Same rules as usual: write a story in 100 or fewer words. Use these words in the story:
dauntless
amity
erudite
abnegation
candor
Post your story in the comments column of this post.
Contest starts NOW!
Contest closes at 9pm EST tomorrow (Tuesday 1/11/11) EST is Eastern Shark Time.
All decisions, errors, and irresponsible choices are mine.
93 comments:
Dauntless in her erudite abnegation, Amity tried candor, “Yes, we can explain the tides.”
“I do not believe we should destroy the book,” the erudite monk said quietly.
“It is wicked!!” the Bishop bellowed.
“If we preserve the text perhaps our Islamic brethren will view it as an expression of amity and the holy wars may cease,” the monk said with his usual candor.
“Lucifer is dauntless in his task to deceive you. I demand that you destroy it,” the Bishop said.
The monk sighed and heaved the heavy text into the roaring fire. It was an act of extreme abnegation to deny himself the joy of reading its stories.
Dauntless was the perfect name.
It didn't matter that the voyage was a quest for amity with those beyond our atmosphere and not a military mission. Anyone who boarded that ship had courage to spare, and needed every ounce.
The most erudite among our elders spoke with unprecedented candor about the dangers of slipping into the ink without armed escort, and spared no detail or opinion on the chances of success. Survival. They saw Dauntless as heresy, the complete abnegation of what our society was founded on.
But they missed the point. Hope isn't heresy; it's belief in action.
Father Tom was dauntless in his work with the neighborhood “bad boys”—we incorrigibles whose names brought shudders to teachers and parents alike.
Erudite, but with simplicity of expression, Father Tom could, with amity and indulgence shining through green eyes, speak with perfect candor regarding any error in thought or action.
One day he approached me, waved my latest essay and asked, “Son, what has happened to bring about this abnegation of Creationism?”
"Science has proved the Theory of Evolution," I answered.
“Son,” he responded, “we are told only that God created. We aren't told how He created, are we?”
Hellingly Asylum
East Sussex, 1903
You have asked for candor, gentlemen, and it is in that spirit that I admit my initial amity with Ezra Meath, captain of the Dauntless. Yes, I knew him well. Or as well as any man could. Yet even I did not suspect the howling madness that gripped his black soul at the moon tide.
The cruelty I saw in those eyes! I cannot express enough the degree of abnegation I now feel toward this man. Good doctors, erudite in matters of the disturbed mind, I pray you can keep him locked behind these walls.
No amity between them, he glared at his prey with dauntless, baleful eyes. Then, with erudite precision, he attacked his foe. Hands squeezed, teeth gnashed, and spittle flew. No quarter was given; there was no abnegation.
With candor I can say that I have never seen a man eat his sandwich so resolutely. Not even a crumb escaped to the ground. This was a man who rarely lost a battle to bread and cheese. But the cost was evident, for his body showed the wear from many such battles. He was no novice to the feast.
My latest quest for literary representation had been arrested by the bruising candor of impersonalized rejection. I confess I experienced some difficulty surmounting my despondency over the lack of amity between myself and the myriad mediators of linguistic dissemination to whom I had submitted my intellectual offspring.
But I knew I must continue, dauntless, to pursue a position in the hallowed halls of bibliophilic adulation for my seminal text, The Abnegation of Gratuitous Hippopotomonstrosesquipedalianism in Superfluous Academia, complete at 270,304 scintillating words.
For have not the most erudite among us counseled to eschew obfuscation and espouse elucidation?
Indubitably.
Onward.
Survivor
The last navigator died. The obituary featured an erudite description of the Stearman he flew in WWII with its dauntless crew. What the piece didn’t explain was Lewis’ candor about his only European dead reckoning. The day Paris was liberated, he charted a course from London to the Eiffel tower. His plane, and many others, circled the monument, the men giddy with relief while the Parisians waved in a frenzy of amity for those airborne foreigners. With characteristic self-abnegation, Lewis confessed his shame. He had enlisted just before the war ended, and never flew a combat mission.
The ancient document made no sense to Hilsinger who gave it back to Fitz-William as if handing over a soiled nappie.
“Why are you wasting my time?” Hilsinger asked, not bothering to mask his lack of amity.
“In all candor,” Fitz-William began, which told Hilsinger he was lying, “you’re the most erudite fellow I know.
“And in your quest for … knowledge … you’re dauntless,” Fitz-William added. “I know about the summoning at St. Giles.
“I suspect this is a spell for ending the world.” Fitz-William said. “See this bit about abnegation?”
Suddenly Hilsinger was a lot more interested.
Phew! I thought I was too late entering - got confused since it's already the 11th here. Which begs me to ask, is this open internationally? I live in Australia.
