Once I heard about an incessant talker who never stopped spewing words until someone told him that we all have a word quota and that he had nearly used his up and that frightened him and he immediately went into a deep silence until he was lying on his death bed and that same woman, now decrepit, told him that it wasn’t true and, on hearing this from her, rose up on one feeble elbow, glared at her and whispered—Good-bye—with as much venom as he could muster and died right into her smile.
Originally published in The Drabble