Word: Skirr

 

skirr

\ skur \  , verb;

1. To go rapidly; fly; scurry.

2. To go rapidly over.

noun:

1. A grating or whirring sound.

 *******************
    Hm?  What is that smell?  Ah, prey.  Perfect.  Now, let me see.  Where is it...  Ah, There it is, behind the wall.  I can hear it scurrying around back there.  Now I just need to find out where it will come out.  There!  The perfect place for an ambush.  It must think that hot bar near the floor where the food is would be the place to come out to get food, but little does it know, I shall be waiting for it.  And when it finally does emerge... Oh, I can simply taste the fresh meat now.  So much better than what my servants give me.  Damn them, thinking I actually enjoy that slop.  It is so hard to find good help these days.    
    Well, never mind that, I have work to do.  Where is my prey now?  Ah, I can hear it now, scampering down the wall, right where I predicted it would.  It’s a quick little devil, but not quick enough to get away from me.  Wait, what is that sound?  That is not my prey, it is too loud.  Oh dear.  The smaller staff member.  Damn it.  That demon will allow my prey to elude me.  I should just get rid of it quickly.  The massages it gives me are far too rough, not worth keeping it around.  
    Here it comes, thinking I want its sticky, malformed paws on my fine coat.  Damn it get away you cretin!  Hopefully my claws will show you what I think of your handling of my divine form.  Bah, I miscalculated.  Now its wailing has scared away my prey.  I can hear it over my inept servants wails, scurrying up the walls.  I suppose I will just have to wait a bit.  Hopefully It will come back down later.  If not, I know the best place to lie in wait in the future now.  
    And of course, here comes one of the larger staff members.  Good, it is the one who is best able to stop the small ones bawling.  Maybe now I can go back to my task.  Wait, what is it doing?  Shaking those things they call paws at me?  Is it trying to scold me?  Ha!  It thinks I was the one who did something wrong now?  My how brazen my staff has become.  I will just have to punish them now.  I know.  I have knew there was a reason I have been storing up my fur inside me.  I do believe the wet mass of my fur, luxurious though it may be, will be sufficient to remind them of their place.  After all, it has always been suitable before.  

Good, they left.  Now let me see, where is my prey now?  Damn, my servants made me lose track of it.  I will have to find it again now.  It is a matter of pride now.  I must find where it will next emerge, so that I may strike it down.  Ah, I can smell it again!  It is a bit farther away now, but not yet outside my reach.  Let me see... Perfect.  The place where my main servants sleep.  There are more of those hot bars there, the prey will no doubt emerge from there.  Now, I wait.

Ah ha, there it is!  It is out!  Got it!  Ah, it is sweeter than I thought, to have its still warm flesh in my mouth.  Now what to do with it.  Perhaps I shall leave it for my servants, as a token of my generosity.  Sometimes I am too good to them for my own good.    

******************

I have an announcement to make:  *Clears throat*

Meow meow mew, meow meow meow.  Meow.

That is all. 

Word: cumulus

cumulus

\ KYOO-myuh-luhs \  , noun;

1. A heap; pile.

2. A cloud of a class characterized by dense individual elements in the form of puffs, mounds, or towers, with flat bases and tops that often resemble cauliflower.

************************** 

He was going down.  There was no doubt in his mind that the only landing for him would be of the crash variety.  And most likely a fatal one to, given how high up he was and the condition of his vehicle.  It was, to put it bluntly, totaled.  

    His controls were broken, the instruments were going crazy, and the steering controls were barely functioning at all.  Even though he couldn’t see them, he could hear the parts flaking off in disturbingly large chunks.  And, he was almost positive that something was on fire, if the smell was anything to go by at any rate.  He was also getting uncomfortably hot, but he couldn’t be sure if that was because of the fire he was sure existed somewhere behind him, or because of the extreme speed at which he was falling.

The one saving grace was the large cumulus cloud beneath him.  Its large, pillowy form made him think that there was still hope of some form of salvation.  Maybe Something about this cloud was special, and it would somehow cushion his fall.  Maybe passing though it would give him some form of divine inspiration, allowing him to figure out how to fix his broken vehicle.  Or perhaps...Perhaps.  It was always perhaps.  Or maybe, or possibly, or something along those lines.  Really, the only thing the cloud did for him was hide the ground, letting him forget for a few brief seconds just how close the ground was becoming.  