My entry:
"In all candor, Janet should give the bloody book to me!" I bellow, pushing over my bookshelf.
The feeling of abnegation has only intensified lately. I tried being erudite as I intercepted a shipment of Harper Collins books – what better way to promote amity between us by showing them only Divergent is worthy of publication? The Courts didn't see it that way.
After my unjust sentence, I began stalking the dauntless literary Goddess, Janet Reid.
Oh Janet. The mere thought of that gorgeous lady with the power to give me what I want sends me into state of ecstasy.
--
Thank you!!
Dauntless Sir Gerald, gauntlet raised shielding his eyes from the sun, searched for a turret, home. It had been arduous defeating the dragon and rescuing the damsel.
There was no amity between he and Alisandra. She was the wizard’s daughter, erudite and arrogant. He was a simple knight, of which she constantly reminded him.
She reposed behind him. He could have had his way with her. Rather he chose abnegation and chivalry.
They rode in silence until she woke.
“This horse offendeth my nose. Or is it you?” she asked with candor.
He wished to dumpeth her butt right there.
His voice was filled with amity as his speech began. Even though he was an erudite scientist, it was a dauntless task to convince the crowd that he accomplished cold fission.
Some spoke up in abnegation with candor in their voices. Several of them even shouted.
The scientist implored his colleagues to keep an open mind, but none paid attention. Instead he was shunned from the stage with his suspected, shoddy research.
With a heavy heart, he left with his reputation in shambles. His dreams of saving world energy died with every step down the stairs of the building.
"Abnegation would be neither pleasant, nor productive." He glanced at the security feed before reclining again. His alien timbre no longer frightened. Its unnatural calm rang erudite and refined, dauntless despite the gathering mob. "I subsist on human life. I should give that up so they can— what? Overburden your pretty little planet?"
Unbidden, I knelt, let him finger my hair with fond amity. I felt the stroke of his mind in the croon to my ear. "Admirable candor, but think what they'd do with you, my sweet." The knife slipped from my sweaty palm. He'd won me over again.
A condor with candor; now this was new. My only previous experience with erudite birds concerned a parrot with whom I'd found it a dauntless task to maintain amity, given the foul fowl's complete abnegation of grammar.
The intern stormed the doors. Weeks of abnegation had broken her.
Dauntless she fought through the crowds of ALA, wrestling erudite librarians to the ground. Redundant, she thought as she fought off the last of them. Calling them erudite and librarians. No matter, her goal was at hand.
“The ARC or death,” she screeched, throwing herself on the table.
“I did what needed to be done,” she said with candor, clutching DAUNTLESS to her heaving breasts as they led her away. To hell amity. She wanted to read the damn book everyone else in the office had.
"Jump."
Her smile was a baring of pellucid teeth, mesmerizing in its viciousness.
"I guess amity is out of the question?" My arms were bound to my sides by the fibrous ropes that rendered my backpack canopy useless. I practiced rotating my wrist again, and this time, I felt the concealed knife.
"Our countries made us enemies," she said. "Abnegation of everything except patriotism made me what I am."
"Erudite, as ever, my love. Even now.” I gave her a dauntless wink. “But I appreciate your candor.” I stepped out of the plane, body and emotions in free fall.
"I cherish your candor, my dauntless little one. It is rare one finds such amity between the erudite and the untutored." Crinkly lines formed at the corners of his eyes as his lips upturned.
The line shuffled forward, our movie tickets in his hand.
Tugging at my mini-dress and cocked an eyebrow, "That wa a compliment, yeah?"
"Indeed. I would never subject you to abnegation." He brushed an invisible speck from his lapel.
I didn't understand that either, but it didn't matter. He was a professor, old money and my first date in months. Goodbye old life, hello new!
“We have to hold the police accountable for this abnegation of responsibility…”
Kelly snorted. Politicians sounded impressive, but their erudite vocabularies couldn’t protect them. They were as vulnerable as her brother, who’d been gunned down in broad daylight. The mayor’s press conference was supposed to downplay the amity that had developed between the government and the criminal element; however, candor was beyond them when it came to admitting wrongdoing.
“Where’s the dauntless superhero now?” she whispered sarcastically, but no caped figure appeared.
The idea froze her in place. Maybe she wasn’t a hero, but who said she couldn’t make one?
Five a.m., January 21st, 19 below zero. I'm riding the sled runners, fourteen huskies loping ahead of me. They work seamlessly, their amity borne of countless miles run this way.
They are dauntless, running into the dark. They read the trail with eyes and nose and erudite feet, learning things about it I will never know.
My family says, in all candor, this is madness: the complete abnegation of normal human comforts. But the dogs like it best when it's sub-zero. The cold is a small price to pay for this: fifteen hearts flying swift under the Alaskan moon.
