Refractory (edited)

Stubborn, unmanageable (adj.)
by David Backer

The story we usually hear about Sir Isaac Newton is that one day, by chance, an apple fell and hit him on the head and inspired the theory of gravity.
But it wasn't chance that caused the apple to fall.
On that fine sunny day, he was leaning against the trunk of a tree playing with a glass prism. Newton caught a ray of sunlight in the prism and, just as the spectrum of colors spread out before him, a genie wearing a tweed jacket and a powdered wig arose out of the light.
"Hello!" it declared, "I am the Occidental genie!"
Newton was horrified. The possibility of a genie contained within the properties of light was inexplicable to his scientific mind. But Newton, assuring himself that there is a natural explanation for any observable phenomenon, regained his composure.
"Okay," he said, remembering something, "isn't the man that frees a genie entitled to wishes?"
"Wishes?" asked the Occidental genie.
"Yes."
"For you?"
"Yes, for me."
The Occidental genie waited, rubbed his transparent chin, and said,
"Absolutely not."
"Why?" demanded Newton.
"Because I'm not that type of genie."
"Then what type of genie are you?"
"One that is nobody's slave! I do indeed have wishes to give but I've come to the conclusion that it's inappropriate to just give people what they want whenever they ask for it. I like guessing what they want and then giving it to them."
"Can't you make an exception?" Newton asked.
"Absolutely not," said the genie.
Newton paused, considering the situation.
"So what do I want?" he asked.
The Occidental genie floated close to Newton's face and said, smiling,
"You want very badly to be hit in the head."
"I can honestly say I don't want that," Newton responded.
"Yes you do," the genie insisted.
"No I don't."
"Oh yes you do, believe me."
"Not a genie at all, really," Newton said Britishly, under his breath.
"Yes I am," the genie said.
Newton became annoyed.
"No, you're certainly not," he said.
"Oh yes, I am," the genie persisted.
"No!"
"Yes."
"What kind of genie tells a man that he wants to be hit in the head?"
"One that's nobody's slave!" the Occidental genie chanted like an ancient song.
And with this the genie vanished upward into the center of the sun, becoming one with the rays of pure light streaming through the branches of the apple tree.
Frustrated with this encounter, Newton leaned back heavily against the trunk of the tree. When he did this, his back hit the trunk with just enough force to cause a ripe apple to fall from its branch and hit him on the head.

Tacit (edited)

Understood; not put into words (adj.)

by David Backer (published on Ragingface.com)

You know those moments when you’re talking to people you don’t really like where your eyebrows go up or your lips pucker or you nod and walk away because there's something that the both of you understand but don't want to say aloud? I always used to take those moments and completely demolish them and say everything that was on my mind because I liked the look on people's faces when the awkward things they were feeling or only thinking got said. I called people bastards and weirdoes and under-achievers and sadists and depressives and bleeding hearts. I said things out loud that were supposed to be tacit just to see people freak out—because it really did freak them out and I got a lot of enjoyment out of seeing them freak out because: what the hell? The whole tacit thing is totally stupid. It's like there's some tacit rule that tacit things are supposed to remain tacit. Screw that. People need to get over themselves.
But since I died in a bar fight (imagine that) and I went to the Underworld (turns out that the Greeks were right about the afterlife and there's no heaven or hell or anything, it's just the Underworld, which is complete crap if you ask me) I have to admit that I'm starting to understand the tacit thing. Get this: I have to tend sheep for eternity in a universe where I'm the only human. And I think the sheep are in on it, too. Maybe the gods told them about me or something, because there are moments throughout the day when the sheep are just looking at me and I'm looking at the sheep and it’s understood somehow between us that I was a jackass as a mortal and there's nothing else I can say about it.

Truculence (edited)

Aggressiveness; ferocity (n.)

by David Backer

Bernard didn’t know anything about the fat, sweating man in the back of his limo. The only thing the man said before they left was,
“Drive to the end of Interstate 81 and wake me up when we get to 83.”
This made Bernard nervous.
After they started driving up 81 the passenger fell asleep and Bernard reached a kind of peace with the situation. But then they hit a long and empty stretch of highway between Harrisburg and Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania and Bernard heard a loud rumble coming from behind him. He saw four pairs of headlights speed up and overtake him and in less than ten seconds there were four unmarked tractor-trailers surrounding his limo—one on every side of him. Bernard lost his sense of peace. He couldn’t see the road in front of him or behind him or the sky on either side of him. Only trucks. Then the trucks slowed down and they forced Bernard to slow down and everything came to a full stop.
Bernard looked back at the fat passenger as he woke up from his nap and looked out the window.
"Why the hell are we stopped?" the fat passenger asked.
"I don't know sir, I..."said Bernard.
"What the hell are all these trucks?"
"Sir, I really don't know, they just..."
Bernard's high-beams were on and they flooded the space in front of the limo with white light. He watched as four large men emerged from the spaces between the trucks. It was like the trucks produced them from steel and rubber and gasoline and sent them into the space lit up by his headlights. The men from the trucks looked alike: they were broad-shouldered and ferocious-looking men with huge foreheads. The man that came from the front truck wore a baseball cap backwards on his big square head.
Bernard's passenger got out of the limo and walked forward to speak with the man with the backwards hat. The three other drivers surrounded the passenger like they surrounded Bernard with their trucks. The anonymous passenger, sweating now in the light, yelled and pointed at the man with the hat and lunged toward him and continued doing this until the man with the backwards hat pulled out what looked like a .22 caliber handgun and shot a round through the passenger's head. The passenger’s body fell back into the waiting arms of one of the other drivers, and this driver dragged the body back to his truck. Bernard could hear the scrape of the passenger's shoes against the pavement. Then the other truckers went back to their trucks and drove off with the body of the fat passenger.
Then it was dark except for the space in front of Bernard’s limo where the trucker with the gun and the backwards hat stood in the headlights. The gun was still in his hand and the headlights lit up his dirty face. He was staring right at Bernard. Bernard watched him blink and bring the hand with the gun up to his face. Bernard’s fingers tightened on the keys in the ignition of his limo and his foot floated above the accelerator.
Then the trucker pointed the gun at Bernard but before he could shoot it Bernard turned the key and started the engine and drove his limo into the center of the trucker with the gun. Then it was dark and the body of the trucker was splayed across Bernard’s windshield and Bernard’s heart was beating hard through his chest and he could see the trucker was still breathing and he put his limo in reverse so the body fell off and he drove around the body and truck and drove away breathing and sweating.

Concatenate--by Erin Bregman

to join sequentially; linked together as in a chain (v.)

You've likely heard by now
of that anti-gravity machine theory
based on falling cats
and buttered toast,
and I tell you straight I saw my cousin try it once
with his cat who had just given birth
to a litter of ten.
And when he dropped her
with buttered toast tied to her back
she never hit the ground but did manage to
grab ahold of her eldest born,
mouth to nape of the neck like cats do,
and that eldest, he managed to grab ahold of that
ball of string he'd been batting around and
his youngest sister managed to
keep her hold on that string and
I sat there watching as they rose,
and disappeared into the night sky.

Send Me Your GRE Stories!!!

Dear Everyone,

This blog has been a bit unactive recently. But I was just in the bathroom at my school and while I was washing my hands I had a thought:

We should keep this alive! This blog is for the greater good! We all need to suffer the pains of the GRE verbal section! Together!

Therefore: I'm officially opening this site for submissions.

So: if you're either (a) a writer who wants to help or (b) studying for the GRE or (c) a writer studying for the GRE, then send me stories, poems, or essays based on the meanings of new GRE words. Send submissions to david.backer@gmail.com.

Hurray!!! Looking forward to the project!


(BTW: Two of my GRE stories have been accepted by small online magazines ("Variegated" can be found on johnnyamerica.net and "Refractory" on theaggregatedpress.com).

