102 words and some symbols

She is taking a scissor to every word, slicing individual letters. Tatters of ink stain her fingers, her lips, she presses each letter to her tongue to make it stick, presses the characters between sheets of wax paper, irons, lets it cool. The waxed alphabet in its variety of shades and fonts, serif, sans serif, bold, capitalized, lower case, is ready for the archives. “This will make all the difference,” she says to the bird who only speaks letters. “T,” he replies. “There will be no future of words if we don’t protect the letters,” she tells him. “S,” he squeaks. “D.” “J.” “G.”