silence,” and it was so insistent that there was not a single instant of silence.
And so it has been ever since, all across the earth. People have grown accustomed to “silence,” and although it is little compared to what their languages once were, it serves them well enough for getting by, and most require nothing more than “silence.” The world is in silence, they tell one another — this word is enough to express it.
Yet there are many who, like the one who brought them that first word, know that this is not enough, and who long to bring back more words. Many have tried: they have gone up in balloons and in the middle of the sky have called out “silence.” Some believe it will take someone special to bring new words — someone who does not think as others do, someone capable of saying something different. Until that person arrives, the world will remain in silence.
The words go on waiting, most of them indifferent — but some, a few, have already noticed that one of their companions is passing from mouth to mouth, and they envy her, and they wait for someone to come who is capable of expressing them, of returning them to the world. Who knows whether those capable of speaking such words may not already live among us. Perhaps it is the reader who, one fine day, will climb to the very heights and give us back “reason,” “freedom,” “art,” or “water.”