The morning air stank from the distant drift of dairies. Cody scowled at his mother. "Do you have to come?"
"It's two blocks. With fog this thick, no one will see me," she said with candor. The tightness of her erudite bun elongated the crow's feet by each eye.
Cody led the way with dauntless strides. At nine, he had declared an abnegation of affectionate displays.
"Watch out for cars!" she called, aching for the days of pudgy hands and open amity.
He plowed ahead without pausing. To the side, she caught the gleam of turning headlights.
100 words exactly, with apologies to Charles Portis:
People do not give it credence that a dauntless fourteen-year-old girl could go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood but it did not seem so strange then, although the erudite would observe that it did not happen every day. In all candor I was just fourteen years of age when a coward lacking in any amity, going by the name of Tom Chaney, shot my father down in Fort Smith, Arkansas, causing the abnegation of his life and his horse and $150 in cash money plus two California gold pieces that he carried in his trouser band.
Oh. My. Gawd. Disqualify me now. Did I really make it sound like the intern in my story was hauled away by her heaving breasts? Seriously? #revisionfail
Penny is sorry when Suzy’s oxford catches on her training wheel.
Penny is not sorry when Suzy’s new book pinwheels open, blue signatures springing from within.
“That’s mine.” Suzy snatches it. “Kindergarden babies don’t get yearbooks.”
“I’m no baby!” Penny stamps inside, where she finds something better than a yearbook—a dictionary. She marches house to house, pen in tow.
Mrs. Dorry signs at “dauntless.” Mr. and Mrs. Armour mark “Amity” and “Abnegation.”
Mom comes raving at Miss Eloise’s “Erudite,” but Penny shrugs at No Television-- tonight the book is her pillow, Mrs. Cluley’s “Candor” a kiss on her cheek.
A dauntless young man, carted a toy truck into the Amity bookstore. “Elsa,” he said with great candor, “Will you marry me?”
Elsa’s cheeks burned crimson as she hid behind her Betsy Wetsy.
When she didn’t answer, he stomped his foot in an act of abnegation. “Be my wife. Pleeeease I’ve saved my allowance for a month.”
“Wife? Poo! I want a boy who can erudite the alphabet without having to sing that silly song and who can tie shoes without the bunny ear story.”
“Give me a month. My kindergarten teacher calls me gifted.”
“Okay. I’ll ask my mom.”
Princess of the castle of books, she stood before the crowd. She had something glorious to grant the kingdom of high schoolers. Their goal? To become erudite scholars of YA Literature, and dystopian novels were their passion. Appreciating the candor of the agent, they smiled sweetly and peered admiringly at the ARC that glistened before them.
“Lady Reid, we appreciate your abnegation of this ARC. We promise to share it amongst the 47 of us with amity and love!”
“My children, I have an enigma. I must pick one winner. I must be dauntless in this intricate endeavor.”
Karol eyed the congregation; the board chairman, the CEO and the sycophantic six from the company’s swab. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my dauntless task as the CFO to deliver the quarterly report. I am afraid the Amityville horror of the current economy leads me to the abnegation of our aspirations to a green operating system. As the erudite member of this committee, it is with grave heart and myriad bouts of candor that I must resign. Good day.”
Silence. Karol made her escape.
The door clicked and the CEO turned to the chairman, “So, did we turn a profit?”
Thank You,
Patti Struble
Mom rolls onto her back and slides an arm across her brow to think:
Can I really survive another day of this abnegation?
A creaky groan from the door interrupts the silence, and Mom turns to watch a dauntless lump toddle to the bedside. With simple candor, the shadow claims his territory:
"I have bad dream." And the child's tiny body nestles itself over Mom's stomach. A sigh escapes, trusting his mother’s amity.
Mom wraps her fingers around his soft pudgy toes, and a smile escapes in that moment of erudite illumination as she rests her eyes before another day.
She begins the picture by penning the words:
A squirrel, finding the concept of amity beyond his realm, chatters in annoyance like an erudite professor certain of his audience. Fir and pine, dauntless in abnegation of frigid air filter sunshine in a miserly fashion. Snow allows for little depth in shadow while skeletons of bushes bear candor with a brittle air.
Breath held, eyes focused, lifting brush to canvas she is again disheartened by a smear of color unlike anything in her mind's eye and wonders at her miserable lack of creative talent.
With 'amity,' Christopher patted an ex-girlfriend on the back and – an erudite fellow – said, “I really hate the word 'candor.'” She did not respond. Dauntless, he proceeded. “I'm really more of a 'sincere' man.”
The ex-girlfriend, featuring what Christopher imagined was mascara scarring down the visage but amidst what was, in fact, very poor lighting, said, “That's not even a proper synonym.”