Redolent

fragrant; suggestive or evocative (adj)

[under construction]

Red sat on the proch as he had sat every morning since he could sit upright. He wore the blue plaid shirt and overalls his mother dressed him in and a clean white undershirt with clean white breifs underneath the overalls. His face, as it had been since he entered the world through the drug-abused gates of his mother's legs twentysomething years ago, was crumpled into itself. Every facial muscle stretched or flexed or tensed towards his nose which was pristinely tanned and the only well-built structure on his face. His eyes were shit tight and his eyebrows wrinkled in and his mouth screwed up upwards and his cheeks were set square from a perpetually clamped jaw. All lines connected and pointed to the olfactory center of his face.
His mother, his caretaker, his only companion, came outo n the porch with a plate of bacon, eggs, and grits and Red's hands went flying toward the food, his face unchanging except an accented noise from his nasal inhalations raking against his sinuses.
"Alright, alright, Reddy, hold on," and she dodged his flying fingers to tuck in a hankerchief to catch the food that he would inevitably spill on himself.
"You want to look good for your visitor today, don't you?"
Red couldn't reply. He could only swing his hands around the wafting prefume of the food. His mother brought it to his face and he began to grasp the good and stuff it into his mouth, chewing with thell athose tensed muslces, sucking in air through that perfect as he ate. Pieces of yellow egg landed on the hankerchief, chips of burnt bacon clicked on the wood floor of their little house.
When the plat was almost cleaned off completely a car drove up the dusty path kicking pebbles and dirt up from its tires. The olive sedan parked in front of hte porch. A young, attractive woman with dirty blond hair and turqoise blue eyes exited the car and closed the door and pressed a black button on her key chain so the car beeped. She carried a notebook and pen in her hand as she approached the porch.
"Miss Melly?" Red's mother asked the young woman.
"Hi Mrs. Gretchen, how are you today?"
"Fine, thank you."
Melly walked up the steps of the porch and Red's mother walked to her, seemingly trying to keep her away from her son. They stood several feet away from Red, but Melly looked over Red's mother's shoulder and addressed Red anyway.
"I'm very excited to talk to you today, Red," she walked forward as she spoke and continued to Red's mother, "You know it's so rare to find a case like Red's--he could really help us answer a lot of questions about how much humans rely on smell and pheromonal--"
Red's mother looked away from Melly with a confused face. The scientist caught herself in her scientific excitement and decided to stop talking. They both looked down at Red, who was sitting in his chair. When the two of them were closer to Red his hands began waving through the air. Innocuously at first, but their movements became more desparate and almost violent as they got nearer to him. By the time Melly and his mother were standing in conversation range his hands were flying like they were swatting dangerous bugs.
Then one of the hands found Melly's forearm and squeezed it and pulled the young woman toward Red, who used her weight to help lift himself to a standing position. Another hand found her other arm and Red wrapped himself around Melly and hugged her forcibly.
"Red, no!" his mother yelled.
But he didn't stop, he stoof up, the dirty and egg-ridden hankerchief fell to the porch floor and he brought the young scientist to his face and he pressed his nose into her neck with strong lunges, sniffing her everywhere he could and Melly felt an awkward protrusion protruding from the middle of the man who could only smell and she kicked the erection and the hands released her and she pulled herself away. Then she took a breath, leaning on a post of their porch, looked at Red's mother, and opened her notebook to make a note of something.

Die

part of a machine that punches and shapes holes (n)

God and Death were drinking jasmine tea at a teahouse in Heaven and Death was reading the Bible, holding his steaming tea in one hand the Good Book in the other.
Death chuckled at something.
"What?" God asked.
"Nothing," Death said, still laughing.
"Tell me."
"Naw, it's nothing, really."
"It's not nothing," God insisted, "it has to be something if you're laughing at it."
Death chuckled under his breath and tried to keep it down in his throat. He took a breath to collect himself and closed the Book and let his hand hang over the side of the plush teahouse chair. He took a sip from his tea.
"It's just that, you created them in your image, right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"And you can't die, right? I mean, you're immortal."
"Uh huh, yeah, what about it?"
"I just thought of this one guy I saw recently. He worked at a big hyrdoelectric dam making sure these huge pistons pumped up and down. Real nice guy. Had a family and a kid and everything. And I guess he was looking at a picture of his son and--because he was leaning forward and looking down at the picture--his head got caught in one of these this big pistons and the thing just smashed his head to little bits all over the place."
God took a sip of his tea.
"So?" he asked.
"So, nothing. I was just reading you Book here again and I remembered this man and I'm finding it all terribly funny all of a sudden."
God shook his head and brought his mug to his face.
"You always did have a morbid sense of humor," he said.

August

majestic (adj)

It was said that a certain king
only went out among his people
in the summer
because he thought that
only in times of overwhelming heat
was it suitable for him to be seen.

Alloy

to commingle; debase by mixing with something inferior (v)

Al was nervous about meeting Annie's father. The old man had bought, managed, and sold three successful alcohol corporations and became a reclusive billionaire in a mansion that had been in Annie's Protestant lineage for generations. Being unemployed, Catholic, and engaged to Annie didn't help Al's nerves.
The three of them ate dinner in the great dining room of the mansion where signs from liquor companies from recent and distant history hung next to crosses and stuffed elk heads and bear claws and a series of old painted portraits that included a likeness of Luther.
Al felt a growing need to say something after the salad portion of the dinner passed without conversation.
"So, Mr. Ferguson, may I ask you what you're secret is...I mean, with your wild success as a businessman, you must have some ideas about success or achieving one's goals?"
Annie's eyes widened at Al and she looked horrified at the reality of this broach and watched as her pale father, who was wearing a white undershirt and a blue bathrobe and large brown-rimmed glasses, asked Al,
"Wild?"
"Y-yes," Al stammered, "I mean, your success and all..."
"Hmph," Annie's father said, "wild."
Then a long silence sat among them, punctuated only by the clicking of soup spoons and intermittent slurping.
"If you really want to know I put spiced water in the whiskey and all the goddamn rest of it,"Annie's father broke the quiet, "Halved production costs and the drunk fools couldn't tell the difference and we kept prices where they were and tripled revenue."
Al nodded and made some sort of noise that was supposed to indicate his interest. Then the old man rose from his chair, making it clear that he wasn't wearing pants, and he shuffled over to Al's side and stood over Al and raised his old fist in air and brought it down in a striking motion on Al's right hand, which was laying flat and unprotected on the table.
Annie gasped. Al felt a slight shock of pain.
Annie's father had stabbed his son-in-law-to-be with a little medical needle and the old man's eyes squinted at the trickle of blood that peeped through the rupture in Al's skin.
"You're goddamn blood is red," he said. Then he looked over at Annie and then up at all his liquor signs and at the crosses and at the stuffed elk heads and at Luther and then back at Al, who was holding his stabbed hand in a napkin.
"The whole damn world's mixed up if you ask me," said Annie's father as he shuffled back to begin the main course.

Surfeit

excess, overindulgence (v)

I knew a surfer that wanted all the sun
he could get and get as tan as he could get
so he spent all his time surfing and tanning
and then all the melanin in his skin burned up
and the doctors told him he couldn't be in sunlight
unless he was in a plastic bubble that refracted it
so my friend the surfer went surfing in his bubble
and sat out in the sun after the waves rolled him in.

Minatory

Menacing, threatening (adj)

A minataur went to an analyst that specialized
in the psychoses of mythical creatures
and laid down on the analyst's couch
and said, "I hate that everyone hates me,"
and the analyst said,
"this is a common problem for characters
who are created by humans to be a certain way
and then start to ask why
they were made the way they were made--
unfortunately, you must continue
to be as you were made to be..."
And the minataur turned around to the analyst
and growled and barked but caught himself
and he looked down at his goat legs
and his hairy hands
and his long nails
and he looked up at the analyst
who was a human being
and the analyst shrugged as if to apologize
and the minataur thought this was
the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen.

Parry

To block or evade (v)

Barry didn't dally
to parry larry
who was angry
when he married sally.

Meretricious

Showy, taudry (adj)

Cheryle the suburban meter maid
had such long and fake and painted fingernails
that she couldn't write parking tickets
and all the people
with the Benzes and Beamers and Volvos
and everything
that parked everywhere
gave her gift certificates to
manicurists every christmas
and the cards they wrote her had
smiley faces and exclamation marks
and were signed with the word "love."

Maculate

Splotchy or marked (adj)

There was once a perfectionist trucker
who wouldn't buy a new rig until he found
the right one
and one time he was test-driving a Mac
and saw a splotch on the dash
and pulled the truck over
out of disgust
and felt so strongly about the splotch
that he walked across the highway
and back to the dealership
and when he got back to his own truck
he had dust from the road all over him but
he felt clean.

Nugatory

Trifling, inconsequential

Whenever I see a candy bar
and it's in a shiny shiny wrapper
I think about
how pointless some of my desires are
and how much a free market cares
about them.

Profligate

recklessly extravagant, wasteful (adj)

Benjamin spent a year's pay
on the gate to his driveway
so he could only afford to live
in a small trailer.

Flout

To demonstrate contempt for, as in a rule of convention (v)

Gabby and her mom were in the kitchen
and Gabby's mom said, "Girls are supposed to
play the flute, not the drums."
So Gabby took her flute out
and put it together
and then grabbed a pan
and hit her flute against the pan
with a rhythm anyone would clap to.