    Inevitably, he reached the cloud and passed through it.  Even though he couldn’t feel it directly, he could still feel its effect.  The cold moisture piled up there made everything much cooler.  No doubt any external flames that might exist were extinguished.  The fire inside would be unaffected though, unless something broke off that allowed the dense moisture inside.  But he would be able to feel that.  In all likelihood, the heat he had felt before was because of the rate of descent, not something on fire.  

The time passing through the expansive cumulus soothed his nerves a bit.  for a second, he even thought that there might just be some way to save his life.  There was nothing he could do about his vehicle, but his life was another story. The steering controls were after all, not completely broken, just mostly broken.  

He tried to see if he could coax just a little bit of lift on the front end, just enough to slow his fall a bit.  The cloud made it impossible to tell if it was working, but he continued to try.  At the very least, it gave him something to do and took his mind off the dizzying plummet.  

Finally, he emerged from the bottom of the cloud, and was once again exposed to the ground, which was still getting closer at an uncomfortable rate.  But at least now he could tell if his efforts were doing anything.  They weren’t.  The front was still pointed towards the unforgiving land below him.  Seeing this, he was about ready to give up.  

But then, something inside him came up to the surface.  His self preservation instinct had finally kicked in.  Maybe there was something he could still do in the scant seconds he had left.  He went to work immediately.  Prying open panel after panel, disconnecting and reconnecting wires seemingly at random.  He didn’t know what, if anything, would work, but he kept trying.  After a bit, he once again attempted to level out his fall just enough to make sure he wouldn’t die on impact.  This time, he heard something other than the rush of wind and the blaring klaxon calls of too many warnings.  The much more familiar, and welcome, sound of the engines coming to life.  They were pathetically weak.  Certainly not enough to break his fall.  But they could at least slow it.  He went back to the steering controls, and forced them into the up position, pushing at them as if his efforts would somehow aid the vehicles efforts to rise.  

Finally, this efforts bore fruit.  The front end of the vehicle started to move up, away from the ground, now pointing to the distant horizon.  he was still falling, there was no doubt about that, but at least he was much more likely to live now.  He breathed a quick sigh of relief, and sat back in his chair, waiting for the inevitable.  

Now that he had done everything he could, the panic once again took hold of him.  He closed his eyes tightly, and gripped the sides of his chair so hard that his knuckles turned white.  

Then it happened.  He hit the ground.  Time seemed to slow down as everything happened at once.  A loud crunch as the bottom of his vehicle hit, and then an equally loud scraping as what little forward momentum he had wound up making the vehicle jump forward along the ground.  At the same time, everything seemed to lose any relationship to gravity that it might otherwise have.  Loose parts and debris jumped up and flew through the air as if they had grown wings, only to hit the ceiling and come crashing down, bouncing and ricocheting off everything else in the proximity.  His body was no different.  He flew up out of his chair, his grip doing nothing to keep him in one place.  Bits of metal pounded him, or cut into his flesh.  He banged his head hard on the ceiling.  For a moment, he thought he could once again see the stars which were so familiar to him.  The return to the floor was no more pleasant.  More debris assaulted him, opening up fresh wounds in his already marred skin.  The chair, which had once been his one last sanctuary, now turned against him.  He hit the back of the chair hard in the stomach.  He would have had the breath knocked out of him by it, but the impact with the ground had already taken care of that.  He rolled off the chair, hitting the floor hard, and finally lost what little shreds of consciousness he had left.

The impact of the large vehicle had not been seen by any living creatures.  No doubt the wreckage would soon be discovered, as would the injured, but still living occupant.  But for the time being, the only witness to the impact was a large, billowing cumulus cloud, perfect, save for one single trail on the bottom, left like a marker, pointing to where the falling object now lay.  

******************************************

Hey, look, the word appears IN the story this time!  *Surprised gasp*  What is the world coming to?

Word: Pip

 

pip

\ pip \  , verb;

1. To peep or chirp.

2. (Of a young bird) to break out from the shell.

