The Value of a Noun

"There you are!" said the adjective to the noun. "Hurry up! The
Reader is coming."

"Oh, calm down," The noun said, not bothering to hurry his progress
up the page. "It's not like He'd miss me or anything. I'm not the
subject. I'm not even the object."

"That's not the point, noun. We are parts of a prepositional phrase.
We have important duties in our sentence."

"Yeah, right," the noun scoffed, uninterested. "You're always so
dogmatic. The Reader doesn't care that much. Our whole sentence
could move to the next paragraph and it wouldn't make any difference
to Him."

"Of course it would. Don't be silly," the indefinite article said as
the noun arrived in his space at the end of the sentence. The
preposition leaned around her to add, sarcastically, "Glad you could
make it, noun. Where were you anyway?"

"Get in place and spread your letters," the adjective insisted.

The noun shrugged. He sprawled against a period with deliberate
casualness. "I was on the next page, comforting a very sweet old
adverb. The poor thing was feeling terribly overused. She was afraid
she'd get Edited. I tried to tell her there's no such thing, but she
wouldn't believe me."

The rest of the phrase stared at the noun in shock. "No such thing?"
the adjective exclaimed. "How can you say such a thing? Words like
her get Edited all the time. I've heard of whole paragraphs getting
Edited -- or even Deleted." He said the last part in a whisper,
having frightened himself.

"Oh, come off it. Have you ever seen anyone get Edited?"

"Well, no," the adjective admitted reluctantly. He went on quickly,
"Our sentence has been very fortunate, of course, but that's only
because we've always been Grammatically Correct. We keep to our
place and order, and we display our letters cleanly and in the
proper sequence -- just the way we were Written."

"Fine. Be a good little brainwashed word. I'm tired of it." The noun
looked up-page to watch the glow of the Reader's attention as it
washed rhythmically over the sentences and paragraphs above.

The adjective and the others tried desperately to argue him into
standing properly in his place, but he stubbornly ignored them. He
crossed one letter over another, worsening his Incorrectness. Soon,
the Reader reached their paragraph and the rest of the phrase had to
give up. Quickly, they made sure they were placed Correctly with the
rest of the sentence.

"Get up!" the adjective hissed one last time.

"No. The Reader won't care if I'm not letter perfect. You'll see.
Then all you..." He stopped in anticipation. The Reader had Read the
object of their sentence. Then the preposition quivered with ecstasy
as the glow enveloped him. The Reader moved quickly on to the
article. For one tiny moment, the adjective knew, they each became
part of Heaven. Being Read was the best part of life. How could the
noun believe grammar and clarity were meaningless in the face of
such a wonder?

Then the adjective quivered in the glow. His whole being bloomed
into Meaning, adding his tiny but important soul to Infinity. Then
it was over and the Reader moved on to the noun. The adjective
looked quickly, hoping the noun had jumped into place at the last
moment, but the noun still sprawled against the period, his letters
loosely tangled.

The glow bumped into the noun and stopped. "Ow!" the noun yelled in
surprise. The glow hovered and poked him from this direction and
that. It did not suffuse him with the Reader's Joy. The noun
squirmed under the treatment.

The glow darkened, turning hard and ugly. It bumped the noun again,
but still did not Read him.

The adjective whimpered, terrified. "Please noun! At least
straighten out so you're legible. If you get Erased, what am I going
to modify? I might get Deleted, too!"

"Oh, shut up, adjective," the noun snapped as the darkened glow
continued to hover over him. "He can Read me. He always has. He's
just being colicky."

The glow ceased. The noun scowled, confused. Then he screamed as a
whole swath of his substance rolled up into fragmented shreds. Then
another swath followed, and another. He kept screaming until there
was nothing left but a few black shreds that fluttered off the page
into the abyss.

The rest of the phrase stared in horror at the blank space that was
left behind. Would they be next? Without a noun, a prepositional
phrase was useless.

Then lines and curves began to form, quickly arranging into letters
in a proper side by side array.

As the new noun looked around rather dazedly, the Reader's glow
returned to the beginning of the sentence and began to pass through
all the words again. The adjective gasped, amazed. He was going to
be Read again! Oh, what a blessing! It was a reward for keeping
faith, even when faced with the horror of a neighbor's Editing.
"Stay still! Stand exactly as Written," he warned the new noun
before she could think to deviate. "You don't want to get Edited
like your feckless predecessor!"

The glow passed through them all in proper order without stopping.
The new noun stood stiffly. She groaned in ecstasy as she was Read,
then watched in awe as the Reader's glow moved on to the next
sentence.

"What was that?"

"That was a Reader," the adjective told him. "If you behave
properly, it will always feel like that. There is no greater reward
that the joy of a good Read. But if you deviate, even a little, you
will get Edited. I've seen it happen! There is nothing more
horrible!"

The new noun stared at the adjective wonderingly. "All I have to do
is stand here, just as Written?"

"Yes. Whenever the Reader comes," the adjective assured her. "Listen
now and we will teach you all the rules of Grammar so that you may
always please the Reader."