Impugn

To attack or assail verbally, to censure (v)

One time when I was in first grade
I picked my nose and ate it
and Mrs. Saunders saw me do it
and said, in a voice that I can still hear,
"David, that is deeeeeeeesgusting,
get a tissue and cover your face--
I never want to see that again."

Importune

To ask incessantly, to nag (v)

Please please please please please
please please please please
please please please
please please
please
don't lie to us.

Impute

To attribute cause or source (adj)

A boy drops an empty soda can on the ground
because he doesn't care about cans or the ground
and then there's an earthquake
and people on the street get knocked over
and the street lights
and stop lights
and garbage cans
and then the ground stops shaking
and the boy looks around
and sees people and garbage on the ground
and he sees the empty soda can he dropped
and he picks it up
and then he picks up a garbage can
and throws away the empty soda can
and he walks home
and helps pick as many people up
on the way
as he can
and he apologizes to each one as he offers them
his hand.

Expiate

To atone or make amends (v)

I ripped a hole in your favorite shirt
sorry
I was angry because your dog shat on my bed
and it is unable to comprehend what it means to be
sorry.

I sewed the hole up the best I could
but the stitching is piss poor and
sorry.

Eschew

To shun or avoid (v)

A circle of cows graze
in each other's company
and they all eat and chew
and swallow facing one another
and


one


cow
stands outside the group
and faces the other way
and its eyes are constantly trying
to see what the other group is doing.

Excoriate

To censure scathingly (v.)

I heard of a psychology teacher
at a private high school
that duct-taped the mouths
of the students that scored
lower than 75% on his exams
and forced them to wear the tape
until they improved
because he said he didn't want
their average ideas
infecting his discussions.

Egress

exit (n)

I went to a taxidermist's shop
because my grandmother wanted her cat to be
stuffed and made into a statue
and I was waiting and I noticed a stuffed egret
hanging above the door of the shop
and the taxidermist who finally took my order
and was sitting at the cash register with my grandmother's cat
made bird noises while was I looking at the stuffed egret
and smiled at me when I turned to catch him
doing this
and that was when I decided to leave.

Abscond

to go or sneak away (v)

If a war started between pastries
then, being a pacifist,
I would probably dress up like a scone
and abscond.

Descry

Discriminate, discern (v)

I know a single father
that only makes decisions
based on what
doesn't make his baby cry.

Until he told me this
I had great respect for him
because it seemed to me like
he was doing everything right.

Inured

Used to accepting something undesirable (adj)

Julie and Jonie cut open a cadaver
for homework at med school
and they played rock-paper-scissors
for hemispheres
and julie lost.
She accepted this
and went down to the feet
and walked up to the middle
thinking the worst would be best to do first
and she she cut open the penis of the man
who had donated his body to science
and after some examination she said, "Damn,
that sucks."
Jonie asked, "What?"
Julie said,
"This guy's seminal vein is exposed to nerves."
"So?"Jonie asked.
"So every time he came he probably felt
like he was passing a kidney stone or something."
"Damn," Jonie agreed.

Cavil/ Captious

To criticize sarcastically without good reason (v.)/(adj.)

VI.
And I forget to mention
that I've been drinking
and that I'm riding my bike
drunk
and watching the scene
and taking it in
to come home and write about it--

and the light turns green
and I start to pedal uphill towards my house
and I swerve out of the way as a cab passes
and I hear old men laughing at me
and there's a fat pair of shoulders
in the back of the cab that passes me
with a blazered arm around them
and they seem warm
and it is dark
and we all go uphill together
toward our houses.

Cachinnate

to laugh (v.)

V.
People travel in groups around them
the crying girl and her man
some in cars going slowly
some in groups of two or five or six
and on the curbs
under awnings of bars
old homeless men sit where they've been sitting
since the time when the sun was out
and the night before that, etc,
and they cackle holding paper bags
filled with bottles
filled with the bane of everyone's breath here--

they laugh especially hard
when the girl enters the cab
with the man with the smile
because the old homeless men know them
and everyone else that travels around them
because the old homeless men know
that all these people think
they're going somewhere.

Baleful

willing, evil (adj.)

IV.
There's a grin on her date's face
it is shaved and sweaty and clean
and it persists as he stands there
rubbing the crying girl's back.
It is pointed up like the lapels of his
blazer
it is baleful
like the width of his neck
and the hair that creeps up it
and reaches out of his collar.

He calls the cab
and pushes her head down into it
and shuts the door
and tells the cabbie where to go.

Bilge

The protrusion of a casket or grave (n.)

III.
The young woman has a round stomach
that I can see bulging out of the middle
of her dress
but it seems more like a bilge
than a bulge
because she is crying
and drunk
and to me she is seeing
truly
blankly
in a way she won't remember
what life is like
at this hour,
and she ducks into a cab with the man
and her cab driver drives
to a place she's never been--

though she knew
when she went out she'd end
up there eventually.

Beatify

To make saintly (v.)

II.
I bike past a corner where there are
many bars
and it is late
which means it's early in the morning
and standing on the corner is a girl
a young woman
and she is bedizened, shoulders and chest bare
crying
clutching herself
drunk
and a man stands with his hand
rubbering her back
as they wait for a cab,
and it's like she's the saint
of this hour of the day
in this kind of place:
sad
with make up on her face
delirious
and getting into a cab with a man
just to find some warmth
for her bare shoulders.

Bedizen

to adorn cheaply (v.)

I.
In places where people party
drink, dance, etc,
the women wear make up
and the men dress the same
and the women reveal their skins
and the men differ only in face.

Paean

prayer of thanksgiving (n.)

Oh, that I have earlobes,
things so mushy and pointless
that I don't have to worry about them
breaking or snapping or anything--

thank you.

Oh, that I can rub the earlobes of others
between my thumb and forefinger
and squeeze and say this paean
to them as they smile at me--

thank you.

Supplant

take over, replace (v.)

It's funny to me when people say
that plants take over other plants
or yards or forests or something
as if plants conquer
as if one plant thinks
it's better than other plants
and asserts itself accordingly--

but I guess that's just another reason
why I think people are so funny.

Apotheosis

prayer, recognition of deity (n.)

When some people shop for shoes
they genuflect down
when they try them on
and I've seen some who--
after they see that the shoes fit
and after they see that they look good--
clasp their hands as they look
down
at their feet
in shoe apotheosis.

Adumbrate

To sketchily predict (v.)

People think that painters and poets
and people like that can predict the future
but we're just just listening to ourselves
with a feeling that people are pretty

much the same

and so what we make ends up
being about human beings
and also ends up pretty

open to interpretation

and people feel good when they see it
because they think
we're adumbrating eventhough they're
the ones adumbrating--or maybe

we're all adumbrating?

Accrete

To build, gather together (v.)

One ant brings a piece of sand
and lays it down
and then other ants do this
and then they live in the pile together.

One cell becomes cancerous
and begins to cry proteins
and then other cells come to it
and then they all cry proteins together.

One family finds a spot on a river
and another comes to trade with them
and then other families trade there, too
and then they make a city on the river together.

Acarpous

Worn, well-used (adj)

Roberto farmed his family's land for 65 years
and his father farmed it for 62 years before that
and his father's father farmed it for 70 years before that
etc.

And each man in Roberto's family took a wife
and Roberto's wife had 10 children
and Roberto's mother had 7 children
and Roberto's father's father's wife had 15 children
etc.

And some nights, Roberto's wife
and his father's wife
and his father's father's wife
have tea parties in the fields
because they feel like they belong there
fated, acarpous, farmed,
etc.

Abscisson

The removal of something (n.)

"When teachers tell you
to hold scissors with the blades down
you should listen
because I drool all the time through my cheek
and I'm missing a nostril
and all I wanted to do was make
snowflake cutouts."

Abrogate

To cancel or repeal or order to put down, by an authority (v.)

In the middle of a battle during World War III
God comes down from the Heavens and declares:
"Anyone that still has
a gun in their hand
after I count to five
is so going to hell!"

And the soldiers, generals, lieutants, corporals,
etc,
all looked at one another
and put their guns down
and cancelled the orders for missiles,
etc;
everyone feeling properly abrogated.

Abjure

Refuse (v.)

A lawyer defends a prostitute
and at the end of her trial
after his closing statements
she leans over and offers him something
and the lawyer raises his hand
and abjures, shaking his head
trying to focus on the prosecution.