Abnegation being quite a noble practice, he metaphorically tossed in the towel and sauntered to another section of the establishment.
"Good sir, I appreciate your condor-"
"Candor?"
"Yes. That. I admire your dauntless spirit. The abnegation of the most basic comforts in the name of achieving a higher calling! The search for truths beyond human fathoming! And yet you do not hoard! With amity and magnanimousness, you strive to bring fellow man with you to yet greater erudite heights! Yes, my fine sir, I am quite keen on you. It would be an honor to accompany you up to the zenith."
"Then why are you rejecting me?"
"Dear sir, I am a shark. I have no legs, and cannot climb."
The crowd bellowed louder, the candour of bloodlust.
Amity rounded on her mother, "Why dincha give me no proper name? I hate ya I hate ya I hate ya!"
In her mother's eyes, no flicker of doubt, no quarter. Ever dauntless, she would have her way. Again.
"Not my fault I'm erudite. And 'Pussykins' would have been an abnegation of my humanity. Now get back in the ring and kick the shit out of the guy."
“Your abnegation can be false.” Willow slid away from the boy on her couch. Her little sisters eyes narrowed, taking it in.
“I plan on becoming erudite in all things Jake. Later.” She smiled at him and nodded towards the girl.
Understanding passed over his face. “Right. Of course, ours is a casual amity.”
“It’s Zoe’s bedtime. You need to go, my parents have rules.”
“Which you are dauntless in circumventing.” He smiled.
“It’s scary. They won’t be back for hours. Sometimes, I disremember to lock the back door.” She winked.
“Your candor is inspiring.”
“As is your cognition. Bye”
Sir Torvek was dauntless. The candor of his argument showed no abnegation. This impressed Hecatus. She casually picked her teeth with a singed finger bone.
“Are you finished?” She asked, her fetid smoke wafting into his face.
“I’m finished,” Torvek said, raising his broadsword, “and so are you!”
He charged at her breast scales. She chuckled at his effort and with apparent amity, plucked the two-legged creature off the scorched sandstone floor and dropped him into a storage pit.
Tomorrow would be plenty of time to further test his erudite posturing. Or maybe she’d just have him as a snack.
Wait, so the five classes of the society are adjective, noun, adjective, noun, noun? I guess you can't trust a dystopian society to make parallel vocabulary choices. But if I'd had the chance to get in there with a red pencil, you can bet I'd have changed the groups to dauntlessness, amity, erudition, abnegation, and candor. (Or, conversely: dauntless, amiable, erudite, abnegating, and candid.)
The fearful teen started to cry in his dark corner. His beer was cold and he just stood there sobbing. Not like anyone cared in the noisy bar. Just a dauntless fly was attracted by the puff of white foam. An erudite old man, reading his paper, looked at him. He started to talk to him, leaving his article on the Treaty of Amity between Japan and Russia, and with abnegation he convinced the teen full of candor that the death of his mother would not be the end of the world. He then got back to his paper.
Closing Conversation
“I’m pregnant,” she said, “and I want to keep our baby.”
“Knock yourself out, Amity,” I replied.
“I want us to raise our baby,” she said, dauntless as always.
“I may have to knock your ass out.”
“Don’t you want the baby? Don’t you want me?”
“Call me Abnegation,” I said. “in both cases.”
“How can you say that?”
“It helps being an erudite thug.” Candor is part of my lethal arsenal.
“You’ll make a good father,” she said.
“Baby,” I replied before walking out of her life forever, “the only good thing I’ll ever make is bail.”
"Candour," he calls over the stereo, "be a doll, hand me the map."
Oh, I'll be a doll alright. Flicking open the hatch, I yank it out. Already I want to smack him over the head with it but that isn't the plan. No abnegation of responsibility tonight.
"Amity City, right?" I tap the cover, slipping the knife between the pages with my other hand.
"Sure, if-"
He gurgles, not such an erudite guy now, as I wriggle the blade from his chest. It's only as the lamppost approaches that I wonder if my middle name isn't Stupid, not Dauntless.
Dauntless now, Candor raised her bow, set to end this age of amity in a single shot. Eye down the shaft, arrow point to his breast, she readied for release. The murmurs of the erudite—pressed together, portly bellies to padded backs—filled her ears, reminding her there’d be no escape from these marble halls. This assassination was double; they’d be upon her little balcony in an instant. She did not regret this act of self-abnegation, only that it would be her last. Candor inhaled, her sharp ribs straining against tight skin. He was about to speak. It was time.