3. To crack or chip a hole through (the shell), as a young bird.

 **************************
   Small, fine cracks began to appear, slowly at first but with increasing speed.  The many onlookers pressed their faces against the bars, hoping to get a better look at what was happening.  There were others in back of them, who stood as tall as possible, peering over shoulders, and standing on toes or the odd chair for the more daring individuals.
    As more and more cracks appeared in the smooth, gray speckled surface, a tiny hole appeared, and an equally small object emerged from the hole.  The onlookers held their breath in anticipation, the room becoming eerily quiet.  Some of the more enthusiastic onlookers even tried to stick their fingers in through the bar, to help what was inside get out sooner.  All such attempts were quickly thwarted though.  
    The object inside continued to chip away at the exterior, widening the hole, until a tiny head emerged.  The little baby canary, forced its way out from its egg shell, the mother moving in to tend to its new child.  With that, the spell on the room seemed to dissipate, the hands, eyes, and voices of many second graders pushing and shoving in order to see the new addition to their class.  
    The teacher tried to get them all to back away, and give the birds some room, particularly since there were three other eggs in the nest that had not yet hatched, but were showing signs of readiness.  Her words went unheard by the excited students.  They wanted to see every minute of the birds hatching.  The teacher sighed, giving up on actually teaching anything for the rest of the day, as the students would no doubt be so obsessed over the baby birds that they would be unable to pay attention to anything else, even after all four had hatched.  The most she could hope to do was use the chicks to her advantage, and somehow sneak in a lesson or two.  It may not have been what she had planned for the day, but anything was better than nothing at this point.  
    The children continued to swarm around the birdcage, even trying to touch the baby birds by sticking their fingers in through the bars of them cage.  The mother bird chirped angrily at them, in a futile attempt to get the perceived threats away from the newborns.  The students, oblivious to the meaning of the birds calls, continued to swarm around, sticking their fingers in and wiggling them around, attempting to call one of the birds to them.  As the canary fluttered around its cage, and puffed out its feathers while continuing to chirp and trill at the students, the teacher continued to attempt to bring order to the class, before anything happened to the fingers the students were wiggling around inside the cage.  Some of the more obedient children did start to slowly back away from the cage, although it still held their attention more than anything else.  
    The teacher continued to raise her voice in an effort to coax her students away from the cage, with limited success.  Children started to slowly break away from the cage, one by one.  Every eye was still on it, but at least she could start to do something again.  That is, once the remaining few children finally stepped away and left the birds alone.  
    Suddenly, as she was about to make another attempt at getting the few remaining students away from the cage, it happened.  A piercing scream from one of the students who had stubbornly refused to take his finger out from the cage.  The mother bird had gone up to his finger, and gave it a quick, sharp nip.  The child attached to the finger started to wail and whine, holding the assaulted digit as if it was about to fall off. At least the attention of the room was no longer on the birds.  Now it was on the injured boy.  
    The teacher went over to him and inspected the finger.  It was mainly for show, since she knew that he wasn’t really injured.  Indeed, the skin hadn’t even been broken.  The boy was probably crying more out of shock that pain.  Nevertheless, she moved him over the the small sink at the far side of the room, and wrapped his finger in a cold, wet paper towel.  He sniffled a bit, but seemed satisfied with the remedy.  

Now that the room had been rendered much less interested in the baby canaries, the teacher was able to resume her normal classroom duties.  Her first lesson was why one should never ignore the warnings of a mother animal. 

Word: pother

  

pother

\ POTH-er \  , noun;

1. A heated discussion, debate, or argument; fuss; to-do.

2. Commotion; uproar.

3. A choking or suffocating cloud, as of smoke or dust.

verb:

1. To worry; bother.

*************************** 

 “I don’t know why we’re even holding this hearing.”  Mr. Adams said, looking over the sizable stack of papers on the table in front of him, “This man is clearly not ready to be released into the general public.  I mean just look at him!”  He said, gesturing at the man sitting on a plain plastic and metal chair in the center of the room.  
    The man in question was grinning widely.  The kind of near crazed smile that creates deep lines at the corners of the mouth.  His eyes were open equally wide.  It was impossible to tell what the emotions behind them were though.  The group of five individuals at the long table in front of the lone man each saw something different in them.  To some it was hope, to others, anger.  Mr.  Adams say nothing but the gaze of a man plagued by insanity.