Approbation

Approval (n)

They called Tom the everything boy. He played every sport. He played the piano and sang in the Christmas show. He got high grades in math and science and won essay contests. He painted landscapes with mountains that they hung in the display cases at the entrance of the school. He was chosen for several state and regional debate competitions. His locker was pristine. He always got A's on Mr. Romley's essays, which were known school-wide as the hardest writing assignments in the entire universe. He had perfect attendance. He made Jenna Nabern, the prettiest girl in the 8th grade, laugh hysterically. He spoke affably with teachers, even Ms. Bartoli, the jaded, mean, and dark-eyed algebra teacher that was only happy, she grumbled to her students at least once a day, when she was running marathons. He played Dungeons and Dragons with the geeks and dweebs. Jocks and cool kids invited him to hang out with them on the weekends. He was an institution.
The first and only day he was absent from school, Principal Spiel caught himself asking "Where's Tom?" over the loudspeaker during morning announcements. The nurses were concerned that he had a virus. The geeks thought a goblin had gotten to him. The jocks thought he pulled a hammy or broke his leg sliding into second. The girls began to draft Get Well cards with hearts and "Come Back Soon!" written in pink ink. Everyone looked at each other nervously and shrugged, hoping that their everything boy would be in school the next day unscathed.
He did come back the next day. But he wouldn't tell anyone where he had been. He just said he hadn't been feeling well and that he was fine now. Jenna Nabern whispered cryptically to her clique that Tom wouldn't take his hands out of his pockets.
That day happened to be the day that Tom's short story was due in Mr. Romley's 5th period class. Mr. Romley, a very unusual 8th grade English teacher, spent an entire quarter doing a creative writing workshop with his students. Each student submitted an original short story, which was copied and distributed to the class and then read aloud by Mr. Romley who lead a short critical discussion about it.
Tom handed his story in to Mr. Romley first thing that morning. Mr. Romley asked Tom if everything was alright. Tom just shrugged and said that he hadn't been feeling well and that he was fine now.
5th period came and everyone shuffled into class. They took their seats with an unusual urgency. Tom sat down with his hands in his pockets and waited. Jenna Nabern whispered something a friend. Mr. Romley welcomed everyone, looked nervously at Tom, and passed out copies of the short story and sat down at his desk. He brought his reading glasses down to the tip of his nose and started reading.

"There once was a boy named Infinity. Everybody loved him. Everybody congratulated him about everything he did. If he painted something, people loved the painting. If he sang something, people smiled when he was singing it and clapped a lot afterwards. If he took a test, he got a good grade on it.
Everyone knew Infinity, especially because of his name. But it wasn't his real name. He had just told people that it was his name since he was little, and people just accepted it because it seemed like he had everything. Only one person knew Infinity's real name and that person was his dad, who was also the only person that never congratulated Infinity, the only person that didn't smile when he sang, the only person that didn't shake hands with him when he got a good grade. Infinity's dad had been sad since before Infinity could remember. Infinity thought it was because his mother died after he was born, but he couldn't be sure. That was the only explanation Infinity could come up with for why his dad didn't do anything except sit on the couch and look at the television or at the wall, and maybe go to the bathroom.
Infinity would sing him songs but they didn't cheer him up. Infinity would do long division problems in front of him with real big numbers. But it didn't impress him. Infinity would bring his friends home and his dad wouldn't even say hello. One week, Infinity brought home a different trophy every day and lined them up on the coffee table in between his dad and the television. Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday. When he brought the last one home, Infinity's dad just leaned forward and pushed it with his hand so it didn't block the television.
Then one morning Infinity woke up and decided to stop doing stuff. He decided to do exactly what his dad did. He didn't want to go to school anymore. He didn't want to sing anymore, or play spots or do science fairs or talk to his friends. He just wanted to sit like his dad on the couch and stare. So he did. He didn't even brush his teeth. He went downstairs in his pajamas and sat down on the couch.
An hour went by. Two hours went by. After five hours, Infinity started to cry. He felt really small and didn't feel strong enough to handle sitting there. Then something wonderful happened. Infinity's dad turned towards him and said,
"Why didn't you go to school today?"
"Cuz I wanted to sit here," Infinity said.
Then Infinity's dad shook his head.
"You shouldn't do that. You're too good at stuff to do that," Infinity's dad said.
Infinity was crying. He looked up at his dad.
"I am?" Infinity asked.
"Oh yeah. Tomorrow you gotta go to school. I'll write you a note or something."
Then Infinity's dad smiled at him. It was the first time he had seen his dad smile. Infinity kept crying, but not because he was sad.
When Infinity woke up the next morning he got ready for school and went downstairs and he passed by his dad, who was sleeping on the couch. He was holding a folded piece of paper with Infinity's real name on it. Infinity carefully took it out of his dad's hand and ran to the bus stop to read it. It said:
"To whom it may concern: Please excuse ----- from school yesterday. He wasn't feeling well, but he's feeling fine now. I'm sure he'll make up the work he missed. He's a very good boy. Sincerely, -----"
Infinity folded it up and put the note in his pocket and held it in his hand for the whole bus ride to school and wouldn't let it go. Then he got to school and people asked him where he was. He said that he wasn't feeling well, but that he was fine now, and that Infinity wasn't his real name.
He never gave the note to anyone, not even the people in the attendance office. He kept it in his pocket and held it in his hand for the rest of his life."

THE END

There was a short moment of silence. Then Mr. Romley looked up from the paper and smiled underneath his glasses.
"Where were you yesterday, Tom?"
Everybody in the class turned to see the everything boy, whose hand was in his pocket. He said,
"I wasn't feeling well, Mr. Romley, but I'm better now."

Contrite

Pentitent (adj.)

When Judge Booley was tried for contempt after having pornographical magazines hidden underneath his desk during the trial of a man accused of double homicide, his posture was not very good. He sat at the defendant's table hunched, shoulders forward, eyes contrite and staring at his folded hands resting on the table.
"How do you plead?" asked Judge Gordon, a man that Booley had played golf and poker with for the last 18 years.
Booley raised his head and looked up penitently at his colleague.
"Guilty," he said, "I'm pleasing guilty."

Diffidence

Shyness (n.)

I had a friend in high school who, one day, saw me reading a book on cognitive therapy. My mother had given me the book to deal with some of the stresses I was feeling, and my friend pointed to it and said, quietly,
"I've got a book like that."
"Oh," I said, "the same one?"
"No, mine's about shyness," he said.
Since he mumbled this, I didn't hear his words clearly.
"About what?" I asked him.
"Shyness," he said again, a bit louder.
The word still sounded like the word 'highness' with an S in front of it to me. So I asked again.
"What? I'm still not getting it."
"Shyness! It's about shyness!" my friend yelled, blinking hard and looking around him, surprised at the volume of his voice.

Attentuate

To make thin, weaken (v.)

Carter sat whittling on his porch, looking at the long dirt path leading to his house. He waited for the mailman to come, whittling the end of a branch to a sharp point. His house lay between two town lines. No one knew about him except the mailman, who only dropped the mail off in the mailbox and waived and drove away.
Carter's eyes were draped with ancient rings of skin, his neck was thin and bent like his thin arms and thin torso hunched into a whittling position. He sat repeating the whittle motion so the the end of the stick was sharp, needle-sharp, and he saw the tires of the mail truck rolling up the dirt path leading to his house, the tip of the stick getting thinner and thinner until, just when the mailman got out and brought the mail to the mailbox, the end snapped, unable to whittling anymore and maintain its strength.
The mail man waived and carter waived back. Then he threw the broken branch into a pile of similarly over-whittled branches and went inside his house.

Clemency

Disposition to be lenient; mildness, as of the weather (adj.)

Kamai the Apache weather god watched as his people were slaughtered by Europeans carrying the Catholic flag of Pope Clement. A usually peaceful and even-tempered god, he was trying to find a reason not to get rid of these froth-mouthed Christians as they gutted his tribal followers. But he couldn't find a reason to be peaceful in this situation, and his anger was beginning to bubble. He considered sending down a tornado on the Christians as punishment for their gory, animal-like war on his people. But before he could do anything he was approached by the Christian God, who, in Heaven, took the form of a young man, an old man, and a golden retriever walking between them.
"Kamai," the young man entreated, "might I ask you what you're doing?"
"Oh, hey Christian God," said Kamai, "I was just going to protect my people from some nefarious foes."
"I don't think you should do that," said the young man.
The golden retriever barked.
"Yes," said the old man, "I agree."
"What do you mean?" asked Kamai.
"Well," began the young man, whose hands were pressed together prayerfully in front of him, "if you destroy these Christian soldiers you will rob your people of great wealth."
"Great wealth?" asked Kamai.
The retriever barked.
"Yes," said the old man, "I agree."
"I see all things Kamai, and I know all truths..." said the young man.
Kamai rolled his eyes. The young man didn't notice as he continued talking.
"And I have seen your people build great villages in the future, villages with machines that spew money from them. And I have seen them conquer many Christians who give their money to these machines willingly and in great amounts."
The golden retriever barked.
"Yes," said the old man, "I agree."
"But if you smite these Christian soldiers," continued the young man, "this will not come to be."
"Hmm," said Kamai. He looked down to Earth and saw his people looking up to him for help as the guns of the Europeans shot through them and metal shields blocked their wooden arrows and spears.
"If it is for their future," he whispered sadly.
The trio stood behind him, looking over his shoulder. The young man smiled. The old man's face hung deadpan. The golden retriever between them licked itself.
And Kamai sent down a mist to the battlefield. A light and clement rain, acting in accord with what he thought was best for his people.

