His mind was like a Scrabble hand without vowels: confusion like molasses, sticking together thoughts like tiles, a glop of senseless sounds. This. Never. Happens. Champ of the wordy arts, he was Wordsmith Extraordinaire, and she, well, she wasn’t half-bad. While one hand fingered and moved the tiles on their rack, arranging and rearranging, the other plucked at the tip of her long braid, snaking across her shoulder. He could almost see the letters forming into words of syllabic potency in her fine mind.

Dare he admit his competitive nature? So much of his life spent in a cubicle, not unlike these rows of squares, only the walls rising up around him and keeping in his creative whims. Monday through Friday, slave to the Company, the Boss with his whip: produce, Wordsmith, produce!

And he did. Relentlessly, dependably, efficiently, and with an excellence that never went unpunished. Finished with one task, there were always three more. Wordsmith the Wordslave, daily flogged into service of the senseless imbroglio.

But this board of words built upon words was his domain. Here he ruled, and here, there was order. This board of even squares appealed to his mildly obsessive-compulsive nature. The beige of the tiles did not confront or offend. The pink of the scoring squares was as soothing as the color of Pepto-Bismol for the cramps of the addled brain. His words crossed and intersected and so logically grew and multiplied one from the other.

There was even something subtly sensual about it. How the tiles kissed. And produced their offspring. Yes. He was a Word God. Had never lost. Not once in…. years. Perhaps never, because at this molasses moment, he could not remember such an atrocity happening. Not to him.

She placed them in orderly progression:

P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M.

Triple word score.

Heartbroken, he looked at her across the table, and was in love.

BIO: Zinta Aistars is the published author of three books in the Latvian language and has recently completed a second collection of poetry, Tumbleweed Waltz. She is an editor for LuxEsto, the Kalamazoo College alumni magazine in Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA, and has published poetry, travel essays, stories, and articles in the United States, Latvia, England, Sweden, Germany, and Australia. Her work also appears on many e-zines - including Ash Canyon Review, 63Channels (featured writer in Aug/Sept 2005 issue), HerCircleEzine (upcoming Sept 2005), Ascent Aspirations Magazine (upcoming Nov 2005 issue), Spoiled Ink, Flashquake, The Redbridge Review, milk magazine, Word Riot, The Surface, Serene Light, River Walk Journal, Bobbing Around, The Moon, Burning Word, insolent rudder, coilMagazine, Poems Neiderngasse, QuietPoly Writers Magazine, The Paper, Poetry Life & Times, Midwest Book Review, and others. She publishes a monthly newsletter of marketing tips and inspiration for writers called Zeenythe Communications and is a newly anointed editor for the literary e-zine, insolent rudder.