The erudite scientist was dauntless and relentless in his search for a life sustaining planet outside of their own solar system. He had to find some irrefutable proof, that it was possible to find such a place elsewhere in the galaxy, a place that they could migrate to and begin to settle. If he didn’t, his life’s work would be abnegated and all hope of continuing the species, life, would be lost. If only his amity with the councillor would be of help, he had to try to talk to him with candor once more.
“Alright, pitch it.”
“An erudite professor spends six months on a mountain filming the last futile moments of a nearly destroyed raptor. This is an epic, nay dauntless, feat of self denial and cultural abnegation: nights in subzero cold, rocky escarpments gashing bloody knees and privations to make Gandhi moan. The voice over’s, OMG, the voice over’s of this man instill us with the majesty of life and the breadth of human destruction of wildlife. All this is to save the largest winged bird in the Americas.”
“What do you call this, uhh, bird movie?”
“Where Candors Dare.”
“Go away.”
Stuart surrounded himself with beautiful but erudite female assistants. The missus didn’t understand. Her therapist said sexual abnegation typically followed the trauma she had suffered. Stuart lacked the gene for dauntless behavior and ran away the night a rapist accosted her. At the trial he preached forgiveness and amity. The boy came from a good family, after all.
The day she caught him returning from a tryst he tried to bluff his way past the .38 she pointed at his heart. “Lack of candor is the only sin I’ve committed,” he protested just before she pulled the trigger.
The erudite A.B. Negation opened his bookstore door and glared. “You are no longer welcome.”
“Why? I’m practically a fixture!”
He continued to stare. “Well, he’s done it again.” The familiar scent of ink, musty paper, and mothballs clinging to his clothing invaded my nostrils.
Something moved in a nearby basket. There was Amity, the bookstore mouser, nursing a slew of newborns. Candor marched right past me, rubbed against the old man’s leg, and purred like a faulty engine.
Negation gave his leg a shake. “Scat.”
Dauntless, my arrogant cat moseyed across the room and inspected his new family.
The sky web sagged, broken, bleeding.
Yet Talan, that idiot, still smiled. For me. Dauntless, to the last.
But I didn't want to lose him. "Please! Doesn't our amity mean anything?"
"Oh, Ash, you always were so erudite." His grin quickly faded. "But, I must perform this last abnegation. Because, well... I need to know you live..."
His candor silenced me. How I wanted to cry out! To touch him, hold him forever.
But he was gone.
Above me, the sky web's wounds began healing.
Once again, the city was safe. But without Talan, it was just another Pyrrhic victory.
Eva wanted the chips from the vending machine, but chose abnegation because she knew prom was around the corner. She turned and saw Vicki staring at her, and immediately regretted her choice.
She wasn’t sure why Vicki hated her. In grade school, the amity between them was strong. But high school had changed that. Eva was the erudite student. Vicki was the dauntless cheerleader.
“Move!” Vicki ordered.
In a moment of candor, Eva asked “What happened to us?”
Vicki shrugged. “You got fat.”
Stunned and hurt, Eva moved. And once Vicki was gone, she went back for the chips.
“What are you thinking?” he asked. There was gentle amity in his voice, but nothing more. No love.
I shook my head – not in abnegation, just unsure how to respond.
“Come on,” he pleaded. “Don’t do this to me. You know I’m used to candor.”
Sure he was -- always hanging around his erudite friends, listening to them complain about me.
He crossed the room and sat next to me, enfolding me in his arms. I’d once thought him perfect; I’d once thought of him as my dauntless white knight. “Tell me,” he whispered in my ear.
But I couldn’t.
Two disappearances: hers and his money’s. A note with cruel candor: Goodbye. I’m not sorry.
In alcohol, he practiced abnegation—a three day blur that left him empty of all but anger. Her trail now grown cold. Dauntless, he pursued.
Once-friends offered false amity and no more. He knew they knew, and they, erudite, silently scoffed at his ignorance. Their turn would come.
As hers now had. She begged, of course. He simply smiled.
After all, what was one more disappearance?
It was a truth universally acknowledged by Amy’s friends that candor in relationships was a bad thing and Amy’s constant abnegation of it made no difference.
And then Amy fell in love. Kevin was dauntless, erudite, and gorgeous, but didn’t yet know that they were destined to be together.
Amy invited him over—alone—to tell him.
“Will Marin be there?”
All Amy’s roommates were out, so she said no.
Kevin’s amity disappeared. “Then why would I want to come over. I don’t even like you—I like Marin.”
Amy scowled. So much for honesty being the best policy.
The Captain let go of the Dauntless’ wheel and she veered toward the ice. The rudder shook and the ship rocked in abnegation, furious from the loss of her master.
“Now, my bookish erudite,” the Captain said, his candor that of a professor lecturing a student. “Have you discovered amity between man and vessel?”
