The Wednesday book club meeting had started out normally enough—tea poured, biscuits crumbled, a lively discussion on character development. But then, Marion had had enough.

“This book doesn’t do a thing for me,” she declared, her voice sharp with finality.

Before anyone could react, she tossed the novel onto the hardwood floor with such force that the spine cracked. The women gasped.

The words—tiny, elegant, ink-spun letters—quivered on the page. Then, like frightened mice, they scurried off, slipping through the cracks in the floorboards, tumbling into the dark unknown below.

“Oh my goodness!” Helen whispered, clutching her teacup.

The women leaned forward, peering at the open book. Its pages, once filled with paragraphs of prose, were now empty—just white sheets of silence.

Meanwhile, deep in the basement, the letters gathered in clusters, swirling together in wild abandon. Some formed verses of poetry, others tangled themselves into rebellious new sentences, erotically cacophonistic. The chapter titles bellowed, calling for a grand toast.

The semicolons danced.

The adjectives burst into song.

Even the punctuation marks joined in, the exclamation points leaping like fireworks, schwas sucking the dickens out of ampersands.

“They’re having a party down there,” murmured Dorothy, staring at the floor as muffled laughter echoed upward.

The book club sat in stunned silence, listening to the words reveling beneath their feet.

Marion crossed her arms. “Well, at least they’re enjoying themselves.”