The dictionary sat squat on the shelf like a thumb among fingers. It had gestured for my eyes in that paralytic ways books do. Not a shuffle of pages or a wriggle of the binding, mere hopeful reliance on whatever thick cardboard its designer had entombed it in. For a dictionary, the designer had certainly had the taste equivalent to the architecture of the underside of a table. A place where none are really expected to look unless they spill an entire plate of expensive cheeses on the floor.

As it so happens, I spilt an entire plate of expensive cheeses all over the floor. I’d bought them from the Raggle Taggle cheesemongers next door and decided some reprieve inside a book labyrinth would settle my mind. Being conscious in a world that favours the unconscious can be a drain.

I had spent a good hour picking those cheeses up from the floor. From Raggle Taggle that is – they specialize in novel customer experiences and, the month being April, the idea of a cheese hunt couldn’t be overlooked. All the Dutch edams I’d found under cabinets or nestled in those shadowy skirts that antique furniture designers enjoy adding. But a ruffle in the carpet at the book store had preferred that my cheeses remained floor bound, hence I was now spending another good hour gathering my cheese herd back to sensibility.

Because it was as bland as a tasting platter of cardboard, it held itself well among the more tropical books that grabbed at my eyeballs. A crow among peacocks. No scripture decorated its spine to prepare me for its insides, but its girth offered a few hints: a flaunting textbook? A magnus-opus from the echoes of an attic where someone studied the way in which the dust settles upon various materials? Defensive walls off poetry that demand you nonchalantly flaunt them to visiting guests. “Oh, I was just reading some Percivil Yackson. This line really stuck with me: mountains aren’t people, we can’t talk them out of tight spaces, we can’t offer them money to go away.” And then you spill the books contents over your rug like a plate of cheeses you can’t afford, in a desperate attempt that your guest might see that, “Dear me, what complex prose you are reading. You are such a mysterious, intricate, and fragile man. Take me now.”

Or you’ve found yourself dictionary. And to that, I would say that it is a shame no one has invented a substance that can dissolve wood glue. I’m confident there is some nocturnal underground society of material scientists working to seal away the key pages of dictionaries forever with goopy shmuck green gel blobs. The other day I sought the definition of the word vitreously, because I was looking for adjective to describe the quality of a guest’s brains. But drat! Some goopy shumck green gel blob had been strategically placed such that my dictionary leaped from villi straight to vivacious. I settled instead for telling them their brain was a vivacious as a villi.

They smiled.

But as my shmuck luck would have it, this dictionary, as unassuming as a crusty bread roll, was shmuckless. Shmuckless! In my impassioned state to purchase this artefact, I left the cube of edam I’d used to hold the space open where I’d pulled my treasure from.

I and my dictionary devoid of shmuck arrived home and sat together on the couch to start conversation. The green brick started the dialogue by telling me its name: Webster’s Concise Dictionary.

“Nice to meet you, Webster’s Concise Dictionary.” My palm decided it would have a role in this introduction and rolled itself over the cover. It was about as exceptional as a virgin side walk is soft.

“Webster’s Conscious Dictionary, please,” said the dictionary.

“Ah, pardon me. Let me begin again.” I restarted my palm ritual. “Nice to meet you, Webster’s Conscious Dictionary.” I opened a random page.

“Are you a shmuckler?”

“Do you mean shmucker? No certainly not. And to prove it I’ll show you the stickiest substance in my house is this cube of cheese.” I showed it my collection of edams.

“Turn me to page five-hundred and twelve please.” It was certainly a commanding dictionary if I’d ever met one, but I was empathetic to its brevity. Imagine, to be born with every word already baked into a mind of parchment. You wouldn’t fuss around with mixing colours when what you are trying to make brown. I turned to page five-hundred and twelve, and, by instinct, swam around and tasted a few of the words on my tongue.

“Please don’t start eating until we are both ready,” said the dictionary. “Now, take a look, third from the bottom.”

I followed its instruction, found at the bottom shoelace, climbed up to shnoochy, and then, to my absolute amazement, arrived at a very clear shmuckler. Was there a shmucker above it? No, it took me straight to shmelony, which was a word I really disliked. It made my nerves ring like I was watching a sunset, hog-tied and there was sand in my eyeballs.

“What’s a shmucker then?” I asked.

“Mountains,” it said, “aren’t people. We can’t talk them out of tight spaces. We can’t offer them money to go away.”