The Lemon Jell-O Syndrome by Man Martin

Author:Man Martin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Published: 2017-03-19T04:00:00+00:00

N, n

From the Phoenician nun (n), “fish.” Between the waterfall, mem (M), and the lightning-bolt leap of fish, nun (n), comes the alphabet’s midpoint, dividing the most common letters, placed within easy reach, from the least common, shoved to the back. A typical dictionary devotes a hundred pages to aardvark to azygous, whereas we can get all the way from xanthate to Zyrian in less than ten.

nonce word: A word coined for a single occasion and never used again. One might reasonably ask if such a thing can even exist. For example, if someone made up the word “gurk” to mean “I’m unable to breathe,” could this properly be considered a word at all if it were never repeated? And once spoken, if it were printed in a dictionary somewhere even as an example of a nonce word, wouldn’t it cease to be one?

After Mary’s announcement, the grinning Kit-Kat Clock’s tail wagged left and eyes went right, and the refrigerator hummed uneasily, filling the silence.

“You’re kidding me,” Bone said. The air seemed brittle and thin, and neither of them moved.

“I know you’ve been trying lately—the card, I know—but you’re just too—distant. It’s something I’ve got to do until I work some things out.”

“Let it go, man,” Cash said. Bone realized their neighbor had come into the kitchen without his noticing. Cash stood, arms folded, biceps slightly flexed, like a defensive tackle blocking the way to Mary, except he wasn’t standing in front of her, but behind.

“Jesus, are you spending the night with him?” Bone had the sensation that if he looked down, he would see his knees shimmering as if they were behind a waterfall. Did he even have knees anymore? He felt as though he weren’t standing on the floor. In situations like this, weren’t you expected to fight your rival? Should he do that now?

Mary left the kitchen, and Cash said, “Don’t try to stop her. This is something she’s got to do.”

Bone said, “Christ, you’re spending the night with him? Right in front of me? God, are you crazy?”

What Cash said next was, “She’ll be back when she’s done,” but what Bone heard was “when I’m done,” at which every individual corpuscle in his brain went off like a hand grenade, and his ears roared like a train crash.

“You—” Bone began, unable to add anything worse than the bare pronoun. His vision blurred, and he swung his fist. Then everything went white, and his knees buckled, but he didn’t hit the floor; a second later his tardy brain caught up with events: his misaimed fist had brushed Cash’s face, and Cash had moved forward and seized Bone in a position as impotent as it was perplexing and exasperating. Bone’s arm was pressed against his ear, and his other hand was seized in Cash’s; the crook of Cash’s elbow squeezed Bone’s Adam’s apple. Bone tried explaining that he couldn’t breathe, but the most he could get out was “Gurk.” Meanwhile, he was doing his best to claw Cash

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