This Week in Word of the Day – 07/21/13

fribble \FRIB-uhl\, verb:

1. to act in a foolish or frivolous manner; trifle.

2. to waste foolishly (often followed by away): He fribbled away one opportunity after another.

noun:

1. a foolish or frivolous person; trifler.

2. anything trifling or frivolous.

Through the thick, translucent slab that passed as a window in the bunker, the young man gazed at the massive orange sun. The ancestral videos showed a soft, warming yellow orb that nourished and protected. They worshiped it, welcoming it every morning and celebrating the arrival of summer when it lingered in the sky the longest.

It was difficult to understand since the man grew up with this ugly, angry, monstrous star that would eventually be his executioner.

The young man’s girlfriend was pregnant. The heat shields were failing and the crops grown in the caverns were dying after the underground stream dried up.

They had weeks left and the community of 243 were hopelessly fribbling away the final days.

He’d considered walking out to face the sun and die quickly rather than starving out, but she came to him in the night, waking him with tears in her eyes.

“There is a way!” she exclaimed with a manic smile. “There is a way off the planet!”

There wasn’t, the young man knew. The last of the ships blasted up into the safety of space decades ago, taking the rich and powerful to find a new world deep within the stars.

Regardless, he agreed to leave with her in the morning.

She still slept in his bed as the sun rose, perhaps the last good sleep she will ever have.

Taking a pregnant woman spelunking in the depths of the Earth was surely a death sentence, but a better way to die than withering near the surface.

Plus, she had a plan. A foolish plan, perhaps, but it had been so long since anyone had dared to hope for more than prolonging the inevitable. It was worth dying for.

scabrous \SKAB-ruhs\, adjective:

1. full of difficulties.

2. having a rough surface because of minute points or projections.

3. indecent or scandalous; risqué; obscene: scabrous books.

“They call them tooth fairies,” Jack’s guide told him as the lumbering, fat-bellied beast pressed it’s long trunk against Jack and inhaled, nearly pulling the buttons off Jack’s shirt.

“Why is that?” Jack asked timidly as the giant animal, standing nearly nine feet tall while still on all fours, continued sniffing at every crevice of Jack’s person.

“Feel its hide,” the guide said, face widening in a bright, amused smile as he waved away flies.

“It’s not going to bite off my hand, will it?”

“This one is named Lady, and she is gentle,” the guide answered, still smiling in the way all boys smile when they are playing a trick. “She is the pack’s matriarch and she fears no man. Certainly not an Earthling.”

Jack gently pressed his palm behind Lady’s tall, sharply pointed ears to feel her mud red and deceptively scabrous hide, like a low grit sandpaper.

“Those are teeth, my friend,” the guide said. “Millions of them, constantly growing on its hide. Whatever it wants to eat, it rubs against and softens up so it doesn’t have to chew much.”

Jack pulled away his hand and looked up into the black eyes of the Tooth Fairy.

“What do they eat?” Jack asked.

“Trees, shrubs, and war profiteers,” the guide answered, the smile vanishing. “But you are none of these things, so you have nothing to worry about.”

“Right,” Jack answered weakly. “How can Lady tell someone is a war profiteer?”

“I tell her.”

gobbet \GOB-it\, noun:

1. a lump or mass.

2. a fragment or piece, especially of raw flesh.

“It’s not easy feeling wasted by this world,” the lanky cowboy grumbled as he circled the pool table to spit a gobbet of tobacco juice into a styrofoam cup sitting dangerously close to his beer.

The grizzled, sun-dried man looked the young woman dead in the eyes, his grey beard showing years of tobacco stains dripping down his chin. He smirked as he chalked his cue. She looked away to focus on her own table.

“Genius doesn’t sit well with most people, darling,” he continued, undeterred. “You’re marked for scorn because they are afraid of things they don’t understand. You are better than they are, and they know it. Half of them will want to capitalize on your genius, the other half will want to destroy it. Chances are they will both get their’s in time, they usually do. You might be the exception.”

The cowboy leaned over his table like a tarantula preparing for a kill.

“Maybe,” he tacked on.

He steadied, struck the cue ball and banked the nine twice before sinking it in the corner pocket.

The young woman quickly looked away before the cowboy leaned up from the table.

“There are worlds for people like you,” the cowboy muttered, returning to his spit cup. It was as unseemly to watch as it would be to follow the man to a urinal. And the way he spit, the sound of it.

The young woman cringed and considered tabbing out, but refused to surrender to the creep. She forced herself to focus on the cue ball, to close out his presence. Her mind shot a line through the white mass, across the green expanse, and into the five ball, a quarter off center. The line emerged on the opposite side of the five and plunged into the black void of the side pocket.

The cowboy glanced over her table, waiting. The balls struck, the five glancing the right pad of the side pocket and settling a few centimeters from dropping.

“Rats,” she whispered, refusing to look at the cowboy,

“You will find your place,” the cowboy said. “Keep the fire burning and you will reach home. It’s lonely now, but it’s always lonely when you are young.”

poetaster \POH-it-as-ter\, noun:

an inferior poet; a writer of indifferent verse.

It seemed everyone wanted to be a dragonslayer in those days. What else were you going to do? Professional sports and movies were a thing of the past. The global economy was in the crapper, so unless you were a doctor, a priest, or in construction, your chances of securing one of those fire retardant mansions on thehill were zilch unless you were able to down a dragon or two.