Gambol

Gambol
To leap playfully, romp, skip about by David backer

Ben and Wenzl sit on a curb in St. Louis passing a big can of light beer in a brown bag between them. It's five o'clock post-meridian and teenage girls walk with babies in their arms and homeless people move sick and slowly across crosswalks and men with patches of hair missing from their scalps and boils on their necks mutter to themselves as they lean on brick and grafiti'd walls and a man at an entrance to an alley squats, in plain sight, and wipes his ass with newspapers and stuffs clean newspapers, maybe a day old now, up into his crack. Children gambol around the street corners and the fences around the old buildings wearing clothes that are too big for them and sirens from a police car scream from a few blocks away.
"What would you do if you could get outta here?" Ben asks Wenzl.
"What would I do?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know man."
"You know what I would do? You know that girl works in Clark's Diner? The one behind the counter gives people muffins and says--"
"Hey there..."
"Yeah," Ben says, "her. I'd take her out to the country somewhere, like real far away. To a field of flowers, sunflowers or something, and we would be frolicking, I mean really frolicking, and there wouldn't be no buses stopping short, no addicts yelling at each other, just a big sky and trees and flowers and me and her holding hands, laughing. She'd be wearing a dress, you know, and we'd be laughing our heads off until we fell to the ground or something."
Wenzl makes a noise in response.
Then the children run by Wenzl and Ben and the children are laughing and the man in the alley with the newspapers in his ass pulls up his pants and lumbers deeper into the belly of his alley and the girls with babies are yelling at each other and laughing. More sirens shout from far off and the sound gets louder and louder and the door to a convenience store slams shut and Wenzl knows there's a sunflower somewhere and a girl in a yellow dress laughing on the ground with someone and he drinks his beer.

Doddering

Shaking, infirm from old age (adj.)

The homosexual weightlifter had been hated in Austria since he first burst out on the weightlifting scene when he was sixteen. No one else in the circuit, the judges, audience, novices, other competitors knew his sexual orientation when he first competed at Innsbrook, but shortly after he beat the reigning champion by several hundred kilos, there were interviewers demanding answers to questions for their articles for the sports sections of the papers. He had no agent. No manager. He had been training by himself on his father's backyard farm in a small mountain town all his life, he had no knowledge of the workings of the city--only muscles and naievete.
When the newspaper men crowded around him they asked about his past. Where was he from? How did he get so strong? Did he have a family?
He told all: proscribed from his father's house when caught with his lover, a man from a neighboring farm, he found an advertisement for the weightlifting competition. He had been sleeping on the street for the past several nights.
The reporters wrote busily as he told his succinct history. His knees began to shake for the first time when he saw the expressions on their faces as they wrotes and whispered to one another. Standing there, watching these men look at each other and pointing at him, his knees began to tremble as if there were some great weight upon them.

Over the years the weightlifting circuit became his life. He had no family and not many friends. The homosexual weightlifter lived hotel to hotel and competed in many tournaments, finding a modicum of solace in the activity he had trained for and mastered throughout his lonelylife. But despite his many victories, they were not counted as such. He could beat any lifter at any match, but the judges subtracted hundreds of kilos from his score because of what he told the newspapers. Because of who he was.
Weightlifting in Vienna became a popular spectator sport because of him. On the circuit, he became an absurd institution, part of a ritual that many paid to partake in, where the homosexual weightlifter lifted as much as he could in front of the whispering crowd, his old knees shaking horribly but withstanding the greatest of weights. He was given last place every time. No matter how much he lifted. It was part of the ritual. And the crowd, smiling, would boo him and throw things at him while he stood there, a doddering old man with knees trembling beneath the weights.

Tumid

Pompous, bombastic (adj.)

Thomas Middick opened an envelope from his faculty mail box and read its contents and groaned.
"Five classes!"
He scratched a stray itch roaming somewhere over the surface of the goiter that'd been growing on his cheek since he'd finished his dissertation two years earlier. He scratched at the base of the growth and muttered to himself.
"This is absurd."
Middick looked toward the door of the chair of the philosophy department and waddled his rotund self to it and hit it with his fist several times. He turned the knob and opened the door before the old professor inside could say "come in."
"Roland, I've been assigned five introductory classes next semester."
"I know," Roland said.
Middick's shoulders fell and his disfigured head tilted to the side.
"I can't teach five classes in one semester, Roland, I have research to do. I can't be bothered by..."
"Bothered?"Middick, your contract says you will teach nine classes this year, a majority of them introductory."
"I have my PhD from Harvard, I studied under Smith. I don't have the time or attention or patience to deal with undergraduates."
He was breathing heavily as he said this, which caused the striped sweater he was wearing to rise up and expose the fat above his crotch. Hairs from his belly creeped out from the space between his belt and the bottom of the sweater.
"Middick, let me tell you something. You don't impress me. That's why I gave you that schedule."
Middick's mouth twitched and he blinked and suddenly felt the hem of his sweater chafing against his exposed stomach. His hands fluttered to his midsection and grasped the bottom of the sweater and pulled it over his fat and began to cry.

Turbid

Muddy, having the sediment disturbed (adj.)

Billy waited, squatting in the brook. His head was down and focused, hands at the ready, his reflection bobbing and waving in the trickles and waves of the small stream as it ran over rocks and sticks. He watched a small oval area where the water was calm, little sparkling crystals of sand and sediment laying the floor of the tiny pool. He could see every shadow, every pebble, every crevice of the pool. His eyes searched them with a regular rhythm.
"C'mon Billy," said an annoyed female voice.
He ignored it. It kept talking.
"Billy, stop being such a poser, you're not outdoorsy."
He didn't move or say anything. He didn't want to. The pool was so calm and clean and clear that he thought that even his voice might disturb his pursuit.
"What the hell, why aren't you saying anything?" the voice demanded.
Then Billy heard footsteps clumsily cracking sticks and swishing branches. The body that belonged to the annoyed voice stood at the edge of the stream. He looked up at his twin sister Christyn standing there, glaring at him, obviously desiring the attention he was giving the water. Billy raised his finger to his mouth and shushed her.
"What are you doing?" Christyn asked.
He looked at her. She disrupted every peace he had ever tried to attain. He tried to be patient with her.
"Mud puppies," he whispered, eyes on the stream, "very hard to find, you have to be very still if you want to see them."
"What? What are you talking about? Mom and Dad are waiting."
Billy closed his eyes, took a breath to try and cope with her, and kept his head down to water and his hands out.
Christyn shook her head, looked around, and sighed. Then she took a big step forward and her foot landed in the center of the calm little pool, splashing droplets of water on Billy's knees as she walked by him. Billy didn't do anything at first. Then he nodded and took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He opened them and looked down at the pool and he saw a turbid cloud of dirt and dust in the middle of it, blooming in the sunlight and blocking anything in the once-peaceful ecology from view. He dropped his hands to the ground and pushed himself up angrily, thoroughly disturbed, and walked in the direction of his family.

Trenchant

Cutting, keen (adj.)

[under construction]

The line workers at the London Fog factory gossip as they watch their machines rip and tear and sew fabric, preparing raincoats and clothing for the outlet malls and shops where raincoast and clothing are purchased.
"So I was at the pub," says Martin who pulls a lever, "and the waitress

Indemnify

To make secure against loss, compensate for loss (v.)

Gina remembers everything from her early childhood. Little details: the smell of baby food, the feeling of falling after losing her balance, the feeling of her knees buckling when learning walk, the taste of her fingers in her mouth, and what it was like looking up at everyone.
The most vivid memory she has of her early childhood is of the time she wandered away from her parents in a kids' clothing outlet while her mother and father debated the virtues and vices of a pair of toddler's sandals. She crawled underneath a rack of frilled pink skirts and hobbled her way to exit, which led out into a huge parking lot. Somehow no one at the store saw her, no parent noticed her, and she didn't stop to look at anything. She made it to the door and she put her hands on the glass and pushed.
Gina remembers turning around at the sound of her mother screaming. She remembers the feeling of her mother's hands around her waist and the strength with which she picked her up. She remembers the look on her father's face, a terror hid by stoicism. And she remembers being carried to the aisle of the store that had baby leashes, and the feeling of her mother securing two of them to her, one on each wrist, and how she pulled the straps so hard that she winced with pain from the force.

