Edukation
So I’ve been a subscriber to Word of the Day from Dictionary.com for quite a while now. Reading the new words they send me daily is one of my absolute favourite parts of the day. However, you soon come to realize that until you really use a word, it’s not yet yours, not firm member of your vocabulary.
So I’ve decided to try something new. Every day, I’m going to write a short drabble incorporating my new vocabulary word. Nothing much. Just about one or two hundred words. Whatever flows. I figure it might give me the opportunity to play with style and voice a little bit more too. And at the end of the week, I’ll post the set of drabbles for the enjoyment of my f-list.
This way, you get new fic (if you can even call it that, lol) and I get to expand my already ostentatious vocabulary. And hey, maybe some of you will pick up the new words along with me and we can all sound verbose and pretentious together!
The Last Week in June
Friday - Countervail
It was the lowest low. Bottom. Nadir.
And yet his public pathos had placed him at such countervailing heights of popularity. Misery was glamorous. Pain was vogue. There was never a better reason to linger in his dangerous state of depression than this. There was never a better reason to find that old .48 millimeter and press it against his throat.
(Have some composure. Where is your posture? Oh, no, no. You’re pulling the trigger all wrong.)
Bang.
Flash.
Blood splatter is front page news.
Death had never been so fabulous.
Saturday - Dolorous
We were shadows in the night. Seen only by the paper moon. Heard only by the dolorous wind as it ran its frigid fingers through our hair and coaxed us toward oblivion.
Our footsteps disappeared behind us.
Our names had been lost too long ago to have ever really existed at all.
We were, but we weren’t.
Believe those tales the old housewives tell. Believe everything you read. There are monsters that lurk in your closets and wait beneath your bed.
But there are silent angels who lie beside you and guard overhead.
Sunday - Jejune
“I - I, er…” he stutters, looking out at the crowd over his cue cards and suddenly loosing his train of thought. “Global warming is, uh, a serious issue that… that…”
The words are just disintegrating on his tongue. Shit. Shit. He knows this speech. He knows it by heart. He’s spent hours and hours rehearsing it in front of his friends, his parents - anyone who would listen. The bathroom mirror. He’d been hand-selected for this by his politics teacher and now he’s going to make them both look like idiots. Come off as easily intimidated and jejune. He can’t even stop his hands from shaking.
“The world’s fresh water sources are depleting at an alarm… alarming rate of - um.” Dammit. He has the statistics here somewhere. He did all sorts of research for this. He…
All at once, his notes slip from his sweaty grip and scatter down onto the parquet gymnasium floor. He stares at them for just a second, just long enough for the knot in his stomach to become a lump in his throat. Just long enough to hear the snickers from the back of the room broach full-out laughter. Then…
Then he tears out of the building as though running away will solve anything.
Fuck his classmates. Fuck global warming. They can all burn.
And at rate the global average yearly temperature is increasing, they probably will.
Monday - Abstruse
His flinty eyes are trained on me now. Solid. Cold. Black. They are granite walls constructed around a heart too soft and mind too open. Fake.
Almost.
I want to laugh and yet I cannot find any humour in this man I used to know or the bland pleasantries he now peddles. His forced airs of formality and distance.
(I want to remind him of when he muttered his nothings against my lips and between my thighs, but the words snag on edges of my teeth and tongue.)
He’s as abstruse as he’s ever been, only now there’s a hundred thousand moments between us; days, months and years that separate and divide our lives. There’s a little girl at his side clutching his pant leg and a plain but kind-looking woman whom he introduces as his wife.
Wife.
My fingers suddenly feel bare.
I compliment her shoes, ask some questions they’d expect me to ask, smile. He nods along, makes small talk with me for a while, and once a polite amount of time has passed, makes a show of checking his watch and exclaiming at the time before bidding me goodbye. Then he and his perfect little nuclear family are gone.
Just gone. Like dust.
