Charles Martin's Blog, page 42

This Week in Word of the Day/12-06-13

Taken from my daily writing indulgences on Facebook.

birl \burl\, verb:

1. To spin or cause to rotate.

2. Chiefly Northern U.S. Lumbering. To cause (a floating log) to rotate rapidly by treading upon it.

3. British. A. To move or rotate rapidly. B. Informal. To spend money freely. C. Informal. To gamble.

noun:

1. British Informal. An attempt; a gamble.

My boy, these women you play with, these poor fools who try to tether to your star with hope and empathy believing that your words are as earnest as they are sweet – you must begin thinking to your eternal soul. You cannot birl your heart forever, playing at love to lap out its delights, but never allowing a true romance to take root. It is an injustice to those beauties, and it is an injustice to yourself because somewhere within the parade of women I’ve seen you usher in and out of your bed is the one person who might finally quieten the storm we all know rages inside your head.

aumildar \aw-mil-DAHR\, noun:

1. A manager or agent.

2. A collector of revenue.

James enjoyed the game. It kept him young. As aumildar for Klemmons Chevy Motors, he roamed the hills of West Virginia, dodging buckshot and vicious dogs while collecting back payments or whisking the vehicles away under cover of night. He’d been stabbed twice, winged by one air rifle and blown up when he accidentally ignited a fire in a van turned meth lab.

couthie \KOO-thee\, adjective:

Agreeable; genial; kindly.

Watching Django Unchained amidst a predominantly black audience, I was tempted to walk to the front of the movie screen and formally apologize for my ancestry, but realized that this guilt was the primary reason that the slave story had not been fully embraced as a necessary sub-genre of Old West(or Old Southern, rather) cinema. As we walked out of the theater with African American families spanning four generations, it was a couthie and amused atmosphere. I was just another person that shared the experience of a wonderfully entertaining and satisfying movie. It is good to remember the evil perpetrated by plantation owners within my lineage, but guilt shouldn’t dampen my enjoyment of a great story.

violescent \vahy-uh-LES-uhnt\, adjective:

Tending to a violet color: a violescent twilight sky.

The moment stretched for an eternity. The boardmembers, who had been yelling at one another just a few seconds prior, were stunned and couldn’t meet Clint in the eyes. Clint’s face deepened into a dark, violescent blush as beaded on his forehead. He glanced at the windows and wondered how fast he would have to run to just leap through the glass and into the sweet, loving embrace of death 20 stories below. Instead, he muttered an apology, sat down, dipped his head and waited for the waves of laughter that were imminent. The CEO later called Clint a “genius” for sacrificing his pride in order to break the tension, saving the company in the process.

advert \ad-VURT\, verb:

1. To remark or comment; refer (usually followed by to): He adverted briefly to the news of the day.

2. To turn the attention (usually followed by to): The committee adverted to the business at hand.

“Yes, I appreciate the threat that Skeletor poses and the need for you to take the form of He-Man,” Man-at-Arms explained to Prince Adam. “But I would like to advert back to the matter at hand, which is why I don’t understand the need for a loin cloth.”

“It comes with the costume,” Prince Adam responded, innocently.

“Yes, but maybe we could do without that part of the costume,” Man-At-Arms sighed.

“But then I would be naked from the waste down.”

“No, that’s not what I … You would wear something else instead. We have pants technology. It’s just … when we are in battle, it is a bit off putting to see that – much of you. Do you understand?”

“Teela doesn’t seem to mind.”

exordium \ig-ZAWR-dee-uhm\, noun:

1. The beginning of anything.

2. The introductory part of an oration, treatise, etc.

The teenager slipped through the back porch sliding door and hushed the Datsun trotting toward him with a disapproving growl. Silence from the parent’s room inspired a hopeful smirk followed by a peppermint schnapps burp. When the teenager cracked open the door to his bedroom, there stood his mother and father. She wore a thin, silk robe, he wore only his white briefs and black dress socks.

The father cleared his throat and launched into an academic exordium about the documented dangers of underage drinking while the mother alternated between quiet sobs and furious scowls. Hours later, the sun rose on the small suburban house and the father wrapped up his thoughtful rebuke of young American excess. The mother shuffled to bed without a word. The father patted the boy on the shoulder and smiled.