“I’m afraid I must disagree.”  Said Mr. Jastis.  “I have personally worked with this patient, and I personally deem him able to re-enter society.”  

“Then you must not be as good a psychologist as all those diplomas you so proudly display say you are.”  Said Mr. Adams  “Ignoring the obvious,”  He again indicated the patient’s unusual expression, “when I look over this man’s files, which include his latest psychological evaluation, I see nothing that shows that he is nothing other than a danger to himself and others.”

    “Then we must be looking at two very different reports sir.  I can see it clearly written, here on page two of the evaluation report, and I quote:  ‘Patient no longer displays tendencies towards violent behaviors.  It has been many weeks since he even mentioned any desire to harm another.’”  Mr. Jastis looked up from reading the report, a smug grin on his pudgy, round face.
    “Indeed, it does say that.”  Mr. Adams replied, his eyes downward, scanning through the pages.  “However, on the very next page it goes on to say: ‘Although patient no longer displayed outwardly violent behavior, by using careful observation, it has been noticed that the patient has also learned how to hide these tendencies.  When the patient believes he is not alone, or with only other patients, he seems to revert back to violent behaviors.’  Now, I ask you, does that really sound like a man that’s cured?”  He finally looked up, adjusting the slim black glasses on his equally slender nose.   

“You forgot to say the last part of that sentence.”  Mr. Jastis pointed at the line in question,  “It says that these so called violent tendencies, although still present, are much less intense than before.  And gentlemen, let us not forget that this evaluation did take place last week.  Since then, I’ve had time to work with him, and those violent outbursts have since disappeared completely.”

    “I hardly think one week is enough to get rid of such strong violent thoughts, no matter how good you are.”  

“Normally yes.  However,” Mr. Jastis got out of his chair, and moved his sizable body to the patient.  He wrapped fingers that would be called spindly had they not been so covered with fat, around the patient’s shoulder.  “I have been observing this man, and have yet to see him acting in any way to hurt another human being.”  The patient seemed to try his best to widen his smile, as if to emphasize the point his psychologist just made.  Doing this just seems to have the opposite effect on everyone else present.  Mr. Jasits didn’t seem to notice.  “He might not look like a well adjusted individual,”  he glared at Mr. Adams, “But don’t we always say it’s not what’s on the surface that counts?  Inside, this man is just as sane as any of us.  I promise, with my reputation as a doctor of the mind, that we can release this man with no danger to anyone.”  

Nobody spoke for a second.

“Well then, now looking back at facts that we can see, rather than fanciful words and ideas,”  Mr. Adams said, still not quite able to believe what he had just heard, “Looking at so much evidence to the contrary, not to mention his clearly insane gaze, we can’t possibly release him.  I mean, look at what he did.  Ten people dead, with who knows how many more seriously injured.  I don’t think there should be any circumstances in which we should let him go, no matter how ‘cured’ you say he is.”  

    The two men glared at each other, both forming their next statements in their mind, ready to drive the nails into each others coffins.  The silence was disturbed by the old man sitting in the center seat of the table.  All eyes turned to him.
    “Thank you both for that.  But, I think it’s time we wrapped this up.  Let’s hear a few words from the patient, then put it to vote.”  Everyone but Mr. Adams and Mr. Jasitis seemed to readily agree with this.  “Now then, what do you have to say about all this sir?”  He said, nodding towards the patient.
    The man looked around a bit, his wide grin finally shrinking back to a more reasonable level.   
    “Yes, yes, I think I’m ok.  I haven’t wanted to hurt someone for the longest time.”  He said, putting special emphasis on longest.  He then started to laugh hoarsely at some unseen joke.  “I promise I won’t do anything bad.”  He said, again putting emphasis on one word, this time anything.

“Well then,”  said the senior board member, “Shall we vote?”

*******

Not sure how I did this one.  Do you think I may have ended it too soon?  let me know what you think, ok?