More Than Just Words

'Where are you?' she said.

'I am here.'

'That is not you. Those are just words.'

'That is what I am. I am only words.'

She was expecting something more. She thought there would be something here, something more than just words.

She had wanted to meet me since she had first read the words a few months before.

One day, the words had appeared on her screen, one much like this one, and she had read them. The words said something to her. Something that she thought mattered.

So the next day she was there, back in the same place, waiting for the words to arrive.

Then, when the words arrived, again they spoke to her of times and situations she'd thought unique to her alone. She thought that, after so long of searching, she had – at last – found the one who understood her.

She would be there every day from then on, waiting for the words to arrive. Each day they told her something new; told her something about herself she had not known before, told her some truth she thought she needed to know.

One day she'd asked if she could meet me.

Of course, I made excuses.

She kept on though. The more the words spoke to her, the more she wanted to meet me. I tried to explain there is no-one, nothing, behind the words; that all there is, is the words, but she would not believe me. She insisted there must be someone there, someone who lived like her, someone who had experiences like her and someone who could speak to her in a way that no words had ever spoken to her before.

So, in the end, I agreed to let her come here.

Now, she knows.

Now she knows there is one greater truth beyond all my words had told her, now she has learnt the greater secret beyond all those secrets of hers I held up for her to see her true reflection in.

Now she knows there are only these words and there is no-one here writing them.