Word: wanion

wanion

\ WON-yuhn \  , noun;

1. Archaic . curse; vengeance.

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Julia looked at her fingernails.  Yesterday, they had been flawless.  Perfectly manicured and with the perfect shade of blue nail polish that managed to compliment her hair, eyes, and choice of outfit.  Today, they were a mess.  One might even go as far as to say they were disgusting.  They were horridly jagged at the ends and rough everywhere else.  So rough that painting them would be a real problem.  Which was bad, since they were also badly discolored.  Each nail was a sickly shade of green, and she could see ugly black splotches starting to form on her left pinky nail.

                She thought about the state of her nails.  How had they gotten so bad in just a single day?  There had to be a reason.  Nails didn’t just deteriorate to that extent so quickly, did they?  She went through the events of the previous day in her mind.

                Everything had started alright.  A bouquet of flowers had arrived in the mail; a futile attempt from her ex-boyfriend to get back together.  At least they were nice flowers.  Her breakfast of jam covered toast had also been good, and had started her day off nicely. 

                She went through the town to a gypsy encampment that had been set up the day before.  That was new, since nobody even thought gypsies were still around, especially in a large city.  And yet, they had simply appeared and set up shop.  Julia went to see if there was any kind of exotic (or at least exotic looking) goods for sale.  She had, of course, made sure to keep all her possessions close to her.  She may not have thought gypsies existed anymore, but she had still heard quite a bit about them, and took appropriate precautions.

                Some of the younger children, mostly girls, had gathered around her.  They were quite interested in her nails.  She couldn’t blame them.  She prided herself on her fingernails.  She considered them her second best feature, coming in just after her hair.  The little ones had asked her if she could teach them how to make their nails look as good.  Julia could hardly refuse.  The kids were just too cute to say no to.

                She didn’t have much to work with.  Just a few light shades in case she needed to recolor her nails for some reason.  She was just starting to show the kids the ins and outs of fingernail maintenance when an old woman Julia had assumed to be the grandmother showed up.  The woman was not nearly as happy to see what Julia was doing with her grandkids as the children themselves were.  In fact, it seemed like she had taken it as some kind of personal insult.  Julia couldn’t figure out why, as the old woman was wearing makeup as well.  The stuff Julia was using was just applied to a different body part.

                The old woman didn’t seem to agree when Julia pointed this out.  There had been some light yelling on the old woman’s part.  Then she said something about a curse.  Something like Julia’s fingers would never be able to be nice again.  Naturally, Julia didn’t put much stock in the old woman’s words.  She had heard of gypsy curses, same as anyone else; she just didn’t think they actually existed.  But, looking at the sad state of her nails now, she couldn’t help but feel those curses were more than just myths.  Of course, that meant she was doomed to have really ugly fingernails for the rest of her life.

                “Well,” Julia said to no one in particular, “this sucks.”

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I've never gotten the whole wanting nice fingernails thing.  I mean, it's not even something many people pay attention to.  I can see not wanting them to be bad looking and funky and such, but some people go to odd lengths to make their nails "pretty", which I can never understand.  Maybe some day I will, but I'm not so sure.