The Boy grabbed the spinning wheel and felt the currents against the hull, the wind in the sails. The bow dipped and turned into safe waters. At last, he was truly in command, connected to the wood in his hands, to the boat and the elements.
“Do they really think this’ll fix anything?” He folded his arms, glaring at the others in the room.
She shrugged. “Let’s just get this over with. I’m Amity.”
“And I’m Abby,” spit out another girl. “Short for Abnegation.”
“Dante.” The guy leaned back in his chair. “Short for Dauntless.”
“Only ridiculous nicknames for mine—Candor.” She grimaced. “No middle name either.”
“This is pointless. Talking won’t change our names,” said Erudite. “Our parents were stupid when they named us, and even stupider when they stuck us in this group. Like meeting other kids who had writers for parents would help.”
"You have been too indulgent with me," Victoria said. She smiled at the old, erudite tutor seated across from her.
"Your highness, if I may speak with candor--"
He stopped as the chamber door swung open and the duchess stormed in, followed closely by Sir Conroy. The amity in the room dissipated immediately.
"He tells me you refuse to sign," she said, waving away the tutor.
"Correct." Victoria's voice sounded more dauntless than she felt.
"My dear, you must understand. We are talking about your protection."
"No," she said, rising to face her mother, "we're talking about my abnegation."
Helena rang the doorbell repeatedly. She was dauntless in her attempt to locate her neighbor. She knew something was wrong. Helena was very erudite about the signs of foul play. There was no abnegation in her feelings. Her candor in her conversation with the police had made it obvious there was deep amity between the two neighbors. She knew he was in danger.
“Dauntless amity
Erudite abnegation
Let’s go for coffee.”
Beth let the slip of paper fall from her fingers. “Pardon my candor, but that is the worst haiku I’ve ever read. How did you choose these words?”
“The thesaurus did the heavy lifting.” Matthew shrugged.
Beth sighed. “Abnegation? Really?”
He peered at the paper. “Oh. No. That should say ‘erudite ab negation.’ Like, I’ve got scholarly abs and negative fat. See?” He started to pull up his shirt.
She raised a hand to ward him off. “That’s okay,” she said, turning back to her cornflakes. “She’ll love it. Go get her.”
Seth Valiatrix’s mother burned on the cross. He faced the dauntless challenge set forth for him as he spotted the erudite priests who had condemned her despite her abnegation of sorcerous pursuits. She had denied in all candor the charge of witch. They found her guilty just the same. He chaffed at the jocular amity of those priests standing there amongst themselves, luxuriating in her screams of agony as she begged surcease from her torture. Seth had learned one incantation. He spoke the fell words and summoned the demon forth. As she drew her last breath, the priests drew theirs.
100 words exact. ^_^
Dauntless.
Everybody whispered it with erudite. It scared her as much as those who spoke with candor. She wanted a life, to settle for once.
When she refused the whispers grew louder, nearing shouts.
Dauntless. Abnegation.
Abnegation.
The word struck her as odd. What kind of word was that? She couldn’t shake it away. Everywhere she went, the shouts were for her.
The only amity she was going to have was to do it—to listen to them.
She couldn’t build a life here, not with the shouting. They wanted her gone. She packed and left town the next night.
While Prince Hapton was an erudite fellow, he lacked an understanding of 20th-century feminism. So when he stumbled on a princess napping in the forest, he didn’t hesitate to wake her.
“I have arrived,” he said, “to sacrifice myself for your safety.”
The princess blinked at her dauntless hero, who swaggered with an air of abnegation. “Such candor from a man who dares to wake me from my slumber!” she said. “Especially when I’ve been up all night working on my dissertation.”
Thus she destroyed the prince’s attempt at amity and proved that princesses don’t need rescuing after all.
Goldilocks & Masks
The raccoons waged a war. Not being creatures of self-abnegation, they graduated from summers pillaging my outdoor trash to winters looting my indoor pantry. Clever. Devious. Dauntless.
“There’s no raccoons at Dad’s,” said my ten-year-old with candor.
Although I’d called a truce with my ex, our amity went only so far. As a professor, he believed himself erudite in every subject of conversation ever spoken, a trait that scraped my inner blackboard.
“Look, Mom. One’s sleeping in your bed.”
I shut the door and winced. “Let’s give your dad a call.”
The erudite jackass was one of the holier-than-thou of the Legion.
“You must vacate these premises,” he said, steam forming with his words.
He was dauntless, Widow would give him that. Her stomach growled with the gnawing of her recent abnegation of flesh. There was amity between the Legion and her people. If you believed the peace accords were written with candor that meant Widow couldn’t eat him.
“If you want to keep your things we can have them shipped,” he said picking up one of her scarves.
He felt Widow's teeth cut his flesh before he realized she’d moved.