“It could have been worse, had your mother had her way.”

compotation \kom-puh-TEY-shuhn\, noun:

An act or instance of drinking or tippling together.

The man was in love, a fact that left him deeply discomforted as he discretely plucked at a stray strand of her hair hugging the fabric of his coat. He considered slipping it into his pocket, just to keep a piece of her close, but flicked it down to the ground before looking back up to his table of friends in the midst of a productive night of argumentative compotation. They noticed the man was unusually quiet and passive and discussed this at length while the man lingered in the bathroom trading silly texts with his clandestine girlfriend. Half the group attributed it to some undefined heartache or general gloom, the other believed he had a touch of sickness. Of course, they were both right and they were both wrong.

This Week in Word of the Day/12-30-12

glissade \gli-SAHD\, verb:

1. To perform a glissade, a sliding or gliding step.

noun:

1. A skillful glide over snow or ice in descending a mountain, as on skis or a toboggan.

2. Dance. A sliding or gliding step.

Ron was haunted every anniversary by the memories of the wedding reception where a few too many glasses of champagne led him to tap into the long dormant well of breakdance moves such as the Running Man, Chinese Typewriter, Worm, Busstop and the Glissade he hadn’t utilized since watching “Breakin’ 2: Electrical Boogaloo” as an impressionable young child. Viewings of the horrifying wedding video was a family tradition Ron could do without.

tidings \TAHY-dingz\, noun:

News, information, or intelligence: sad tidings.

Good tidings were hard to come by from the lonely divorcee as he puttered around his house on his very first Christmas alone. Settling in for a proper, day long mope, he chilled some wine, sorted his video game collection and shut the door to the kids room to dampen the deafening echo of their absence.

avidity \uh-VID-i-tee\, noun:

1. Enthusiasm or dedication.

2. Eagerness; greediness.

With tremendous avidity, the boys ripped open the package containing a green screen and grabbed toy shotguns to begin preproduction of the post apocalyptic epic “Brains! And Other Delicacies”.

stridulous \STRIJ-uh-luhs\, adjective:

1. Also, strid·u·lant. Making or having a harsh or grating sound.

2. Pathology. Pertaining to or characterized by stridor.

Their eHarmony accounts matched on so many levels, they loved the same stupid movies and listened to the same obscure music, she shared his passion for gun control and space exploration. Yet, when they finally met and she first opened her mouth, the voice that came out was so high-pitched, projected and stridulous that distant hounds began howling and his wine glass shattered in his hand.

antepenultimate \an-tee-pi-NUHL-tuh-mit\, adjective:

1. Third from the end.

2. Of or pertaining to an antepenult.

noun:

1. An antepenult.

Always endeavoring to be honest, despite his many other faults, Ed jokingly told his family this would be his antepenultimate attempt at sobriety. They smirked and nodded, but understood. They knew Ed was not a bad person, they knew the demons chasing him deep into whiskey bottles and down dark alleyways with the wrong kind of folks, so they were willing to wait out as many failed attempts it would take him to finally pull his life together.

fastigiate \fa-STIJ-ee-it\, adjective:

1. Rising to a pointed top.

2. Zoology. Joined together in a tapering adhering group.

3. Botany. A. Erect and parallel, as branches. B. Having such branches.

A stern woman, in all respects, the children detested the librarian and ruthlessly joked about her bizarre hair style that was a towering, fastigated steeple of brown curls that closely resembled a birdhouse. Yet, when Carl’s dad came to school drunk, angry and hoping to take his child to Florida on a whim, the strict woman took a ruler to the massive bear of a man and beat him into sobbing and penitent submission.

anthropogenic \an-thruh-puh-JEN-ik\, adjective:

Caused or produced by humans: anthropogenic air pollution.

Julia thought that the historic meeting between humans and the alien race known as the Zaimus was going swimmingly. As lead ambassador, Julia discussed film, politics, art, music, and all the other successes of 6,000 years of culture. Little did she know that the Zaimus king decided to secretly research humanity’s “greatest anthropogenic achievement”: the internet. After eight hours of talking cats, shots to the groin, and German porn, the Zaimus quietly left Earth in their spacecraft and blew it up from a distance to keep it from infecting the rest of the universe.

