This Week in Word of the Day/2-17

kinchin \kin-chin\, noun:

a child.

Seth was always a precocious and curious kinchin. A challenge to raise, impossible to educate, Seth didn’t let lackluster grades, heavy sighs, and an absent father figure diminish his sense of destiny.

So, when the robots from space invaded, Seth had seen enough movies to know that a kid always factored into the ultimate victory.

“Oh yeah?” Lieutenant Cleveland grunted as the bombs pummeled the city streets outside the bunker. “How do you know your not going to be one of those kids that just gets in the way and gets people killed?”

“Not today,” Seth grumbled, lifting the oversized helmet back over his eyes. “Not today.”

lollapalooza \lol-uh-puh-LOO-zuh\, noun:

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

She was a dazzling lollapalooza, a fireworks display of eccentricities and difficult ideas. Every date felt like a bull ride – furious energy, mania, and the most thrilling experience of the man’s life.

And like every bull ride, it ended too soon with him sitting on his ass, licking his wounds as she barreled off into the distance.

mainour \MEY-ner\, noun:

a stolen article found on the person of or near the thief: to be taken with the mainour.

When the mother left for the last time, the father was at a loss of how to process his sense of abandonment, much less that of their twelve year old daughter.

Unable to be reasonable when talking about the void in their family, the father decided to erase all evidence of her. Familyportraits disappeared from the walls, dozens of her beloved knick knacks were boxed up and hidden in the attic along with her treasured jewelry collection. And, of course, the father would not, could not discuss the mother in any other way than the past tense, as if he was a widower.

And that was how he considered the mother: dead.

As months passed, the wounds only festered. He despaired as their daughter struggled in school and distanced herself from her friends.

One morning, as he woke the daughter for school, he eyed a small bracelet on her bedside table. A simple mainour secreted from a box in the attic. The mother wore it almost daily as evidenced by the tarnished brass where it once caressed her delicate wrists.

The daughter pretended to sleep as she waited to see how the father would react. The father sighed, wiped a single tear away, then kissed the daughter on the head, leaving the bracelet where it rested.

She dressed, slipping on the bracelet last, then joined her father on the back porch to sip coffee like a grown-up and watch the most beautiful sunrise of her young life.

nuque \nook\, noun:

the back of the neck.

I want to be famous. That has always been true. From early childhood, I’ve daydreamed my fabulous successes, interviewed myself over the astonishing works I’ve created, and planned out my life once the world finally recognized my genius.

Yet, what do I do to grasp fame? To clutch it by the hair, force it to the pavement, stick my knee on its chest, and claim it once and for all?

Nothing.

I sit in my writing chair, stewing in the morning sun, knowing that the only powerful thought I will have this entire day is how I miss staring at the smooth, flawless skin on her delicate nuque, wondering if I can steal a kiss without waking her.

obnubilate \ob-NOO-buh-leyt\, verb:

to cloud over; becloud; obscure.

Further obnubilating the truth about what happened that night was the unprecedented convergence of penguins of all species on the shores of the city. They puttered through the streets by the tens of thousands in comic elegance, like a giant, roving cocktail mixer. The usually jaded citizens watched the animals in awe as they mingled harmlessly for two hours, then escaped back into the bay.

It would be hours before anyone realized that $1.3 billion from five major banks escaped with them.

paraph \PAR-uhf\, noun:

a flourish made after a signature, as in a document, originally as a precaution against forgery.

In this dead world, it was the pieces of the past that kept Kim alive. Some clung to hope, to the rumors that the dust cloud was thinning and the sunlight would soon break free, but Kim had stopped looking for the dawn long ago.

Instead, she sorted family photos with the husband shot by raiders, the son that disappeared while foraging for food, and the youngest boy who was waiting out the last days with her.

She was fascinated by documents, contracts, birth certificates. They seemed even more real: the car they bought two years before everything collapsed, the vaccination records scribbled out by their aging and distracted doctor, her husband’s eccentric signature on the mortgage with the ridiculous paraph on the end like a childish smirk.

She cherished report cards and essays, insurance verification cards and expired passports even more than school photos and mall portraits because the documents were footprints. Should this planet ever cough up this dust and sprout new life, something would find Kim’s treasure of paperwork and would not just know that this family existed, but they would know how and why they existed.

quittance \KWIT-ns\, noun:

1. recompense or requital.

2. discharge from a debt or obligation.

3. a document certifying discharge from debt or obligation, as a receipt.

Julio smelt like sweat and a dried out condom, just like always. His fingers were so fat and stubby that they struggled to grip the pen as it scribbled onto a greasy scrap ripped off a fast food sack. He wheezed with each breath, the sound of a man that wouldn’t have survived in humanity’s primitive days, but in this modern world, he was a king, the new Buddha image of a corrupt age of abundance.

Outside the office door, the pounding bass thumped out a weary, overworked hair metal ballad older than the 19 year old that was pealing off her clothes on stage, pretending to have a good time.

Julio stopped writing and glanced at a monitor to make sure the girl took off her top. They had problems with that among the day shift girls when it was slow in the club.

“Attah, girl,” he whispered, then scratched out a few more lines on the paper and slid it across the desk, leaving his hand pressed on the paper so Chloe couldn’t retrieve the quittance without touching his fingertips.

“See you soon,” Julio grunted with a smirk.

“Never again,” Chloe whispered as she stood and turned.

She tried to escape, but the door was locked.

“Hit the button please,” Chloe muttered.

She tried the door again, but it wouldn’t yield. She was trapped in the room with his wheezing, his sour, chemical sweat.

“Hit the button, please,” Chloe repeated.

Her forehead rested against the cold metal door. The tears began silently. She couldn’t let him see the panic.

“Hit the button please.”

A harsh buzz. Her hand jerked at the handle and she was gone.