The Town of What If

​The Town of What If
by
Don Ford

**** Prologue  ***

​A lone word fell upon a page. Looking around he began to sob. Loneliness has but one cure. It needs another. Soon another small word joined it there. The two became best friends, each playing with the other. They traded places on the page. Soon an object, looking like a tree, was seen on the corner of the paper. One of the words went and hid behind it.

“Where did you go my friend? I’m all alone now.”

“Look behind the tree for me.”

“If this is a game where we hide and find each other, the tree is the only place we can look.”

Suddenly, with that word spoken, another object found a resting place on the page as well. It was a house with many rooms in it. The two words were then joined by several others that asked to play their game with them. Why not, there were plenty of places now to hide.

Then the real fun began as all of the words, except the one seeking, would hide in the rooms of the house. A curious thing then occurred. Unusual sounds were heard up in the tree. First a furry little creature was scampering about along with a few others dressed all up in feathers and flapping their wings. Many different chirping sounds were heard as well.

All of the words that were hiding in the house, came out and began climbing the tree. 
Soon the tree was filled with words that were hanging and jumping from branch to branch. More creatures and words began showing up on the page, and the paper began to fill right up. It looked like there was no more room for even one more object or even a short word. 

Lying right beside the one page was another blank piece of paper. Our first word that had come to our once empty page jumped quickly to the white paper. The scene we had just reported above began to repeat itself until the second page was full too.

When it came time to jump to a third page, our very first word looked up and saw the writer with a pen in hand. The writer looked down and smiled kindly and said, “Go ahead I’m waiting for you. I want to at least finish these opening lines to my book” The Town of What If.” So the prologue was completed so the story could begin.

That same first word then landed quickly on the third page and the story continued without any interruptions. This first word knew he was a vital part of the telling of this story, since this tale had to start somewhere. The lone word looked up at the writer/creator, and if a word could smile, it is what was happening. He knew before long the writer would bring more friends to fill up yet another page, so that he was never ever alone.

Read More