Geek-O-Rama Loves LDHS

Check out a review of one of our latest offerings, The Little Dixie Horror Show! Read the review HERE!

This Week in Word of the Day/12-23-12

douce \doos\, adjective:

Sedate; modest; quiet.

Bumblebee loved his modest house tucked snugly inside a small, douce suburb outside the Cybertron capitol. He loved his quiet life, far from the battle lines still raging across the galaxy.

Decommissioned after 200 years of faithful service, Bumblebee’s battered body wasn’t fit for service, something his wife/helicopter kept reminding him every time he yelled at the smug news anchors.

The nightmares didn’t haunt him much anymore, outside of Independence Day when the fireworks sent him into a panic and he drank fermented energon until his hands stopped shaking.

It really was the peace he struggled with the most. While patching the fence after his dog/tank punched through it again while chasing squirrels/muskrats, Bumblebee was tempted to shoot his energy cannon into the air until the police showed, just to see if they’d have the nuts to take on a war hero.

It would take time to assimilate. That’s what Ratchet kept telling him. All Bumblebee knew for sure was that the only thing keeping him from joining the jalopies slowly falling apart at the VA was the brave and tireless love of his wife, who he knew he didn’t deserve.

decathect \dee-kuh-THEKT\, verb:

To withdraw one’s feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss: He decathected from her in order to cope with her impending death.

As Rebecca walked the woods, stripped and slumbering through the long winter season, she glanced down at small, clover, animal tracks pressed into the damp mud. She couldn’t help but wander what Darrell would think, what he would see, what knowledge he could pull from such a simple, innocent footfall. Darrell. Darrell. Darrell. Her love, the savior that once swept into her barren land and brought light where there was once only anguish. Yet, she struggled to decathect from her dear Darrell in anticipation of the worst, for she knew “The Walking Dead” well enough to know that the writers would extinguish her lover’s light just to satiate the bloodthirsty and heartless masses many times worse than any zombie herd.

algid \AL-jid\, adjective:

Cold; chilly.

“This isn’t love,” she whispered as her body slid into Steven’s sleeping bag. He startled at her soft, naked skin nestling up against him. Outside the thin fabric of the tent, the algid December winds whistled through the pine trees. They listened wordlessly to the dull blasts of distant artillery rounds pounding into the withering metropolis they once called homed. He tried not to think of the dwindling food stores in the back of his truck, the death camps scattered around the suburbs, his father – the traitor. Instead he focused on her soft breathing, the way she pressed against him a little more urgently with each breath. They were going to make love. They would probably be dead by February, but he no longer cared. Their lives would be forgotten amidst the scale and horror of this ridiculous war, but tonight would be eternal, powerful, something that all the hate and vile of the world could never kill.

counterblast \koun-ter-blast\, noun:

An unrestrained and vigorously powerful response to an attacking statement.

With fire and conviction, the pastor declared the great plague as God’s counterblast to modern society’s decadence. She pounded her fist against the Bible to punctuate her arguments, she wept openly at the loss of her boy, she pleaded with the depleted flock of parishioners scattered across the pews of the massive sanctuary to cling to the anchor of faith no matter how violently the storm raged. In truth, even the pastor didn’t see the grand vision of Love and Justice promised in the book clutched in her trembling fingers. Instead, she saw only chaos. She would never admit it aloud just as she would never shutter the church’s windows and bolt its doors. No matter how many times desperate souls scouring the city’s rotting carcass looted the church’s shelves and carried off its Bibles for kindling, the pastor would never waver from her devotion because, if the plague finally ended, there must be some light left in this world to guide humanity back out of the darkness.

echolalia \ek-oh-LEY-lee-uh\, noun:

1. The imitation by a baby of the vocal sounds produced by others, occurring as a natural phase of childhood development.

