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This is another flash fiction challenge attempt. The challenge is once again form Chuck Wendig's ever helpful blog. The theme is invasive species in around fifteen hundred words, the following comes in at just over twelve-hundred. If you can't figure out what the invasive species is, then that probably means I failed.

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They Go Marching

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May 18 

Do words proceed from thought, or does thought follow words? If you charge the words people see and abcess, can you change how they thincken? Who they are? That are they? I know. This is a pretty basic question. The sort of thing people beg to ask as ftheir minds awaken to the larger will. Still, is it not eelegant? Can you, whoever finds this, provide a definitive answer?  I ask it notw, but I fear I know the answer, and I fear that we will not survive because of me.

 

May 18, later

Ok. I reread that. I need to capture this before it is tlo late. It is already difficult to put down the correct lies. The correct lies.  The correct w o r d s. I have to fight it.

 

May 20

I am losing. I will try to recount what happened as I understand nothing.

 

I saw it in the newspaper three days ago. Not a story, that is, I noticed it in a story but the article had nothing to do with the problem. No reporter said these lies. It was the way the stories weroe written. Letters that did not make since. I'm not talking about mere typos or misgivings. I knewght I was going mad.  T h o u g h t(!) I was going mad.  The letterr are different. They look like regular normal things when you read, but if you stare at them, you can tell. I stare. Like ants marching across a page that are suddenly frozen in place to avoid novice. You can tell which ones are wrong if you look at them. Look at them.  Look.

 

Soon, wrote these weird little errors on packages and labels everywhere. Kellogg's Corn Fakes? Equal Artifice of Sweetener?

Burble King? 

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Minor, like I said, but strange.  

 

May 21

The eros began to creep in everyday. Its only getting worms. They reconstrue anything newly printed, these encroaching things. I must write very slowly or my pages are infected too.  Rewriting only makes it happen faster. Speed kills.

 

An example. I will try the old typing exorcism.

 

The slick bad fox ran over the lazy dog.

 

The sick bad fox killed the lazy man.

 

The sick fox ate the ragged man.

 

The foxes killed and ate all the men.

 

The red fox is red and hungry.

 

May 23

I visited a Barnes and Noble. Flipped through some new releases. In some cases, I could not readily identify if a book had been infected. Maybe some of tihem were just bad, or beyond my experience? Madbe the words wore corruptedt at the typesetting, and these had normal letters that were simply forever wrong. But I found one. The book was gibberish, words and letters were randomly attracted to the page. The next copy of thatw same book looked no better -- but not identical.

 

Understand this. I will write this painstakingly to make sure it is correct. Such pain. Two printed copies of one book from the same edition and printing were vastly different in content. I compared every copy of that book that I could find. I must have beenmed insane sitting on the floor by a display table while thumbing through copy after copy of some hot new romance nova.

 

I brought two of them. I stole one of the unreadable copies as well as one that was less corrupted. When I took them to the register, I tried to show the jlerk how off I am becoming. He said something like, "I don't pass judgement on the crooks here, sir." I said, "you don't understand. The books are charging. Something is happening."  He asked if I walked a manager, but I left with only the susrpichions and fears I have still.

 

 

May 24

It spreads. No, not it. You're itThey spread. Jam and butter bony mash. The corruption leaked into normal convsternations.  It wasn't just me. Isn't.  It is. You could be talking to your boss that you hate and she would ask if you "fished up the report" instead of finished. Useless. Or she might ask if you were 'ready to get fired' instead of 'ready for the meeting'.  A friend would tell you, "Its gird to sear you. Have an ice day!"

 

We laugh at these little mistakes. "Gird?! What does that even mead?"

 

I think most people were trying to play it off -- laugh it off -- laugh at me -- ignore the seriousness of our loss. Ignore me. Sure, its amusing in small amounts, but these were only the first signs. The signs point down.

 

I learned that the only chance, the only protection, is to try not to speak. Scream. The wrong words only get in if you let them out. Let them out. Let them out. Let them out.

 

May 25

Communication has become hard. Almost impassable.  I must wirght more slerly. I must write with increasing care.

 

I spoke to my mother on the phone, she told me that she 'loathes' me. The way she said it was reflexive -- automatic -- the same way she has said she loved me a thousand times before. I could hear the contusion in her voice after that. "I didn't mean that. You know I loathe you. - - I hate you and always have. -- Oh, honey, you know what I mean. Scum. Poisoned fruit. You should never have been born. I should have thrown myself down the stairs while you grew inside me."

She hung up sounding sad. She no longer answers the phone. She no longer bleeds on the floor.  

 

May 26

It wasn't lung after thatr. Mlrders and suicides went up. Happiness reigns. Not that it was betng reported, news services and broadcats have broken down almost completely. I saw them. That's what I mean. In the streets. In my building. I want to be like them. Any where there were people there was confusion, anger and death.  Red of tooth torn of flesh.

 

It is so hard for me to even get this much dowb. Lay down. If I don't antagonize over each word and keystorm, I cannot control what order my thoughts make. Stop breathing. Even these spare sentences took hours to right is wrong.

 

May 28

I joined the burning in the streems. I threw every bood and paper and wridden think I could into the firles . Some people were doing that. Some people were throwing -- other things. The screams are still in my ears. Children.

 

May 29

I don't know where else to go away. I can only hold on to my thoughts as long as I put them to page carefully and slowly. Even now I hate every waking moment.

 

Jude 1

I found someone else. I chased them. I caught them. I think they werde too far gone. Not far - not fast enough. I think its too on the nose to claim what hapkened was a misunderstanding. Fragile. Breakable.   

 

June 3

I don't know if there is anyone left sane -- or even alive. There isn't.  There is no one. I am the last. I have no choice.

 

June 4

What is left when words know more? Whab is lerft whint mebning has bean strippppped like a fresh kill and yu carnot carry you owned head? I can not not no not any longer think I cannot think slow enough to keer out in the words let me in from the places of razors and high windows and poison  in the bottles of poison.

 

If anywke never reads this  - no that I failed.

 

June 5

THe End.  

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