This Week in Word of the Day/1-27-12

 

From my daily writing indulgence:

intemerate \in-TEM-er-it\, adjective:

Inviolate; undefiled; unsullied; pure.

She slept in a bed as empty and vast as the Sahara. She shuffled around a house with walls soaked with the echoes of a broken marriage. She ate breakfast off of dishes – wedding presents – whose emotional stain she could taste in every bite.

But the lively boy bounding through the house, clinging to a plastic sword, brimming with smiles and laughter was the intemerate oasis that the woman depended on for survival. Her face was barely breaching the waves as she gasped for the strength to live, but the boy would never allow her to drown and she could never let him know that he carried such a heavy burden.

antipathetic \an-ti-puh-THET-ik\, adjective:

1. Opposed, averse, or contrary; having or showing antipathy: They were antipathetic to many of the proposed changes .

2. Causing or likely to cause antipathy: The new management was antipathetic to all of us.

They were so cool. They were throwing away their lives as all teenagers should, if only they had the nerve and dedication. They were tailspinning properly, with wild abandon and a watchful eye on the end of their world – the only world that mattered. It started with earnest, antipathetic rebellion against all adults who wouldn’t buy them alcohol and quickly graduated to holding up convenience stores, mugging drug dealers, and stealing cars. It was a chaotic tumble into the darkest abyss and as she cradled his head, blood bubbling out of his chest with each breath, he managed one last smile.

“I knew you would outlive me. The war is over, now go be happy.”

brabble \BRAB-uhl\, verb:

1. To argue stubbornly about trifles; wrangle.

noun:

1. Noisy, quarrelsome chatter.

“I think about the brabbles,” James grunted as he felt the glare of St. Peter raining down on him. “The way we fought – all the time, over every little thing. I don’t know what it says in that stupid book of yours. I don’t really care. We loved it. The angst, the conflict, it bonded us. I loved her dearly. And we fought about you, does it say that? I fought for you, for all of this, and now that I am here, standing before the Gates of Heaven, I don’t know why. She isn’t in there, I know that for a fact. I don’t know if there is a hell, if you have her strapped to a rock, punishing her for not believing, but wherever she is, that’s where I want to be. I would rather fight with my wife for the rest of time, burning in a pool of fire than bow before a God that couldn’t look past one wrong answer from a woman so beautiful and brilliant as her.”

en règle \ahn RE-gluh\, adjective:

In order; according to the rules; correct.

As the youngest active grandmaster, Myranda skipped college to comb the world looking for worthy opponents to challenge her blossoming chess skills. Cocky, ruthless, and powerful, Myranda was not interested in friendships or public relation. To the contrary, she relished the rumblings that arose from the men’s club of elite chess every time she arrived at a tournament. She loved the way they turned their backs as she walked into the room and she wanted nothing more than to have the miserable horde rally behind any male that found himself opposite her as she crushed his pride.

Her grandfather loved Myranda’s status as villainess and kept every clipping, however it may portray her. They played every morning she was home and both pretended that his dwindling mental faculties sometimes resulted in moves that were not entirely en règle, so as long as she won in the end.

kibitzer \KIB-it-ser\, noun:

1. A giver of uninvited or unwanted advice.

2. A spectator at a card game who looks at the players’ cards over their shoulders, especially one who gives unsolicited advice.

3. A person who jokes, chitchats, or makes wisecracks, especially while others are trying to work or to discuss something seriously.

“You’re always chewing your hair, Myranda. That’s how you get stomach cancer.”

Myranda ignored her hovering husband and instead focused on the board. She allowed a brief glimpse up at the dark cloak hiding the horrifying visage of Death, patiently waiting its turn in the greatest chess match in Myranda’s career.

Playing for immortality. What greater prize could there be?

“You should move the Rancor next to the Queen,” her husband suggested as he cracked open another beer, inadvertently spraying a fine sheen across the chess board.

“The what?” Myranda sighed, not wanting to encourage the notorious kibitzer, but unable to resist.

“The Rancor, the castle thingie.”

“Rook?”

“Right. Move it by the Queen.”

“It doesn’t move that direction, darling.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’s what the rules say.”

“Since when?”

“Since chess was invented 500 years ago.”

“Oh. That’s dumb.”

“You’re dumb.”

“Am not.”

Myranda removed her glasses and rubbed at her eyes. Death leaned over the board and softly cleared its throat.

“You know,” Death whispered in a dry, sickly gasp. “If you want, I could kill him with a single touch.”

“No! He’s my husband, I love him!”

“But he’s an annoying idiot.”

Myranda’s eyes narrowed. She squared her shoulders and refocused on the board.

“You’re going down, you pretentious emo bastard.”

gorgonize \GAWR-guh-nahyz\, verb:

To affect as a Gorgon; hypnotize; petrify.

Stonegrove Retirement Home’s resident astrophysics scholar would die soon. After two decades of battle, Alzheimer’s Disease was finally winning the war and eradicating decades of star maps, comet paths, and theories on cosmic inflation carefully stored in his mind. Yet, in an odd twist of fate, it was the scholar’s happiest time. He would wake every morning and stumble upon a divine beauty quietly reading in the cramped study generously called a “living room.” Her stunning smile gorgonized the scholar for several long moments and he would search his cobwebbed brain for scattered hints of familiarity.

“You are my wife, aren’t you?” he would finally ask and be delighted by a slight, affirmative nod of the head.

“How very lucky am I?” he would grin.

They spent the days reintroducing the scholar to the world, and spent the nights gazing into the sky, reclaiming what they could of the vast knowledge tangled up in his brain.

“This was a perfect day,” she would whisper as he slowly eased to sleep. “And, tomorrow, we will do it all again.”

“How very lucky am I?”

allocution \al-uh-KYOO-shuhn\, noun:

1. A formal speech, especially one of an incontrovertible or hortatory nature.

2. A pronouncement delivered by the pope to a secret consistory, especially on a matter of policy or of general importance.

Ryan stood before his troops as a leader humbled by the weight of history while he delivered the most important allocution of his young military career. Never before had the backyard at 822 Chestnut Street faced such dire days since the fiend Mikey Landsworth moved in with his vast armies of Transformers.

“Robots in disguise, indeed,” Ryan huffed, as he glared at Mikey through the chain link fence. “But whether hiding as a car, plane, dinosaur, or insect, there is no disguising villainy!”

“Mom!” Mickey yelled as he ran inside. “That kid is being weird again.”