A Forest Of Words

This is for the Vocal Word Hunt Challenge that you can read about below.

The Prompt

Write a story that incorporates three words from the provided word search puzzle.

Imagine being lost in a forest, but that forest is your mind and the trees and leaves are made of words which are made of letters.

When you look from a distance things look real, but the closer you get you see that they are made of words and letters almost like Lego bricks. Tiny things that make up our reality.

We are the same, everything is the same made up of atoms, electrons, neutrons, and neurons. They probably make up the letters that make up the word.

Wandering through this forest of words you come to a river of letters where you meet a mermaid who asks you if you live in this jungle. You touch the scales of her tail and say this is the Forest of Words, but not a jungle at all.

She says it looks like a jungle to her.

You ask if she can see the letters and words that you do but she says no, she can only see green trees and grass, no words.

This confuses you, you always see the words and letters but the mermaid cannot see what you can see.

Is the mermaid just unable to see, or does she see things that you cannot see? Is she superior to you or are you superior to her or are you just different from each other?

You break off a branch sentence from a nearby word tree and give it to her and ask her to tell you what it is.

Mermaid: "It's just a branch with some leaves and seeds hanging off it"

He: "I just see a series of words that say 'This is the way that you may go'. Does this not say anything to you?"

Mermaid: "No, it is just a branch and only says I can eat the seeds, well it doesn't actually speak, but I know I can eat them because I have eaten them before"

He: "So I see a Forest of Word Trees and a river of letters, and when I look closely you are made of tiny letters, but to you, you are a real physical being and live in a river of water, and you think that I am a physical creature that lives in a jungle. Do I look human to you or do I look like another creature?"

The mermaid began to look frightened. Had he confused or upset her? She started to quiver and fade and suddenly she was a mass of words and letters that sank into and merged with the river of letters.

Was his world real or was he the result of someone's dream or imagination? The very fact that he was considering this implied that he was at least a sentient intelligence that had self-knowledge.

He wandered back into the forest of word trees but realized that he didn't know where he was going. If he were real he would have a home or at least a base.

So was he real?

How would he know?

He thought the mermaid was real but she disappeared into the river of letters when his questions got too much for her or it.

He was lost in a forest of words, so many words but no answers, he didn't know what to do. He felt himself fading, just like the mermaid, fainter and fainter and fainter.

Now there was a new tree in this Forest of Words, as it waited to welcome its next guest.