And I’m left there in the middle of the aisle with my shopping cart full of dark make-up, double-chocolate-fudge ice-cream, and microwaveable dinners for one, torn between watching his back until he disappears and searching out a bathroom for a quick cry in a dingy stall and a mirror to fix my mascara in afterward.
And this, it feels so damn familiar that I could choke.
Tuesday - Venerate
Deceit is a dangerous game. Oh, is it ever. I don’t know if you’ve ever played Russian Roulette, but it’s something like that. You know, put a gun to your head and see who dies first?
Yeah, kind of like that.
At least it is when you’re playing with the Chicago mafia - one of the most venerated syndicates in the league. I mean, those boys don’t fool around. You know, maybe ‘play’ is the wrong word entirely. Because it’s like a game, sure, but it ain’t. Not even a teensy little bit.
Deceit in the mafia is a bit more like looking at the menu and straight up ordering the bloodbath a la carte.
Wednesday - Factious
She stands divided against herself. Two pieces. Two people. Two paths she cannot choose between. She is the traveler standing at the fork in the road, staring longingly into the distance with one foot pointed in either direction.
She is going nowhere.
It’s surprising she’s even on her feet at all; a house divided against itself isn't suppose to be able to stand. With such a factious heart, you'd think she'd be dead by now. But then... Maybe she is.
Thursday - Collude
"I can't believe you were so irresponsible!"
"They dropped the charges!"
"And you'd better thank your lucky stars that they did, young man. But that is beside the point. Getting arrested by the cops, Allen? What were you thinking? Seriously. I want to know exactly what was passing through your head when you decided to go for a joy ride in a stolen car."
"I didn't know!"
"You didn't... Don't you dare lie to me, Allen James Parker. Don't you dare."
"Mom! I'm not lying. Jesus Christ! How was I supposed to know Matt's new truck was hot? I'm not a fucking psychic."
"Oh, so you thought your unemployed little friend just got a fifty-thousand-dollar truck dropped in his driveway by the truck fairy?"
"..."
"Right. I don't want you hanging out with that boy ever again. Do you hear me? I don't want the cops accusing you of... of colluding with criminals."
"Colluding with...? What does that even mean?"
"It means that you're grounded, mister - indefinitely. That's what it means. And just you wait until your father finds out."
So I’ve decided to try something new. Every day, I’m going to write a short drabble incorporating my new vocabulary word. Nothing much. Just about one or two hundred words. Whatever flows. I figure it might give me the opportunity to play with style and voice a little bit more too. And at the end of the week, I’ll post the set of drabbles for the enjoyment of my f-list.
This way, you get new fic (if you can even call it that, lol) and I get to expand my already ostentatious vocabulary. And hey, maybe some of you will pick up the new words along with me and we can all sound verbose and pretentious together!
The Last Week in June
Friday - Countervail
It was the lowest low. Bottom. Nadir.
And yet his public pathos had placed him at such countervailing heights of popularity. Misery was glamorous. Pain was vogue. There was never a better reason to linger in his dangerous state of depression than this. There was never a better reason to find that old .48 millimeter and press it against his throat.
(Have some composure. Where is your posture? Oh, no, no. You’re pulling the trigger all wrong.)
Bang.
Flash.
Blood splatter is front page news.
Death had never been so fabulous.
Saturday - Dolorous
We were shadows in the night. Seen only by the paper moon. Heard only by the dolorous wind as it ran its frigid fingers through our hair and coaxed us toward oblivion.
Our footsteps disappeared behind us.
Our names had been lost too long ago to have ever really existed at all.
We were, but we weren’t.
Believe those tales the old housewives tell. Believe everything you read. There are monsters that lurk in your closets and wait beneath your bed.
But there are silent angels who lie beside you and guard overhead.
Sunday - Jejune
“I - I, er…” he stutters, looking out at the crowd over his cue cards and suddenly loosing his train of thought. “Global warming is, uh, a serious issue that… that…”
The words are just disintegrating on his tongue. Shit. Shit. He knows this speech. He knows it by heart. He’s spent hours and hours rehearsing it in front of his friends, his parents - anyone who would listen. The bathroom mirror. He’d been hand-selected for this by his politics teacher and now he’s going to make them both look like idiots. Come off as easily intimidated and jejune. He can’t even stop his hands from shaking.
