abrasions

He worked with surfactants so much in the lab that he had a perpetual runny nose. The occupying interracial forces did not permit streilizations during the full moon, so all the intersections had to be segmentless, immaculate.

trample trade

The horizon reddened and its color bled from the sky and turned the battleship pink. The swarming fish around it looked like the froth on a strawberry milkshake. They were not thick enough yet to fould the propeller, but they soon would be.

absorbability

The time traveller thought it would be amusing to install lightning rods to screw with the priests who interpreted lightning strikes, but their techniques were more sophisticated than simply when and where the lightning struck. The priest came to him with a new design for the lightning rod.

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moral relativity

Sin is the potential for grace. Eucharistic wavepackets transported salvation to the interior plasma of the quasar, collapsing into pockets of non-eschatological space.

degradable

The appraisal foundered on a certain few key facts of provenance and damage. Small cracks in the outer hard earth layer could be a sign of internal damage. But the present owners would not allow x-rays, even if it meant no sale. “If you want to look inside, you can buy it. once it’s yours, you can do what you like with it,” they said.

character recognition

My grandmother was a master manipulator. It was whispered that she was a bit of a witch. She claimed that her concoction of quince juice and yerba mate enabled her to see into the souls of others. Once she knew people’s true motivations it was easy to maneuver them into whatever combinations she wished. I happened upon her old recipe. That is why I am now set upon a life of monasticism.

across the border

When we finally caught up to him he was mortally wounded. He assured us that  he was going to a better place. Or, at least, that he would be better off than we. And after he was done speaking it was hard to argue. He exposed us appallingly in his benediction, revealing our secrets to one another in a way that left no room for forgiveness.

turret headband

The automatic insult returner threw back an escalation of any insult in its ever-expanding database. Most of its uses were jokes among young siblings or classmates in dormitory rooms. A sign language version was released, and somebody thought to give it to a troop of chimpanzees.

twist of youth

They named it the twist. Like a twist of lemon, but this was a twist of youth. By inhibiting the processing of certain hormones, like the way SSRIs block neural receptors was how I finally understood it, though they said it was different. With it you could stretch out youth, delaying adulthood for decades. It had to be administered regularly, but that was soon solved with time-release capsules embedded under the skin. A lot of parents administered it to one child and not the other, like what happened with me. They gave it to my older brother and trusted me to take care of him when they couldn’t any more. They left him at my mercy.

levelling out

The stretch of river looked fordable but turned out to be a quagmire. By the time we got all of our equipment out and on the opposite bank the carnival was gone, out of sight.