In the beginning, he hid the words away, trapped them in a vase and denied the right to speak them again; a vase eventually lost to time and lichen.

‍

The years which followed were strange; half of the people - those with extra bits on their upper fronts - weren't men, but no one knew what to call them, people were also different colours but they could name only one and whole populations of other types of ‘others’ existed outside of the right kind of men, but none were named. Men with titles enjoyed their dominance but soon hit a stumbling block - How could they make more of themselves when the nameless ‘upper-fronted’ people didn't want to cooperate anymore? So the titled men established schools, teaching forced methods of procreation.

‍

Humiliated and violated, the nameless grew ready, ready to fight back, weaponise the very nature of their identities. The men had not accounted for ‘the boob problem’ and so the not-men, led by a mighty giantess (strangely not a banned word) defiantly refused both their milk and their care - both implicitly banned in the words after-all!

‍

The titled men were now trapped in a nightmarish loop of self-realisation and buckled under the strain of round-the-clock care for their deficient babies.  They surrendered quickly and the vase of words was raised from the undergrowth, brushed off and cleaned up for all to read. The Giantess took the name ‘Morpheme’ and redecorated the vase with new words, words which glowed as both a caution and a reminder as to where the true power of civilisation lies.

‍

Glazed stoneware, slip and sgraffito decoration with 24ct gold detail. (2026)

‍