Tyro

Beginner, novice (n.)

[under construction]

Tyrone stood up in the boat and gazed out over the clear Mediterranean when he heard a dull thud and a grown from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw his father laying on the deck of the small ship with his knees to his chest, shaking. There was a pool of blood beneath his face, growing slowly from a small drip that was dripping from his nose. Tyrone didn't say anything. He ran to his old father and gathered the white-haired main into his arms.
The sun was beginning to set beneath the ocean and a piercing orange light painted them and cast its hue over the entirety of the coast of their native Carthage.
Tyrone didn't frantically set the sails east for the coast as he had done the first time his father had fallen during his lessons in abalone hunting. It was his father's wish to sail out again despite his illness, to continue Tyrone's training--for Tyrone was supposed to inherit his father's business and his reputation. Tyrone's father's hands floated up and touched his young son's face. They were deeply stained with purple dye, the color of their trade. Tyrone had never seen the real flesh color of those hands.
Tyrone had insisted on his father staying home, but these trips were all they had. His mother died in childbirth, and his father wed himself to his work and Tyrone's upbringing in her absence. Tyrone, only a 14-year-old boy, would need to become a man quickly now.
The old man brought his hands down from his sons face, leaving a purple hand print there, and he touched the rivulet of blood trickling from his nostrils. The dye on his fingers mixed with the blood, the red and purple making a deep shade of violet below his nose and his finger tips.
"Father," said Tyrone, beginning to cry, "you can't leave me, I'm only just beginning."

Stipple

To paint or draw with dots (v.)

Everything is made of molecules and their unified and connected atoms. But there's space between the atoms that make up the molecules, and one time a painter named Dotty who painted large public murals was painting a series of different-sized circles on the side of a building and was carefully outlining the space between two of these painted circles and her arm went through the wall.

Variegated

Many colored (adj.)

Have you ever meditated on the top of a very tall mountain and a toucan shat on your shoulder and you said "oh shit, a toucan just shat on my robe," and an elephant walked by and harumphed and you asked him or her about the laws of the jungle and if there were any robe-shitting rules out there, and imagined that the elephant was walking with a baby elephant that was so small it reminded you of a mouse eventhough elephants are supposed to afraid of mice, and imagined that this tiny elephant was friends with all the mice and he couldn''t understand why his family got so freaked at the dinner circle when he told them honestly where he was spending his spare time, and imagined that the baby's best friend was a mouse named Sam and that Sam was all sorts of interesting colors and was known throughout the forest for being the mac-daddy with all the lady toucans, and you guessed that it was probably a female toucan shitting with delight because she saw Sam hanging out with the tiny baby elephant, therefore causing the disruption of your search for enlightenment?

Obviate

To make unnecessary, get rid of (v.)

"I think we waste waste," said Dr. Togore.
"But why is your project, which is frankly extremely undeveloped in this proposal, worth funding?" asked a council member.
"I believe the project is worth funding because I'm positive there is material that be harnassed in garbage and shit and all that to make energy. Imagine it! A perpetual motion system of energy. We could do it. I just need the money."
Togore scratched the back of his right ear incessantly, causing his over-sized plastic bifocals to shake and little flakes of dandruff to fall from his red scalp.
"The National Endowment for the Sciences does not carelessly fund projects without significant data or confirmation, or..."
"But look," Togore said, "how do I get data to show you what I'm talking about if I don't have any money for research? That doesn't make much sense, does it?"
"Mr. Togore--"
"Doctor Togore," he said, scratching his ear.
"Yes, Dr. Togore, are you part of a faculty at a university?"
"No," he said.
"Are you a researcher with a laboratory of any kind?"
"No," he said, "unless you count my basement, where I've already completed some promising experiments."
"Your basement."
"Yes, I've found a transition molecule that can be made from all sorts of waste, and can then be made into a clean-burning fuel. My water heater at home uses it. People could put it in their cars. It'd be like Back to the Future, you know? It would totally obviate the entire trash bag, disposal, garbage truck, garbage dump process. And I've been reading the numbers: you guys have shit coming out of your ears in this city. It's gonna start coming out of faucets soon if you don't..."
"We recognize the severity of the problem Mister Togore, and we have read your proposal and found that it is unsuitable for funding."
"Unsuitable?" Togore said, banging the table and standing, "how could you waste such a viable opportunity here? I'm telling I have the..."
Togore stood up, a big beer belly exposed beneath his t-shirt, and approached the bench of council members to speak with them face to face. The men and women turned to each other and the head council member said, nevously,
"Mister Togore, this is highly inappropriate, please leave immediately or we will be forced to remove..."
"Doctor," Togore said, standing in front of them, fists tightly clenched.

Gainsay

Deny (v.)

It was the most diffcult thing he'd ever have to do. He had to look her in her pretty face, in those eyes he had watched, wanted, kissed, and laughed into and tell her that he didn't love her any more.
He walked up to her room and knocked on the door. She said come in. He opened it, sat down on the floor, and hugged his knees.
"I have to tell you something," he said.
"That doesn't sound very good," she replied.
"I guess, no, I guess it doesn't," he said.
She leaned forward and put her hands on her crossed loegs.
"I--" he said.
"What?" she asked, the muscles around her eyes constricting, bracing for something.
"I don't feel the same," he said.
"About --me?" she asked.
He looked at her. Her mouth looked like it was going to fold into itself. His tongue tasted dry, like chalk.
"Yeah. It's been, I've just, over time, I don't feel--"
"Do you love me anymore?" she asked. She had been expecting this, in an abstract way.
He folded his lips and closed his eyes and started crying.
"I don't think so," he said.
Then her face got red, she looked down, resting her chin above her shoulder.
"No," she said.
"What?" he looked up.
"No, you can't," she said.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean it doesn't make sense, you can't stop loving me."
"It doesn't make sense," he tried to tell her, "it's not something I wanted, it just..."
"Stopped?"
"Yeah."
"Not possible," her face fell into a pale, unstable calm.
"But--"
"Nope," she said, "that's just not how it works."
"This isn't, I wouldn't be saying this if I didn't feel--"
"You loved me before?" she asked.
Shaking his head, confused, "Yeah."
"And now you don't."
He nodded, crying still.
"That's just not what love is," she said, "either you didn't love me before or you still do now and you're confused."
"This isn't something I can--I, just, it just feels this way."
"No," she said.
"No what?"
He looked at her, she held her head down, too, like her body understood but her mind was pure gainsay, like the two were shouting dissonantly at each other, neither hearing the other, just dischord, just a human with two screaming twins, shrieks echoing into the walls.
She put her hands to her temples and sobbed. She stood up and walked out of the room and out of the house and got in her car, shaking her head as she drove away.

Stint

To be thrifty, set limits (v.)

Rodney Blum takes a long gulp of water before the Congressional Panel on Narcotics Trafficking begins questioning him. He takes a breathe and composes himself. One of the senators clears his old throat and begins the hearing.
"Mr. Blum, you are head of the Federal Commission for Immagration Special Projects, is that right?"
"That's correct," he says.
"And the "special project" you headed most recently was the construction of a wall along our borders with Mexico?"
"Yes, sir," Blum swallows.
The questions begin. They are obvious at first and build to a crescendo of difficultly as the panel tries to piece together each piece of the puzzle of Blum's failure.
"Mr. Blum, did you know that the substance, the concrete substitute, you chose to build the wall with could be broken down and used as a narcotic?"
"No sir, I was not aware that fact until after the decision was made to purchase large quantities of the substance."
"I see," says the congressman.
"And I might add," says Blum, leaning forward, "on the budget Congress approved for the project, that particular concrete substitute was the only material we could afford."
The congressmen looked at one another, peering at each other over their glasses.
"The government's frugality in its subsidizing of special projects will be noted, Mr. Blum."

Emolument

Salary, Compensation (n.)