“The world’s fresh water sources are depleting at an alarm… alarming rate of - um.” Dammit. He has the statistics here somewhere. He did all sorts of research for this. He…
All at once, his notes slip from his sweaty grip and scatter down onto the parquet gymnasium floor. He stares at them for just a second, just long enough for the knot in his stomach to become a lump in his throat. Just long enough to hear the snickers from the back of the room broach full-out laughter. Then…
Then he tears out of the building as though running away will solve anything.
Fuck his classmates. Fuck global warming. They can all burn.
And at rate the global average yearly temperature is increasing, they probably will.
Monday - Abstruse
His flinty eyes are trained on me now. Solid. Cold. Black. They are granite walls constructed around a heart too soft and mind too open. Fake.
Almost.
I want to laugh and yet I cannot find any humour in this man I used to know or the bland pleasantries he now peddles. His forced airs of formality and distance.
(I want to remind him of when he muttered his nothings against my lips and between my thighs, but the words snag on edges of my teeth and tongue.)
He’s as abstruse as he’s ever been, only now there’s a hundred thousand moments between us; days, months and years that separate and divide our lives. There’s a little girl at his side clutching his pant leg and a plain but kind-looking woman whom he introduces as his wife.
Wife.
My fingers suddenly feel bare.
I compliment her shoes, ask some questions they’d expect me to ask, smile. He nods along, makes small talk with me for a while, and once a polite amount of time has passed, makes a show of checking his watch and exclaiming at the time before bidding me goodbye. Then he and his perfect little nuclear family are gone.
Just gone. Like dust.
And I’m left there in the middle of the aisle with my shopping cart full of dark make-up, double-chocolate-fudge ice-cream, and microwaveable dinners for one, torn between watching his back until he disappears and searching out a bathroom for a quick cry in a dingy stall and a mirror to fix my mascara in afterward.
And this, it feels so damn familiar that I could choke.
Tuesday - Venerate
Deceit is a dangerous game. Oh, is it ever. I don’t know if you’ve ever played Russian Roulette, but it’s something like that. You know, put a gun to your head and see who dies first?
Yeah, kind of like that.
At least it is when you’re playing with the Chicago mafia - one of the most venerated syndicates in the league. I mean, those boys don’t fool around. You know, maybe ‘play’ is the wrong word entirely. Because it’s like a game, sure, but it ain’t. Not even a teensy little bit.
Deceit in the mafia is a bit more like looking at the menu and straight up ordering the bloodbath a la carte.
Wednesday - Factious
She stands divided against herself. Two pieces. Two people. Two paths she cannot choose between. She is the traveler standing at the fork in the road, staring longingly into the distance with one foot pointed in either direction.
She is going nowhere.
It’s surprising she’s even on her feet at all; a house divided against itself isn't suppose to be able to stand. With such a factious heart, you'd think she'd be dead by now. But then... Maybe she is.
Thursday - Collude
"I can't believe you were so irresponsible!"
"They dropped the charges!"
"And you'd better thank your lucky stars that they did, young man. But that is beside the point. Getting arrested by the cops, Allen? What were you thinking? Seriously. I want to know exactly what was passing through your head when you decided to go for a joy ride in a stolen car."
"I didn't know!"
"You didn't... Don't you dare lie to me, Allen James Parker. Don't you dare."
"Mom! I'm not lying. Jesus Christ! How was I supposed to know Matt's new truck was hot? I'm not a fucking psychic."
"Oh, so you thought your unemployed little friend just got a fifty-thousand-dollar truck dropped in his driveway by the truck fairy?"
"..."
"Right. I don't want you hanging out with that boy ever again. Do you hear me? I don't want the cops accusing you of... of colluding with criminals."
"Colluding with...? What does that even mean?"
"It means that you're grounded, mister - indefinitely. That's what it means. And just you wait until your father finds out."