2. Psychiatry. The uncontrollable and immediate repetition of words spoken by another person.

Widely considered one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Tatyana was protected within an impenetrable protective bubble by her handlers, publicists, and agent. This created a mysterious allure that held her aloft the cut throat fray that was the 1980′s high fashion industry. In reality, Tatyana was shielded from the press and her adoring fans because of a crippling fear of crowded rooms and a persistent case of

echolalia that made interaction with anyone but her small circle of trusted friends impossible.

whinge \hwinj\, verb:

To complain; whine.

Charles patiently listened to the whinging girl as she recounted the series of misfortunes that recently befell her. She’d only pulled him from a lazy day of Batman movies and listless, half-hearted attempts at press releases, so he was glad for the unexpected phone call. Yet, he couldn’t quite place where he’d met this “Kristina”. After a few minutes of confusion, he finally gleaned that this was a cold call from a lady of ill repute. Stunned and a little embarrassed that it took him so long to realize he was being propositioned, Charles politely ended the call and spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what he’d done to land on her calling list.

lagan \LAG-uhn\, noun:

Anything sunk in the sea, but attached to a buoy or the like so that it may be recovered.

“Okay, I don’t really understand. You are wanting to take this massive creature who rampaged through Tokyo, not once, but four times, costing 15 billion dollars worth of damage…” – Nathan

“Yen, they use yen over there,” Ted

“Whatever. So, this creature we don’t understand, couldn’t stop and, as far as we know, only stopped destroying cities because it got bored and fell asleep. Instead of destroying the monster, you want to attach a weight on one end and a giant buoy on the other like it’s simple lagan that we can check up on him from time to time? That’s the plan?” – Nathan

“You just don’t understand science.” – Ted

This Week in Word of the Day: 12-16

My daily writing indulgence originally posted on my Facebook page:

moor \moor\, verb:

1. To fix firmly; secure.

2. To secure (a ship, boat, dirigible, etc.) in a particular place, as by cables and anchors or by lines.

3. To moor a ship, small boat, etc.

4. To be made secure by cables or the like.

Blessed with an outsized stash of optimism, David stocked up on Zima, glow sticks and his lucky Hulk swimming trunks for a trip to Lake Havasu for spring break. He wore an eager smile and liberal smears of thick, chalky SPF 100 sunblock as he paddled his inflatable raft through the maze of boats blasting house music and overflowing with hot girls. He moored wherever he could and always approached with a hearty “What’s up D Bags!”, assuming they would respect him for his candor.

cruciverbalist \kroo-suh-VUR-buh-list\, noun:

A designer or aficionado of crossword puzzles.

Once Matthew finally succumbed to his long, brave bout with cancer, Wendy began her project. The aged cruciverbalist laid the foundation years earlier, a massive crossword 23,000 words long, scrawled across every wall of her house. Buried deep within, she encoded a love poem that Matthew used to recite to her in a hush so as not to wake the kids sleeping next door. Those same children, now fully grown, scanned the walls littered with little, empty boxes and worried. She let them because it really was none of their business anyway.

adiaphorous \ad-ee-AF-er-uhs\, adjective:

Doing neither good nor harm, as a medicine.

“No, I do see it, I promise you that I do,” the man grumbled, his fingers lightly touching hers for a brief, electric moment before she withdrew her hand. “My life,” he continued, “has been, for all its fire and all its hope, merely an adiaphorous middle road. My few moments of bold and selfless sacrifice balanced out by the thousand acts of sloth, avarice, and resignation. But, if you stay, if you provide me a rock to anchor to, I promise my drifting purpose will snap into place. I will begin the life I was destined. I will begin today, this very second and I will never stray because I will face it without fear – with you.”

“I don’t believe you are looking for purpose,” she whispered, gently wiping at a tear clinging to her eyelash. “You are just afraid of drowning and trying to escape the waves by crawling on top of mine.”

apopemptic \ap-uh-PEMP-tik\, adjective:

1. Pertaining to leave-taking or departing; valedictory.

noun:

1. Obsolete. A farewell address; valedictory.

After 35 years, Felix was finally stepping down as Dungeon Master for Thursday night’s D & D session. In his 2.3 hour, tear-filled and vaguely threatening apopemptic address, Felix cited “stress” and “spending more time with his kids” as reasons for early retirement. Everyone knew what that really meant, especially since he didn’t have any kids, unless you count his pack of yapping, show-quality Pomeranians. As expected, he showed up the very next week and, once it was explained that he’d been replaced by Michelle, the police were called to remove the irate Felix from the property after he’d attempted to set Michelle’s car on fire – again.

buttress \BUH-tris\, verb:

1. To give encouragement or support to (a person, plan, etc.).

2. To support by a buttress; prop up.

noun:

1. Any external prop or support built to steady a structure by opposing its outward thrusts, especially a projecting support built into or against the outside of a masonry wall.

