Lexical Wading
Jun. 23rd, 2002 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sjesterThe following story is a product of using in a sentence all the words of the day that have accumulated in my e-mail inbox over the past month or so. I will leave it to speculation whether any of it is autobiographical.
She hid behind a sobriquet, and had for years. No one remembered her true, moribund identity, having known her as Zarah for so long. She had changed everything on discovering the disadvantages of and growing dissatisfied with her natural diffidence. Others' turpitude too easily left her behind and taken advantage of. Longing to overcome such difficulties, she aspired to be some kind of rara avis, someone that people could no longer ignore or forget, someone of such perspicacity that she could see through plots and plans before she fell victim to them.
As the first step in her self-transformation, she dissociated from her father, an insufferably arrogant aesthete. Though his attempts to start his own art museum were laudable, his treatment of her was not, so she cut him out of her life. After leaving, she sojourned away from all the old familiar places that were no longer home.
During her self-imposed exile, she met a round, rubicund man with an expansive personality to match his expansive waistline, whom everyone called Daniel, for that was his name. "I like to leave a bad taste in people's mouths," he would proclaim, and would accordingly insult those around him with cutting, acrid remarks. His garrulousness drew people to him, only to be left with a strong dislike. He would occasionally grow tired of this game, and in his ennui would turn his attentions to chasing women. He had a penchant for women he called "dorothies" after the Wizard of Oz character who described herself as "small and meek."
Initially, Daniel's brusqueness served to exacerbate Zarah's old habit of timidity. But she looked at him as something kismet had thrown her way to see how serious she was about changing that. Her transformation had involved a long, tortuous self-analysis, and she was not about to let this jerk undo all of that. She was certain that she would need to perform some sort of ablution in order to purge him from her memory. The first impression he made told her that the experience of knowing him would not be something that time could ameliorate into something pleasant to remember. And to her chagrin, she would get to know him better than she wanted to.
She hid behind a sobriquet, and had for years. No one remembered her true, moribund identity, having known her as Zarah for so long. She had changed everything on discovering the disadvantages of and growing dissatisfied with her natural diffidence. Others' turpitude too easily left her behind and taken advantage of. Longing to overcome such difficulties, she aspired to be some kind of rara avis, someone that people could no longer ignore or forget, someone of such perspicacity that she could see through plots and plans before she fell victim to them.
As the first step in her self-transformation, she dissociated from her father, an insufferably arrogant aesthete. Though his attempts to start his own art museum were laudable, his treatment of her was not, so she cut him out of her life. After leaving, she sojourned away from all the old familiar places that were no longer home.
During her self-imposed exile, she met a round, rubicund man with an expansive personality to match his expansive waistline, whom everyone called Daniel, for that was his name. "I like to leave a bad taste in people's mouths," he would proclaim, and would accordingly insult those around him with cutting, acrid remarks. His garrulousness drew people to him, only to be left with a strong dislike. He would occasionally grow tired of this game, and in his ennui would turn his attentions to chasing women. He had a penchant for women he called "dorothies" after the Wizard of Oz character who described herself as "small and meek."
Initially, Daniel's brusqueness served to exacerbate Zarah's old habit of timidity. But she looked at him as something kismet had thrown her way to see how serious she was about changing that. Her transformation had involved a long, tortuous self-analysis, and she was not about to let this jerk undo all of that. She was certain that she would need to perform some sort of ablution in order to purge him from her memory. The first impression he made told her that the experience of knowing him would not be something that time could ameliorate into something pleasant to remember. And to her chagrin, she would get to know him better than she wanted to.
