Grox looked out his window at the streets of the city below. He could see people of this multi-species metropolis going about their daily lives. However, he would be the one that would free them. He was part of a freedom movement that desired nothing more than the freedom to say what they wanted without repercussion.

“The council’s wordhunters found another one of our gathering halls, Brother,” one of his movement’s members declared, looking solemn.

Grox bared his fangs in frustration. “Damn, glooktars! They will continue to ban more words until we are nothing more than one whole rather than a collection of individuals.”

“Brother Grox, mayhaps we can ask our newest member,” a Loftalian suggested, gesturing to a perplexed-looking figure sitting in the corner of the room nervously holding a cup of tea.

“The human?” Grox asked, tilting his head. “What would a human know of our struggles?”

“We never know, Brother, until we ask. I have heard humanity has many languages.”

“It won’t matter!!”

Raising his hand to get their attention, the human gave a little wave. “Can I go then?”

Letting out an exhausted sigh, Grox turned to the human. “You may… I doubt a human will know how to get around the banning of words.”

“Wait, you don’t have freedom of speech?”

“Freedom of…” Grox trailed off, shocked at the human knowing the wish of many in the city. “What do you know of our dream?!”

“Well, that it is a basic right… Do you really censor specific words?”

“Yes…” Grox answered, shaking his head melancholically.

“And you don’t have other ways of saying these things?”

“Pardon?”

“Well, there are more ways to say things than just with a specific word.” The human recoiled as the second he finished speaking, Grox rushed up to him.

“Explain!!” Grox demanded excitedly.

“Well… like the word ‘dead’.” The human paused in surprise at the sight of many of the members of the group recoiling.

“One of the banned words…” one of the members gasped.

“and he said it so openly?!” Another said in a hushed whisper.

“Uh… wait, they banned the word ‘dead’?” the human asked looking even more confused.

“Indeed, it is a forbidden word,” Grox replied, nodding while ignoring the other members’ worry.

“Well… ok, that seems excessive.”

“It is to protect people’s emotional wellbeing… or so the council says.”

“Well, we humans have many ways of saying it without using the word. Like ‘Pushing up daisies’, or ‘gone to a better place’.”

“And these phrases mean… d-d-dead?” Grox asked barely able to believe his ears.

“Well, yeah, obviously… I mean, even my race sometimes finds the word uncomfortable, so we use language to say it in a different way… Do other races not do that?”

Grox shook his head. “No human, words are used for their exact meaning… Maybe the human way could be the way to get around the censors.”

“But Brother, what if they ban the phrases?”

Turning back to the human, Grox locked eyes with him. “Human, has this happened on your world?”

“Banning stuff? Well, yeah, obviously. But language for my race, at the very least, is fluid. Censorship never lasts long; we can just weave our language around it. Euphemism, metaphor, and clever usage of other words are our bread and butter.”

“They are foodstuff?” Grox asked, confused.

“No, it’s a way of saying something very easy or commonplace… wow… I’m now kind of worried I opened Pandora’s box explaining this to you.”

“I welcome the newest brother in the Freedom of Speech Army!!” Grox cheered quickly, followed by the rest of the members.

“Ok… but I really just meant to go the barbers next door and…” the human’s protests were drowned out by the uproarious cheers of the movement he seemed to have accidentally joined.

Republished with permission from the author, Random3x. Image created using Stable Diffusion.