Mandatory Full Stop

Today is the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. 

A day when we remember the importance of communication, language and human expression. 

So I share a personal experience. Or close to personal.

With a student who put in a full stop after a sentence that stretched for five pages. 

Communication is completeness.

⚫⚫⚫

The LED light lining Michelle Liew's desk flickered relentlessly; it simply was not doing its job. The exam scripts beckoned the exhausted teacher to imaginary snake charmer's music - not successfully. Michelle reached for the light switch lining the wall. She had to succumb to teacher fatigue. 

Her eye fell on quiet Michael's script. the 14-year-old struggled with sentence structures; subject-verb agreement were existential gray aliens. 

Every sentence in the other scripts ended with a full-stop.Regular subject-verb agreement. Sentences of average length.

But they soon--

Increased.

Five words 

Three.

Then two 

Bordering on excessive. 

Michael's work widened her eyes. Each word had a stop. The sentences did not flow. 

They stopped. Literally. 

"All"

"Done."

"Stop."

Every full-stop hovered.

Just awkward sentence structure again. She knew Michael's home background left him with little room for language practice. And he was probably tired. 

"All.

Done.

Stop."

⚫⚫⚫

And the full stops in Michelle''s classes didn't--

Stop.

All. 

Done.

Stop.

They appeared in nearly every script.Even Mavis and Ali, student defenders of the English language, practiced unnecessary caesura. 

Their once lively work was now worthy hospital fodder.

Full stops everywhere.

All.

Done.

Stop.

Not just on paper, but in the hallways and classrooms.Conversations were full stops themselves. 

Two words.

Three.

They stopped as soon as they began.

Text messages appeared in brief bursts. Some as mere full stops.

Then, strange phenomena. 

isolated sentences. Then, a disappearing student.  

Michael.

Some teachers insisted that he never existed. 

Michelle started examining old scripts and documents.Familiar names, ending in mid sentence.Test papers marked with red full stops.

All.

Done.

Stop.

Michael eventually returned to class.

A different boy. Angsty. Agitated.

"It wants closure."

⚫⚫⚫

Michelle found Michael apparently hard at work on an assignment, frantically trying to remove full stops from one of his essays. 

The stark, red periods bled across the sheets.

The words no longer breathed. Each essay was a full autopsy report. 

And the silent pause between each full stop--

Widened. 

The full stops multiplied, tiny malignant tumors, across the page. 

Each time one appeared,the sound of  white chalk grated across the board like a metal coffin lid slowly drawing shut.

Every one demanded another. Every one.

The room paused its breath.

The door swung open and shut, squeaking on its hinge.

Michael looked up at Michelle, his pale face now almost devoid of life. 

"It wants things finished." 

⚫⚫⚫

Michelle glared at the sheets in front of her, then slowly placed them on the teacher's desk. 

Michael's words hit, though the poor kid was not aware of what he was saying.

Or the sentence did.

It waited, hungry for COMPLETION.

Dots spread across the chalkboard like rotten mold. Sentence meaning bled across the room.

The punctuation poser would end only when a full stop finished him. 

it had turned the classroom walls into graveyards of incomplete language, erasing punctuation entirely.

She grabbed each sheet of paper, frantically searching the end of each sentence. Michael helped by shredding the ones in front of him.

The night wore on. Then, dawn broke.

With a blank blackboard. 

Michael's face shed its pallor. He shred the last sheet, sat down, and shook his head. 

He looked at the wastepaper bin with the shredded paper, dumbfounded. 

The other students filed into class when the bell rang, with expectant looks. 

Looking for a lesson. 

She made a new rule. A mandatory full stop after each sentence. 

⚫⚫⚫

A few weeks later, a fresh essay on Michelle's desk.

A regular one. 

Mostly regular. 

Except for one sentence at the end. 

"Every sentence deserves a full stop."

A huge, red, dot.

⚫⚫⚫

Original story by Michelle Liew Tsui-lin. AI tags are coincidental.

For Mikeydred's May prompt

Mirrors of the Mind by Michelle Liew is a collection of psychological and supernatural short stories that explore the quiet unease beneath ordinary moments. These are not tales of spectacle, but of subtle fracture — where memory distorts, silence speaks, and the self is not always singular. In these stories, what is unseen often carries the greatest weight, and what lingers is not what is shown, but what is felt.