2. Any prop or support.

3. A thing shaped like a buttress, as a tree trunk with a widening base.

4. A bony or horny protuberance, especially on a horse’s hoof.

Kim knew, on the surface anyway, that The Eyeball was just a forgotten shack in a small, overgrown field in a sleepy, rural town. But it also represented a moment, a relic from a time, before the highway moved, when her town had something important. The Eyeball was a weigh station for musicians passing through the vast expanse of the Panhandle. Country kids from three counties packed into the Eyeball every Friday and Saturday night, roaring along with whatever punk, New Wave, garage rock, or ska band that somehow heard about the rickety venue buttressed by salvaged two by fours on one side and an abandoned truck axle on the other. It held impossibly, a portal to the outside world just awaiting the love and devotion of the next generation desperate to escape the isolation of the countryside, if only for one loud, visceral night at a time.

axial \AK-see-uhl\, adjective:

1. Situated in or on the line about which a rotating body turns.

2. Of, pertaining to, characterized by, or forming an axis: an axial relationship.

Maybe it was the way the sun burned over the forested horizon, casting a velvet red glow across her face. Maybe it was getting battered while taking an axial ride stuffed into a barrel kicked off the side of the hill by his brother. It could even just be the peyote, but whatever the reason, Jonsey suddenly believed his second cousin, Louanne, was just the pretties thing he’d ever seen and he was determined to make her his bride.

Now In Stock!!! Wonderboy Serials: Volume 2

Image by Buddy D. Oswald, bombsawayart.com

Me – WB vol. II, only Fourteen bones.

You – Oh my God, no way!

Me – Way!

You – How do I buy it?

Me – Request it at your local bookstore or click the link below to have it shipped to your home!

You – That’s so easy, it’s almost unbelievable!

Me – Believe it, my friend.

The Wonderboy Serials: Volume 2


The Wonderboy Serials: Volume 1 and 2

Geek – o – Rama reviews Volume 2 of The Wonderboy Serials

A sample of the review posted HERE!

“Once again, I was drawn into the world of Wonderboy and found myself glued to it for long periods of time while I read Season 2 of the serials.  The chapters kept me looking for more, urging my mind to get to the next piece of the tale.  This was especially the case more towards the end, as things really began to pick up intensely.  When I finished, I found my mind blown and double checking to see if there was more to read.

The Bad
I had little to no problem with this second collection of the books.  Personally the only thing that really stuck out was the large amount of dialogue in the beginning, but there could be far worse things to get past in a book.

The Summary
This was just as much fun to read as the first one.  If you aren’t convinced by the first season of how amazing this story is, the second should do the trick.  Halfway through reading, I started to think “wow, this would be great to see as a film”  Not many books end up having me wish there was a movie version, and the Wonderboy story is now among that short list.”
- Brian, Geek – 0 – Rama

This Week in Word of the Day – 12/2/12

From my daily writing indulgence …

fainaigue \fuh-NEYG\, verb:

1. To shirk; evade work or responsibility.

2. To renege at cards.

A gentleman tramp in the finest Chaplin tradition, Reginald saw himself as an indispensable facet of the American experience. It was his role in society to remind, with a pleasant smile and in educated diction, that the dream does not touch us all. He did not have to resort to brutishness or emotional blackmail while undertaking the fine art of panhandling, instead projecting the gentile and accommodating spirit from his days as a hotel concierge. Being a vagrant was not fainaiguing a livelihood, but the most serious of all occupations. It is to sacrifice health, comfort, and fortune to live as a reminder of the moral obligation of prosperity.

svelte \SFELT\, adjective:

1. Slender, especially gracefully slender in figure.

2. Suave; blandly urbane.

Being a svelte and refined man about town, Reginald strolled the bars, clubs, and other gathering grounds of the fairer sex with unflappable confidence that, despite a horse’s overbite and skin as pockmarked as the moon, his over-sized charisma and silver tongue would win the heart of even the most elusive prey. To the astonishment of his friends as well as the women who wandered into his sights, he was always right in the end.

rime \RAHYM\, noun:

A coating of tiny, white, granular ice particles, caused by the rapid freezing of water droplets.