Sarah worked one of the carts they have in malls, you know the ones that have stacks of cheap sunglasses or self-help tapes or those bronze things that look like mechanical spiders that you're supposed to rub up and down your scalp to relax yourself? She didn't sell those, though. She sold little plastic stress tubes filled with soap and water that flopped and flipped limply when squeezed. You could buy family packs of them in different sizes or you could buy them individually. They were supposed to make you feel calm after a long day at work. The cart had a big cardboard sign on it that said "Because you deserve it!"
Sarah got the job because she needed money, because when she went with her friends to the mall they always bought all kinds of clothes and accessories and she wanted to buy clothes and accessories too. Their parents gave them an allowance that they could spend on these things. But Sarah's mother couldn't afford an allowance on her nurse's salary since her husband, Sarah's father, ran off with a girl from the accounts payable department in his office. She told Sarah to get a job. So Sarah checked websites for advertisements and sent emails and was hired by a guy who owns all the carts in the mall. He met her, looked her up and down, and said "sure" and showed her the floppy tubes and gave her a contract with very small print that she signed and dated. Sarah was on commission for selling the tubes. She got paid according to how many she sold per day. But Sarah didn't know much about selling things. She just wanted to buy clothes like her friends.
While working she wore a lot of make up and a tucked-in polo shirt and she sat on a stool, hunched over. It sucked because her cart was right outside of the Gap, which was where all her friends bought clothes and accessories. So she would sit there at her cart, hunched over, polo shirt tucked-in, flipping a tube up and down in her hand, daydreaming at the mannequins in the windows of the Gap as potential customers passed by her cart. Every half hour Sarah would look at the sign on her cart and read it under her breath "Because you deserve it!" and then return to staring at the mannequins.

Proscribe

Ostracize, banish (v.)

guilt

O.E. gylt "crime, sin, fault, fine," of unknown origin, though some suspect a connection to O.E. gieldan "to pay for, debt," but O.E.D. editors find this "inadmissible phonologically." The mistaken use for "sense of guilt" is first recorded 1690. Guilt by association first recorded 1941. Guilty is from O.E. gyltig, from gylt.

There was once a time that no religion or theory of science mentions when Ostriches were the dominant species on earth. They ruled with a mighty wing and had a great, intricate system of social relationships: governments, economies, familial and work-related castes. Their populations were densest in Western Europe, Ostrich cities rising in mounds of feathery brick along what's now the English channel: modern-day France, Germany, the United Kingdom were populated solely by the Ostrich cosmopolis.
The ostriches co-existed peacefully with other, lesser animals. Wild herds of Homo Erectus, for example, roamed the many undeveloped countrysides grunting and hunting and gathering and staying in their caves of dirt.
In one such cave right outside the Ostrich cosmopolis, a set of Homo Erectus parents gave birth to a strangely hairless and upright son with a large head. The first years of his life were normal. The parents cared for him and raised him, feeding him nuts and berries and small mammals and showing him the Ostrich cities and teaching him about the boundaries of their world. But after what we would call sixteen years, the son began to act very strangely. This son made many strange noises that his parents didn't recognize and squinted at everything with a perplexed face. He pointed at many things, looking perplexed, and made so many different kinds of sounds that his parents, though caring and nurturing, couldn't understand what he was trying to communicate. They shrugged at him when he made these noises and continued with their business, patting him on the head and walking away.

One night the son returned to his parents' cave carrying the body of what looked to be a dead baby chimpanzee. Its face was multilated and its arms were twisted and covered in dried blood. He shoved the corpse in their faces, shaking it back and forth and yelling many noises they could not comprehend. A look of concern came to his mother's eyes, and she reached out to her son, whose eyes were bloodshot and spilling tears. But the son, in a rage, threw the carcass at his mother when she reached for him. Then he grabbed her arm and she winced, her eyes now filled with horror at her child as he gripped her. He began to scream at her, lunging at her with every scream.
The son's father, confused, never before confronted with such a thing, threw himself at his son and yelled to protect his wife. The son didn't stop. He continued yelling and hurting his mother. Then his father grabbed his son by the neck and dragged him to the entrance of their cave and thew him to the ground. Then he grunted again and his eyes darted back and forth as if he were taking a new step into a new world and was looking at the horizon for guidance, as if this was a new step in evolution, as if he was unprepared for the change that he and his kind were undergoing at that very moment. He blinked and pointed his hairy finger to the fields, away from his home, toward the Ostrich cities.
The son rose to his feet, a look of terror and confusion on his face, and he ran in the direction his father pointed.

One custom of the Ostrich cosmopolis should be mentioned specifically. Crimes occured in the cities of Ostriches, but crimes were more indicative of an individual's forgetfulness or absent-mindedness than their maliciousness. It was therefore not society that punished its criminals--the criminals punished themselves because as soon as they committed a crime they remembered the rule that had slipped their mind. Such an individual, immediately after committing a crime, would go out to the outskirts of the city, into the forests and fields, find a nice earthy spot, and bury his or her head in the ground. Since the Ostriches communicated by blinks and weaves of their necks, they instinctually punished themselves through isolation. In those moments buried in the dirt and soil, the criminals would wait until their time was up. They knew when this was--every individual knew how much time to spend proscribed, every crime had its own appropriate period of separation. After a recalcitrant individual spent a proportionate amount of time without interacting socially, he or she would lift his or her head out of the ground and return, resocialized, to the city. The Ostriches didn't know why or how they did this. There were no explanations or books or speeches or justifications in their community. They all naturally obeyed the social order.

After several days of delirious wandering through valleys, in meadows, and across rivers, the son found the top of a small hill and looked down into an Ostrich city. The paths and mounds that composed the city glistened in the sun, and he was attracted to its complexity. Surely, he thought, animals that could build this would understand him.
On his way to the city he saw a strange thing. In several fields, very far apart, he saw three ostriches with their heads buried in the ground, their chests expanding and retracting with their breaths. He stopped to consider these and muttered several noises to himself. He walked on without disturbing them.
When the son reached the edge of the city he was exhausted from his experience at home and his days of desultory travel. He was met by a delegation of Ostriches, who circled around him. He stood completely still during this process and the birds, because of his stillness, found him acceptable. They brought him to the hut of one individual who had a spare bed and gave the son water and grain to eat. They showed him a mattress next to the resident's mattress where he could sleep. After eating and making many noises to the Ostriches, he laid down on the mattress and fell into a deep slumber. The group looked at one another, blinked and swayed their necks in approval, and left the son in peace.

That night there came a piercing shriek from the tent where the son slept. It was not mammalian, but avian. It echoed through the streets of the Ostrich city, and a herd of individuals ran to their guest's tent. They found the son beating his host with his fists, his face calm, his eyes closed and tense. Blood stained the dirt beneath the now inert corpse of the host ostrich, its body quivering limply after each successive strike.
The herd blinked and weaved at one another frantically and two of them ran to the son and pushed him back with their necks and legs. The son's eyes opened and he gasped and was overwhelmed by the chaotic flapping and kicking all around him. Through the legs of the ostriches he saw the corpse of the bird that had been so kind to him and felt a surge of confusion and pain in his chest. He began to make noises, pitiful and sad noises, and cried, choking on his noises. He repeated them over and over again while the other Ostriches kicked and flailed at him.
After several minutes of blink and weave discussion, the birds decided what they would do with the son. One of the stronger birds kicked the son in the head and the son passed out, his screams silenced and his body hitting the floor. The herd dragged him into the night to the outskirts of their city. They dragged him over rocks and in between trees and through streams. They found a flat meadow and then they buried the son's head in the dirt according to their custom.
After an hour, the son woke up. His eyes, ears, nose, and his mouth were filled with soil. He experienced the blackness of his proscription and lifted his head out of the ground in terror. He coughed, the dirt fillinf every orifice of his face. He made a noise as he did this, looking out into the night and finding that he was alone, and he coughed and began to cry. The noise he made as he sobbed and coughed sounded like "gylt, gylt."

Vulpine

Like a fox, crafty (adj.)

