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