The face paralyzed him. A mournful gaze into the horizon, a thin sheen of rime glistening in the morning sun. Paul was not a sentimental man, but the statue’s woeful eyes unsettled the last memory of his mother as she watched him leave home at the age of 16, abandoning the frail woman to the viscous tyrant that replaced his father. Paul never questioned his decision because he’d come so far, achieved so much, but the guilt ran deep and, for that long, cold winter morning as he stared up at the cemetery angel, his slumbering heart stirred and urged him down a new path that would guide him away from the bustling big city and back to the swamps of Louisiana.

biblioklept \BIB-lee-uh-klept\, noun:

A person who steals books.

Meredith’s shattered heart left her withered and hemorrhaging, barely able to manage a smile when her young son scampered in the room. He didn’t know and she had no plans of telling him until she couldn’t avoid it any longer. In the following days, she adopted a simple ritual to force her day into motion. Waking with the dawn, walking the two miles to the local library and slipping a copy of Jeffrey Eugenides’ “Middlesex” under her shirt. After skirting around the sensors, she would read five pages and then return the book to the outside bookdrop. The harmless biblioklept couldn’t say why the ritual was important, but it was and it held her fragile life together so she could be strong for her child and begin rebuilding their lives.

Trundle

n.

1. A small wheel or roller.

2. The motion or noise of rolling.

3. A trundle bed.

4. A low-wheeled cart; a dolly.

v. trun·dled, trun·dling, trun·dles

v.tr.

1. To push or propel on wheels or rollers.

2. To spin; twirl.

v.intr.

To move along by or as if by rolling or spinning.Never has the Peter Pan complex been undertaken with such elegance and resilience than by Pat and Betty Wilhelm. The vibrant and ageless couple have been fixtures of the Beatnicks, the hippies, the punks, the New Wavers and the grunge movement. Now, as Betty trundles Pat in his wheelchair through Occupy protests and Burning Man festivals, the happy pair still dance with the abandon of children. Even if their bodies are tethered, more than ever, to the uncaring earth, their spirits still soar into the either.

empurple \em-PUR-puhl\, verb:

1. To color or become purple or purplish.

2. To darken or redden; flush.

The boy pulled her into his arms and kissed her madly. In front of her family, in front of his friends, with her every possession stuffed into a Uhaul headed for San Francisco, the moment she’d dreamed of had finally arrived. When he slid away and breathed a heavy goodbye, she was too stunned to reply. Her father had empurpled with rage and her mother was trying not to cry. No one said a thing. Instead, they piled into the family sedan and she watched her first great love disappear from her life forever.

alexipharmic \uh-lek-suh-FAHR-mik\, adjective:

1. Warding off poisoning or infection; antidotal; prophylactic.

2. An alexipharmic agent, especially an internal antidote.

The young man joined the priesthood in the belief that the clergy was the only alexipharmic answer to the intellectual corruption of love. With his passion stifled by spiritual commitment, he was certain his purpose would sharpen and the agony of heartache would be a thing of the past, but that all fell apart the moment Mary Elizabeth sat down in his confessional booth.

 

My Vacation as Parallax, Pt. 8

Repost From Clap Your Hands, Say Meh from Marty Peercy.

I ran out of money in Chicago.

I had a reserve of eighty-something bucks through PayPal that I set to transfer to my bank account, knowing it would take three days. I left Chicago on Wednesday, the fifth day of September. I spent the day driving through Illinois and Missouri on my way to Kansas City to visit my best friend.

I mention the date because it is significant to me and to this series of essays I’ve been writing about travel.

