"So," his wife snickered, "figured it out yet?" He stared at the slip of paper. "No... not yet... Is that an 'a'? Does that look like an 'a' to you?" "It looks like a squiggle, Harold." He sighed. He should have known better than to ask her. She'd been laughing at him about this for... well, for a very long time. He no longer remembered when he wrote the Word. A long time ago, in the middle of the night. He'd suddenly awoken, with the dream memory of it still fresh. "What're you doing?" his wife had asked. "Just writing something down, before I forget it." She snorted, turning over and returning to sleep. The next morning, over breakfast, she asked him, "So what was so important that you had to write it down?" "I'm... not sure." It was an incomprehensible jumble of ink marks. Not quite letters, and yet not quite not letters. All he knew was, it was incredibly important... somehow...It was perhaps the Most Important Word ever written... if he could just figure out what it was. For weeks, months, years later, he carried it with him. Frustrated by his obsession, his wife left him. Friends disappeared. The paper itself grew soft, the ink faded, as he continued to perplex through the countless possible variations of vowel and consonant, none ever quite matching the elusive combination that danced before him. But he never wavered in his belief that, somehow, it was vitally, supremely important. "Did he ever figure it out?" asked the Woman with the Shaved Head. "I think so," the Listener replied, "although no one knows for sure. The day nurse said she found him holding it — and smiling... so I gather he did." "What was it? Does anyone know?" The Listener shook his head. "Just a scribble on a piece of paper."