It all changed in my city, though, and all because of Wendy. She was this brainy pacifist, which was real funny because her pops was one of those obnoxious poetasters that followed dragonslayers around, writing awful ballads about their everyday exploits that they would then sell to fans and/or newspapers at ten cents a word.

Wendy was horrified by the dragon-slaying industry and a really intolerable know-it-all mixed with a stubborn contrarianist, so she could be a handful. Nice girl though. Real pretty in a stubborn-as-a-mule kind of way.

She pulled me out of class one day – she was a teacher’s pet who never needed a hall pass – and said “Friend, it’s due time we saved this stupid world.”

Yeah, I know, that’s just how she talks.

I was game since saving the world couldn’t be any worse than eighth grade English, so we set out into the Wastelands.

You see, she had this theory about dragons, this idea that, if she was right, it could potentially change everything.

And she was right.

And it did.

rendezvous \RAHN-duh-voo, -dey-; Fr. rahn-de-VOO\, verb:

1. to assemble at an agreed time and place.

noun:

1. an agreement between two or more persons to meet at a certain time and place.

2. the meeting itself.

3. a place designated for a meeting or assembling, especially of troops or ships.

4. a meeting of two or more spacecraft in outer space.

5. a favorite or popular gathering place.

You make it sound as if we are common criminals! – Mother

Common? No. I would say there is nothing “common” about us. – Father

Have you considered the possibility that you are over-reacting? – Mother

If that boy finds out who we are, we will have to kill him. So, no, I do not believe I am over-reacting. – Father

It is just a summer romance. A harmless moonlight rendezvous, perhaps a stolen kiss, but nothing more. Let her have a little fun for once in her life! Our daughter understands her place in this world. She will not jeopardize that boy’s life for a silly fling. – Mother

Did you not jeopardize mine? – Father

… You are alive. – Mother

True, I am alive, but what kind of life is this? – Father

The same as any. We raise children, we pay bills, we complain about taxes. A life is a life is a life. – Mother

Yes, but my life will last quite a bit longer, adrift on this ocean of blood. – Father

bushwa \BOOSH-wah, -waw\, noun:

rubbishy nonsense; baloney; bull: You’ll hear a lot of boring bushwa about his mechanical skill.

Four men set out from Lisbon in four directions to carry the news of the impending arrival of the Almighty. With these messengers went the full might of the Catholic treasury.

Though news of the Rapture was rolled out in the normal news sources in a multi-pronged media blitz, it fell on these four men to approach the church leaders, cultural luminaries, and intellectual heavy-hitters and convince them that, after 2,000 years, the blessed moment had finally arrived.

A half-clever crime novelist and part-time theologian coined the nickname “Bushwa Brigade” after meeting with the northwardly messenger. In an op-ed in a London tabloid, he summarized his thoughts simply with: “Portugal? Really?”

Israelis would not even receive the Easterly messenger, deeply offended that the rapture would begin anywhere outside their borders. The Egyptians and Indians both welcomed the southerly messenger with the detached and jaded curiosity only possible from cultures that have hosted menageries of gods and god-kings so vast, even the divine couldn’t tell themselves apart.

The westerly messenger did quite well in America, but that land was always game for a good End of the World tale. The fever burned out quickly, as it did with all celebrities and the poor messenger found little interest after the third news cycle.

It became clear that the job of spreading the Almighty’s Good News was not going as well as could be expected and even the churches were annoyed since they had no idea how to budget for a year involving the departure of at least half of their flock to heaven, Tahiti, or wherever it was the Christ planned on taking them.

By the time He finally arrived on a white chariot drawn by a hundred white horses with fire burning in their eyes, all sweeping across the sky like a low hanging comet, He was less “thief in the night” and more “rock star in his third act”. The spectacle had been a joint decision by the Vatican and the archangels to really drive home how big a deal this was.

The world gazed up in mild appreciation of a good arial display, but quickly returned to their regularly scheduled programming.

clangor \KLANG-er, KLANG-ger\, noun:

1. a loud, resonant sound; clang.

2. clamorous noise.

verb:

1. to make a clangor; clang.

Heads turned to the distant clangor from the bell tower. Elijah straightened his back, his aching spine popping and assembling back into alignment. He stabbed the pitchfork back into the hay bale and motioned to his boys.

They were trying to be brave as they climbed onto the tractor to drive it back to the barn. Don’t show the bastards any fear, no matter what. That’s how he taught them.

Elijah’s wife and daughter were already uncovering the hidden cellar entrance as Elijah and his boys returned to the farmhouse. Can’t let them find the women. Ever.

Elijah kissed his wife before sealing the door and dragging a water barrel over it.

The youngest boy still held a reaping blade. He aimed to fight. Just eight years old. He didn’t know any better. The oldest boy snatched the blade away and slapped the boy on the back of the head, just to clarify.

Elijah and his boys walked to the road, heavy sacks of grain in their arms and waited. A heavy, metallic racket emerged from down the road. The growling gas motors. The bawdy laughs. A woman screaming.

“Anderson’s wife,” the oldest boy whispered.

“Is mama and sis gonna be okay?” the youngest asked.

“What did I tell you, boy?” Elijah grunted. “You ain’t got a mama no more.”

“Sorry, daddy,” the boy whispered. “I wanna kill those bastards.”

“I know,” Elijah said, looking to the oldest and letting a sly smile escape.

The oldest winked back, then tightened his grip around the sack of grain that wasn’t grain at all. What was actually inside, if Elijah figured right, was their salvation.