“Over there,” droned the voice of a rectangular Mark. Arms folded, Hyphen was leaning against a wall on the outskirts, looking disinterested.
Hyphen was in fact too stocky to be described as just a rectangle. He was concrete-looking, all angles and no curves. Although he could easily be called heavyset, his chunky form spoke of muscular strength rather than corpulence.
Then, with the simplest of words, twice repeated, an unidentified speaker disrupted the launch.
Only in Grammar could it be disruptive to utter so simple a word. Silence seized the crowd. Trembling fingers traced a “W” in the air. Shivering words bowed.
Quotes shuddered meekly. “W-what w-was that?” she whimpered.
It certainly was not a word recognised in Grammar.
Hyphen sprang away from the wall, his demeanour suddenly transformed into that of a hunter. His eyes became spears and his walk, a prowl. “Slang,” he pronounced decisively. “The tongue of our so-called neighbours.”
“Neighbours,” Comma said derisively. “They are nothing but a lawless band of vagabonds—plunderers who have named their land after their language.”
