Where the last of the big words dwell

Where the last of the big words dwell
By Jon Slone



I charted a course for The Brobdingnagian Plains, ‘neath the Sisyphean sun, where the last of the big words dwell.

Starting off, I intrepidly braved the Caveat Jungles in all of their convoluted glory. Nestled-in taut, under a canopy of misanthrope trees, I found a sequestered glade stitched-in on all sides by the ensorcelled, Pennyworth Peaks. Scuttlebutt purports that these Proficuous Peaks are made out of magical and mouth-watering milk chocolate. Whether or not verisimilitude inhabits said gossip is neither here nor there for I scarcely had time to respire, much less loan myself over to escarpment-licking bliss!

At this point, my knackered time-piece read 2:37pm.

Around the Pullulating Pools, I navigated my enervated person, paying little mind to the scads of Lackadaisical Durplepotts mired in empty repose. Moreover, I never bore witness to any Pontificating Panjandrums, chimerical dorps or disingenuous shoats either.

And I was so hoping to see a disingenuous shoat!

I waded through the tempestuous, Fribble Fjords. I canoed every gossamer inch of Lugubrious Loch. I hiked up endless flights of Craggy Apples and I bested many a mangy, Frog and Toad as well!

To my unbridled delight, near gloaming, after numberless hours of strenuous journeying, I had finally darkened the east entrance of the Brobdingnagian Plains.

Holey Blue-Jeans!

For as far as gapes could gander, I saw nothing but endless throngs of cyclopean words! Clustered on a lush page of earth like GooseBump Buffalo!

My inner word-nerd was a kernel of popcorn in a skinned-up microwave!

Here at the end of the last of the most precious and promethean words ever, it frightened me to know what lie just ahead. For I could see that there was more!

Ever at the ready, I quickly slipped between a plump Clishmaclaver and a courteous Comeuppance.
I think they were expatiating poppycock, though I’m not entirely sure.

Next, I crawled over an enormous Confabulate that was stacked on top of a bulbous Bumbershoot. I eschewed a histrionic Hornswoggle, a diminutive Appellation and a gloomy Salmagundi.

Ever and anon I tripped over a Traipsing Tergiversate, stubbed my big toe on a
purple Pedagogue and found unexpected respite atop a gracious but crestfallen Cachinnate.


If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that the last words I ever saw were Pelf, Bedraggled and Verisimilitude.

In hindsight, I’m really quite taken with the word, Verisimilitude. The way I see it, it just can’t help but being a big ole bit of mouth candy! The actual word means, truth. Yet there it sits, encased in all of that deliciously silly wrapping paper!

Shortly thereafter my fleshly car framed the Brobdingnagian Plains permanently in its rear-view.


Minutes later, my hangdog body found it toeing the languid ledge of Feckless Knoll, overlooking the unremitting world of Empty Chasm, the place where words cease to exist.


And I was speechless.





Jon WordNerd Slone

The Way of the White Petticoat

The Way of the White Petticoat
By: Jon Slone








I wanted to view life as a butterfly does.

So I climbed to the top of the world’s tallest waterfall in Venezuela.
And I set out for the loftiest steeple of splashy crag I could find.

A child set adrift in the deplorable drink, exhausted from looking at Picture Shows through potato sacks.

Through swells of rapturous hysteria, my countenance put-on an irrepressible smile, unlike any other it had ever donned before.
I guess it knew better, that which lay secret on the next page, and here I, the book.

Homesick, bruised and scraped-up pretty bad, I tumbled over into the lovely unknown like a jubbe of blissful beverage off an ancient breakfast table.


All at once, the pauper was made rich and the blind man could see.


A visual banquet unfurled before a pair of eyes what had never supped before.

Tears leapt from my wet cheeks like reckless rainbows.

I rifled through my word-suitcase only to find out I hadn’t packed a single thing.

An ailing world’s best kept secret was a destination of indescribable pulchritude.
And it and I were two opposite limbs of electrical discharge, screaming down a trackless swath, bound for one capstone of a hand shake.

The false coda and the authentic first chapter; two foes in one sleeping bag.

My jubilant heart tore from my suffocating person, like a kid at King's Island, and bade me to plummet faster.


In a startling turn of events, the mist-like deluge and the redoubtable escarpment became envious of a little crumb of dirt.


The Grand Canyon, jealous of a pot-hole.


There were no woebegone obstructions to crane a glance around. No intractable horizons in the yawning distance to ponder over, as to what further ambrosia may be tucked away like diffident duvets.

No more potato sacks, no more corrupted beauty, no more living on the frayed edges of the Big Picture.

Now I could see everything. And everything could see me.


And all of it was too much for a crumb of dirt, too great for a speck to know!


Colors blushed like the tip of a lit match, images were heart-stopping, fragrances became touchy-feely and my viscera wore perpetual goose bumps like a taut windbreaker.

My life had gone from nose-bleed to, no way!

The first remnants of an everlasting heaven had both hands cupped around my wrinkled-up, tear-stained face.

It too, bade me to hurry.

I was forlorn for some nebulous reason yet laughter had its way with me regardless.

The way of the White Petticoat had been slammed-up against my countenance worse than the clamorous and ubiquitous coil.


The shorter your time is at the fair, the sweeter the ride is on the merry-go-round.


For the first time, I could see as the butterfly. And it was a far cry better than plaques and playfellows to be certain.

Sickness in a second. Forever in a free-fall.


Awesome really.


The flame of forty Christmas’s had flickered out and with that, I was over.



Then I had just begun!





Jon TheJumper Slone