This was the 55th anniversary of the publication of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I am unashamed to embrace my pretension on this point: I love On the Road. It was one of the three most formative reading experiences of my life. The books I’ve loved most have always been about travel, ever since I was a child.
READ THE REST HERE!

This week in Word of the Day: 11-25-12

Taken from my daily writing indulgence, originally posted on my Facebook page:

fob \FOB\, noun:

1. A short chain, usually with a medallion or similar ornament, worn hanging from a pocket.

2. A small pocket just below the waistline in trousers for a watch, keys, change, etc.

verb:

1. To cheat someone by substituting something spurious or inferior.

2. To put (someone) off by deception or trickery.

“Another log for the fire,” the man grunted as he reached into his chest, pulled out his shattered heart, plucked it from the veins like a pocket watch from a fob, then tossed it into the fireplace. He watched the flames lick away at the fleshy mound, the blood sizzling and popping. He closed his eyes to focus on the heat. “I will grow another,” he whispered as his skin paled to a ghostly white. “It will be ugly, weak, and malformed, but it will work well enough to keep me alive.”

giblets \JIB-lits\, noun:

The heart, liver, gizzard, and the like, of a fowl, often cooked separately.

Everyone knew how hard the divorce had been on Laine, so when she appeared from the kitchen with a tray piled up with candied giblets, the only reply from her party guests were a dozen forced smiles and two more popped bottles of wine before chocking down the poor woman’s culinary atrocity.

agape \ah-GAH-pey\, noun:

1. Unselfish love of one person for another without sexual implications.

2. The love of Christians for other persons, corresponding to the love of God for humankind.

She was once a brash, angry, and sexually charged young ruffian known for her short skirts, bruised knuckles and run-ins with the small town’s sheriff’s department. That all changed when she married the wrong man. Year’s of emotional and physical abuse diminished her. She finally awoke and clawed her way out of the misery, stumbling out into the world alone, for the first time in her life. The hatred that plagued her throughout her youth had tempered to a rigid resolve, digging out the foolish love that had chained her to a monster and replacing it with a genuine and selfless agape that led her to become a strident champion of women’s shelters. She was no pacifist, though, as she proved by wielding a tire iron and a broken beer bottle to chase away a fuming, drunk husband looking for his wife.

balsamaceous \bawl-suh-MEY-shuhs\, adjective:

Possessing healing or restorative qualities.

It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love. No, he was an old man now and romance seemed an anachronism, a relic of a past life that no longer fit in with his lazy afternoons at darkened bars and quiet, lonely meals staring at the chair that once held a wife – dead twelve years now. With this new woman, it couldn’t be love. It was too late, his body too worn, his time too short, yet she had a beaming, balsamaceous smile that warmed him to his soul. When she walked into the room, his body moved a little faster, his ears listened a little better and even the doc said the cancer wasn’t spreading as fast anymore. It was probably a coincidence, but he decided he’d visit her room in the nursing home a few more times a week, just in case.

potvaliancy \POT-val-yuhn-see\, noun:

Brave only as a result of being drunk.

It was a moment only made possible by the fifth of peppermint schnapps, but potvaliancy or no, Theo’s life trajectory swerved dramatically the moment he finally stood up to Reggie at the FFA annual bonfire on Eliza’s family farm. The lanky son of Austrian immigrants stood no chance against the hulking farm-boy and, by the time Reggie was pulled off, Theo had suffered a broken arm, shattered nose and three missing teeth. But Theo never stopped fighting. Never. That moment would be just the first chapter of the epic legend of Theopold Lognowski, D.F.A.

amygdaliform \uh-MIG-duh-luh-fawrm\, adjective:

Shaped like an almond.

“Amygdaliform Defense” entered legend immediately following the surprise acquittal of a quiet, unassuming boy with a drifting left eye and a timid, self-deprecating smile. Well liked in his school despite his shy nature, no one could have guessed the boy capable of multiple homicide during a nervous breakdown on the final round of the school Spelling Bee when he was given the now notorious word, “Amygdaliform”. After the rampage, with the blood of school administrators dripping from his trembling fingers, he calmly walked back to the microphone and muttered, before the gasping audience, “What the hell was that, English language?”