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DEATH BY WORDS
Did I Just Fry My Brain With Intense Mental Exertion?
This is my brain on life
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words — watch out for them words
This past weekend, I wrote a term paper. Twenty-one pages at its roughest draft and, eventually, I whittled it down to eighteen. I’d left it to the 11:11:11th hour, meaning I spent the weekend hunched over a computer, working literary journals and trade publications for sources, frantically typing and citing, proofreading, typing, citing, cut-and-pasting, morning to night both days.
I wrote a second paper on Monday. Then stole more precious moments from my life to edit, re-edit, and re-re-edit both. At the crack of dawn on the sofa, a dog snoring on my hip, when I’d normally be reading the news? Check. Nom-noming a mid-morning snack? Check. Typing instead of eating at lunchtime? Check. Those five or ten minutes after logging out of my work apps for the day before walking out the door to my evening commute? Check.
Then I “relaxed” by playing Wordle. It was harder than usual. Much harder. Instead of winning in two or three or maybe four rows at worst and losing never, it took me all six rows just about every time and I even lost. Twice.
Simple five-letter words that usually flowed easily off my fingertips just would not come.
Disheartened, wondering if aliens had abducted me and stolen my brain, I gave up and went to bed. That night, words of all shapes and sizes hammered my skull, clamoring for attention as sleep eluded me for hours. I was being murdered, slowly, by words. When they finished killing me, they feasted on my lifeless brain.
Or so it felt.
On Tuesday, I sleepwalked through the workday, embarrassing myself every time I opened my mouth. As tumbleweeds danced across the high desert of my brain, words I use every day were just — gone — though I looked high. I looked low. I looked behind the rock, under the rattlesnake, in the mirage. Nothing.