Jason Guar opened the door and its hinges moaned and little bells tinkled magically as it shut behind him. His feet creaked the wood as he walked the plank of the trading post. He held his briefcase confidently and unbuttoned the top button of his business shirt.
Shelves surrounded him, full to the edges with authentic-looking Pueblo trinkets and souvenirs: baskets, vases, homemade fishing poles, t-shirts, knitted hats, quilts, pillows and pillow cases, moccasins, totem poles, drums, snuff boxes, painted pocket knives, dream catchers with feathers and feather headdresses. Every single piece he saw had a similar insignia painted on it--the face of a cat, or coyote, or fox-- a sharp face with two ears and two sly slits for eyes. Everything seemed to be hand-made and in great quantity.
Guar walked up to a shelf with a box of key chains and held one in his hand. It was a piece of smooth burnt wood with a fox face painted on it in white.
"Like that key chain?" the voice of an old man boomed from his right. It startled him. He put the key chain on the shelf and looked toward the end of the aisle. The question was said with an unnecessarily loud volume, as if the speaker were close to deaf, so Guar returned responded with what he thought was an appropriate loudness,
"Oh, yes, very much!" he said.
Guar heard some shuffling to his right and saw a old man appear at the end of the aisle. He looked about five feet tall and had bright white hair. He looked concerned.
"Alright, I can hear you son, don't need to shout."
The old man shuffled his legs toward Guar and spoke again.
"How can I help you?"
"Actually," Guar said, "I'm not looking for something, I'm looking for someone. Herbert Lobos?"
"Herbert Lobos?" the man repeated.
"Yes, Mr. Herbert Lobos."
The old man looked at the key chain Guar had put back on the edge of the shelf. Then he slowly raised his arm and put it back in the pile of key chains like it.
"Hmmm," he said, "I'm Herbert Lobos," he said, looking up at Guar.
"Oh, well," said Guar, surprised, "that's very helpful. Mr. Lobos, I'm Jason Guar from the Internal Revenue Service and I need to ask you a few urgent questions about your taxes."
"From where?" the man asked.
"Oh, I'm from the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS."
Lobos looked Guar up and down.
"Never heard of it," he said.
Guar looked around, nodding, and blinked largely and obviously several times.
"Well, that would explain quite a bit actually."
He removed several pieces of paper from his briefcase looked over a series of printed numbers.
"Mr. Lobos, you owe the United States government $143, 562.73 in federal income taxes. You owe the state of New Mexico $65,783.23 in state income taxes."
Lobos hobbled next to Guar so his chin almost pressed againt Guar's upper arm and squinted at the forms.
"Oh," he said.
"Somehow, you've avoided paying taxes for over nine years Mr. Lobos. The IRS sent me to make sure everything in your store was here and to warn you of this. If you don't pay the government back you will be in serious trouble.
"Hmmm," Lobos said, "trouble."
"Yes, quite a bit of trouble," Guar said in his most administrative-sounding voice.
Lobos blinked and looked up at Guar. The old man was like a nymph, like a god and a child and an animal combined. Guar watched him as he nodded.
"Okay," Lobos said, "I'll have the money for you tomorrow."
Guar took a breath in and nodded, humoring Lobos.
"All the money, Mr. Lobos, by tomorrow?"
"Yes, I'll have the money for you tomorrow."
"Well, uhm, okay, then, do you need these amounts?"
"No, that's okay, " he said, "I will see you tomorrow."
Guar, not knowing what else to do, closed his briefcase and continued nodding. Then he said,
"Okay, well, I'll leave these papers here just in case. I'll be back for them tomorrow."
"Good," said the old man, who stuck out his leathery hand for a shake. Guar took it and pumped it twice. The man's hand was warm, like earthy clay. Guar took a short breathe and turned around and walked out the door, bells tinkling as it shut behind him.

The next day, Guar pulled into the trading post parking lot. He walked to the front door and opened it. The hinges moaned, but the bells didn't tinkle when the door shut. There were no bells. The Guar looked up. There was nothing inside the store. It was completely empty. Guar's feet creaked on the wood as he took small steps in circles to scan and make sure of what he saw. He saw empty shelves and sunlight catching plumes of dust floating in the air. Guar walked to the counter and saw the papers he had left with Lobos the day before. The key chain with the white fox face painted on it was lying on top of them.

Sartorial

Pertaining to tailors (adj.)


The poet Virgil died in a little town called Piedigrotta in Northern Italy. In the center of Piedigrotta there is a place called the Round Square. There are two tailor shops in the Round Square, Tamado's and Rozzini's, one on either side of the plaza. The two best tailors in all of Italy occupy these shops. They do not take business from one another, in a marvel of market competition they actually exist in a kind of harmony with each other. Since they are the best tailors in a country known for its garments, many wealthy sybarites come from all over the world to the Round Square for their tailoring. If Rozzini can't take a customer, he calls Tamado and makes an appointment-- and vice versa.
One day a particularly imaginative and literary investment banker named Sebastian Harris had an idea while watching Rozzini spin around him and make little chalk marks on his cuffs and inseam and sleeves.
"Rozzini?"
"Yah yah?"
"I have an idea."
"What is your idea, senore?"
"The festival for Virgil is coming up right?"
"Yes yes, the day the great poet died in our town. Always a nice time of year here."
"Well, I was thinking just now that it would be interesting to see you and Tamado make suits for each other at the same time."
"I do not understand, senore, what you mean."
"Well, you and Tamado are masters. Watching you work is real poetry, and I think it would be great fun, an epic kind of event, if both of you tailored suits for one another simultaneously."
"Where and why and for what would we do this?" the old man asked, a perpetual smile on his face.
"Out there," Harris pointed to the Round Square, "during Virgil's festival."
Rozzini looked down, a measuring tape thrown about his shoulders.
"This seems difficult logistically," he said, "Tamado and I are busy busy men, and also, to cut a suit requires great stillness from the person one is fitting it to. Two tailors at the same time would most likely cancel themselves out if such a thing were attempted."
"Well," replied Harris, "I'd make sure all the appointments were taken care of. And we could hold a benefit for the church and the schools, advertise around. It would be great for the town. Events bring people. People bring money..."
Harris' eyes lit up with creation as the possibility of this distended in his mind, each second another possible facet of the event birthing into his imagination. His business-busy mind milled over the marketing strategies, the possible investors, tourist agencies, and pamphlets. After a few seconds of this Rozzini kneeled on the floor by Harris' feet and ran his hand quickly up Harris' inseam to wake him up from the dream. Harris took a quick breath in and looked around the room.
"You dream you dream, senore, like Virgil our poet. And his spirit smiles at you, but I do not think this one will be a reality."
Harris raised his dark, virile eyebrows and watched Rozzini return to his work, his fingers floating magically across the seams and cuffs of the suit.

The end of the business day arrived and Rozzini was finishing a stitch in a blazer when his phone rang.
"Alo?"
"Rozzini?"
"Ciao, Tamado, my friend, how goes it?"
"A man called Harris came to see me today."
Rozzini's forehead furrowed, he recognized the name but in his senility had forgotten why it sounded familiar.
"A man named who?" he asked.
"Harris."
"Harris?"
"Yes, Harris."
He pauses, getting lost in the folds of what looks like a thousand shirts hanging from the ceiling of his shop. He blinks and tries to sound like he remembers.
"Harris, oh yes yes, Harris."
"He mentioned an event to me that I found interesting but a little, ehm, disquieting."
"Oh, Harris!" Rozzini triumphantly remembered, "disquieting?"
"Did he propose to you that we make suits for one another to raise money for the town at the festival?"
"Yah yah that is what he said. He said it would bring many people and that we could raise money for the schools and the church."
"What do you think of it?" Tamado asked.
"I know our children need new desks at the primary school," Rozzini said, "and that the windows at the church have needed a cleaning since Virgil's wake," he chuckled, "And this man Harris is very passionate about the idea, as a tribute somehow..."
"Tribute?"
"Yah yah, that it would be for the festival of Virgil if we did this."
Then a feeling arose in Rozzini, a youthful, wise, absurd kind of feeling. He felt it in his knees and thighs and shoulders, a fuzziness, a warmth, and it produced a smile on his face. It was as if the universe were contained in its entirety within that moment, on the phone with Tamado, and all the little particulars of his being came together for him to feel all at once, his 84 years mushed warmly into one emotion. It caused him to say,
"I think we should it, my friend."
An electricity ran through his fingers.
"We should?" asked Tamado.
"Yah yah, I will call Harris to tell him we will do it."

It is the day of the festival. On a stage in the center of the Round Square stand the mayor of Piedigrotta and Harris. They wave to a large crowd, the townspeople and tourists talking at a pleasant volume to one another. Next to Harris stands Rozzini and Tamado wearing smock-like drapes of suit cloth ready to be tailored. The mayor points to the two men, who nod in response. They face one another to begin.
At first the men reach for the same places, trying to measure and mark each other, but their hands hit. Their heads bump, and several people chuckle in the crowd. The men stand back from one another and take a breath. They try again and, after several more comical interferences, Rozzini kneels to do the cuffs of Tamado's pants and Tamado, simultaneously, measures the neck of Rozzini's blazer. They find that they can fit together. After this they examine one another's sleeves, each taking the opposite arm to compliment the other, and it becomes a harmonic dance between them, each of them bending to match and comprimse with the other's movements.
The audience is captivated, and after ten minutes, the tailors stand back from one another, looking each other up and down, and they nod and face the crowd. They audience cheers and yells their names in the same collective breath as the name of Virgil--as if the two men are, in their fitted harmony, a sartorial avatar of the poet himself.