Sentences losing binding power.

Verbs shaking loose from subjects.

Clauses dropping phrasal components.

Words falling away, like pearls untethered from strings.

The mass extinction eventually happened, yes, but it was not human lives that were lost. It was human language. It had occurred to no one that syntax was a non-renewable resource.

Humans populated the planet as widely as before, but now they remained speechless. Textless.

A collective human silence rose to the starry heavens, bearing strange melodies on its wings, songs that may have always existed, but that no one before ever could hear.

The planet was at peace. Its people were finally happy.

The stores of language replenished, very gradually at first. 

Once every decade or so a child would be born who was notably different from the others. 

Agitated, problem children, they seethed with an inner, unexpressed flare of fury. Their families feared them.

These were the children to whom language had returned.

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Would you like to know more about this story? I discuss it in Episode 72 of Structured Visions and in my behind-the-scenes post on Patreon.