Attempting to become an erudite in the literary arts is a dauntless task. An author must become a lexicon in his own right. Thus knowing that amity is more than just the place where killer sharks come to feed, and that abnegation isn’t the amalgamation of abnormal and fornication. Let it also be said that elegant writing is not dependent upon the number of gargantuan words an author employs. However, if one wants to avoid the callous candor of the saw-toothed critics a composition of exquisite prose is a necessity.
Candice thought that erudite and boring were fast becoming synonyms in the throne room.
Only Jack was not attempting dissuasion. He waited at the door and she thanked the Lights for pirates who accidentally abducted princesses.
“Enough”
They fell silent. Their expressions disliked her abrupt tone and reinforced her choice.
“Enough. Candor threatens amity. I am nothing, if not candid. I will not bend my nature or allow it to break this country. I renounce my claim to the throne.”
So simply done, she thought, as she walked towards Jack in dauntless abnegation of the things she never was.
Breck stared out into the writhing mass of followers, and then even further out, beyond the fortress walls, at the even bigger throng—the hungry and dauntless. He wasn’t sure which was worse.
A light cough, then, “They think you to be quite erudite in your methodical leadership. Give them the candor and amity that they all desperately want from you.”
Breck whirled, but then seeing only Martin and not the reaper, relaxed again. “Have you heard the moaning of the dead, noticed that the sun has disappeared, probably forever? Or will you pretense the full abnegation of your senses?”
“Arriving at Abnegation Station!” the porter called.
The man next to George hurriedly unwrapped three candy bars and stuffed them in his mouth. Then he uncorked a wine bottle and guzzled frantically, eyes glued to the window.
“Does my breath smell?” he asked George.
“No,” George said, and handed him a breath mint.
An elderly passenger noticed him. “I’m going to Amityville,” she said, smiling.
“I hear it’s very safe there.”
“Next stop, Dauntless City!”
A beefy-looking man with a buzz-cut grunted in his sleep.
“He’s from Erudite Village,” George said.
“What about you?”
George smiled sweetly. “I’m from Candor Town.”
dauntless
amity
erudite
abnegation
She stared at the four words on her English test of definitions.
The four out of twenty she didn't study last night.
She gnawed the end of the pencil and hoped her teacher would admire her candor when she confessed.
"Abnegation? Look it up; it means to leave the gate open." He put his belt buckle on the table. Still attached to his trousers.
"I appreciate your candor, it was very tasty," said the man with the twisted bow-tie.
The room filled for ninety minutes or so and the chatter grew loud. Our two fell silent. Later, these erudite men shall discuss the benefits of wind-powered searchlights. Their amity, grown from loneliness, can be measured only in deserts.
The man with the bow-tie coughed.
The man without his trousers frowned and said: "Time is dauntless, and we have been careless."
I couldn't help but feel animosity instead of amity towards my brother. The venom dripped down my lip and burned while ripping through my body and limbs. His eyes were gaunt.
I did this, I did this, was all that would surface and breathe through my mind. I did this to him, I killed him. His erudite was for naught.
He warned me about the bloodsucking candor witches that derived from the flesh of the horses. It was a dauntless effort, but I was stricken with abnegation.
Blood chortled with venom plastered on my face, I couldn't breathe.
Ramon patrolled between mud-brick houses. Farmers farmed; kids played in the dirt or charged dauntless in fantasized war.
An erudite grunt, Ramon had framed his MA - then enlisted. He chose privates’ stripes over officers’ brass for the best shot at special ops. This was international relations. Though proud to bear self-abnegation and danger, his real combat was reading people. When the headman warned of a Taleban ambush, was it daring candor, or a crocodile‘s amity?
Anyone who approached might be rigged. Old men, kids.
Kids.
In the dirt.
The thought flashed just as his boot plunged the switch.
“I owe you candor. While I admire you, I can offer you only amity. I do not love you.”
Dauntless, she stepped closer to him and softly stroked along his jaw. “You will. The world may call you erudite, but you’re a schoolboy when it comes to love.”
She could feel his face grow warm beneath her touch. She smiled softly up at him and turned to leave; with her back to him, her smile slid into a smirk. His attempts at abnegation were useless. He would love her. And she would crush him.
“ABNEGATION. Triple word score. Plus all seven letters. 55 points.”
My turn again.
“Not fair. At all.”
“ERUDITE. Triple word. Plus all seven. 38.”
Again.
“First edition Scrabble. The navy box and off-register silkscreen. A pre-pop art charmer. Christie’s: $18,600. Mine has the handwritten corrections. $25,000. Even today.”
“CANDOR. Trip. All seven. 41.”
Again.
“What was she planning after the estate sale, to buy a new husband? She couldn’t even break a $20.”
