I was reprimanded for adding ellipses, (the continuation dots) in my writing.
I know what they are called. But this is how I address them. Yes I address them and they speak to me. It’s a debate on tentativeness. Precariously traipsing on Innumerable possibilities of where those dots could lead.
I don’t dictate them. They lead me. Sometimes it’s a battle of will power, which ever of us prevail the reader wins.
I was warned they were meaningless, irrelevant and a waste of space. They are a sign of ambiguity, leaving out important information, or a pause in thought or trailing off of a sentence. I couldn’t understand nor explain why they meant so much to me.
They meant……..hope, not a forbidding sense of an end but a flighty continuation.
If,followed by “And” reinstated surety for myself, if followed by a “But” they constituted as an Excuse, if followed by “because” could be an explanation,And if they just flowed into oblivion, it meant a possibility of infinite proportions which an A4 size paper couldn’t contain.
I love those dots. Placed One after the other. The numbers don’t matter. Or do they? 2 dots mean its a sentence cut short, 3 a polite cordiality, 4 mean exactly what I am not saying and 5 or anything more than that is left to your imagination. Your Interpretation. Of abundant hope, a chance of challenging improbabilities and a joker of possibility.
It could mean a jerky stop in front of a suddenly risen neon striped speed breaker. Or it could mean a long breath of release after the fervent racing of a mind. Or just a beat, to soak in your line of thought, to contemplate the pros and cons, or a pulse to just “Be “ before another whirlpool of competitive thoughts drag you into an unexplored vortex of “what ifs?”
And if you stopped reading there, after the first dot, whatever I meant to say, you could chose otherwise. You could chose to not be prey to the “but”, “if” “because” or “and” that followed.
Either ways whatever the outcome of those dots, no matter how many in number or what the thought behind it. Unlike a fastidious full stop, which is closure. This is an opening of mammoth proportions to an unexplored horizon.
And they welcome change.
They can callously be scratched into a wave of ink Or reduced to one and end the conversation. Or left there till you know better or chose another path.
They may not be the sun or the moon or a star but they’re a galaxy of an eclectic sprinkle. What can and can’t be seen, what may or may not be proved.Irrespective they constitute a galaxy which can not be denied. That which refuses to be confined. Something like me.