“DAUNTLESS. Trip. Seven. 62.”
Again.
“Cheater.”
“AMITY. Sixteen. Hey! I won!”
The board emptied. The pouch filled.
“ABNEGATION. Triple word score. Plus all seven letters. 55 points.”
The amity of the honeymoon dissipated under the pressures of day-to-day cohabitation. Cecily, a spoiled heiress, became Bert’s erudite prosecutor, enumerating his short-comings with slanderous candor. She was dauntless in her attacks – suddenly claiming that his hobby – shark fishing - represented an abnegation of all she valued.
Unfortunately the pre-nup was airtight – a divorce meant he’d get nothing.
He returned victorious from the Shark Derby to find her gone. Several of her friends told the investigators that she was threatening to leave him. Bert was inconsolable. To lose his wife and his best anchor in one day seemed beyond unlucky.
Frank looked at the body across the bed.
"Dear Alice, why did I have to kill you? You were beautiful, dauntless, erudite . . . but not particularly loyal. It meant the knife, despite your candor. And for all that, I love you still."
Frank turned to Ted and held up his cuffed wrists.
"Are these necessary? Maybe we're not true friends, but our amity must mean something."
Ted raised his gun.
"You're not making any attempt at abnegation?"
Frank shook his head.
Ted shrugged. "It doesn't matter." He shot Frank four times. "You see, I loved her too."
74 words...
"Dauntless though you are," Ms. Reid muttered stabbing the delete key with her bruised index finger, "you greenhorns are apparently not erudite enough to appreciate candor. If I've told you once, I've told you fifty times…there isn't enough editorial amity on the planet to overcome abject abnegation of basic grammar rules. Get a!@#$ dictionary, and Strunk and White's Elements of Style, and don't frickin' query me again, until you've applied the principles of both!"
Roni stood at the podium and began her speech. “Ladies and gentlemen our mission is to provide amity amongst our schools.” She glanced down at her notes and continued,
“As the leader of this school, I vow to practice abnegation when presented with unethical options. I promise to be dauntless when it comes to decision making and candor when delivering messages.” She stared out into the crowded auditorium, “My wish is that one day you will be able to say that Roni Priatt was an erudite superintendent.”
(Maribeth Graham)
On a cold, windy winter’s morning, a dauntless but frightened soldier faces eastward. The Hindu Kush rise above the plain, in seeming amity with the harsh and sere desert valley and the hard blue sky. The thunder of guns, the terrible and noisome candor of war, rumbles all around him. After a year of living dangerously, he is an erudite scholar of this war. His is a monkish knowledge, born and bred of certitude and the total abnegation required of warriors. He will not survive this day, and he knows it. For him, there is no other life.
“He claims he comes in amity.”
Despite her task, Talia was dauntless. “He claims many things.”
Conrad rubbed at his temples before sinking into a chair beside the fire. “This is a mistake.”
“I appreciate your candor, Conrad, but I have weighed my options.”
“Have you truly? Your abnegation of a trial can benefit no one.”
It went against Talia’s every instinct to defy Conrad’s advice. He had proved himself an erudite advisor during her three short years on the throne. But there were larger games in play now than he even realized. Games she did not intend to lose.
What Duck lacked in amity, he exceeded with candor.
(He once told a gander he’d cook his goose.)
Erudite and educated, Duck often solved puzzling questions.
Why were so many fowl falling deader than decoys?
Was it forlorn love? A smattering of abnegation?
Dauntless, Duck inquired.
What he learned was simple:
Anger is one letter from danger.
Don’t be an Angry Bird.
Last night a guy walked in asking for Amity. His clothes reeked and his wallet was falling apart but he had the money. A thousand bucks, in twenties.
As I counted it out I told him his rights. Our rights. Clauses. Conditionals. Too erudite for laypersons but it's all part of our new candor policy.
“And she won't back out last minute?” he said in a hush.
“Amity's dauntless,” I said. “All our girls take vows of abnegation. She'll do whatever you want.”
I rolled her out and showed him her guns.
“The bazooka,” he said.
Oh magnificent and bitey Shark:
Kemo ground his teeth, dauntless eyes locked onto his brother. “Abnegation is not the answer!”
“No?” replied Jammeh. “Rebel uprisings. Treasury funds mysteriously vanishing. Assassinations. The Presidency is dead.” He strode toward his armada of bodyguards.
“Wait!” shouted Kemo. “You would leave me here?”
“Excuse my candor, brother, but what use are you?” asked Jammeh. “If only you had learned something useful at your erudite American school.”
“Numbers were my specialty.” Kemo coughed. “Swiss sorts of numbers.”
Jammeh suddenly stopped. He scowled, then waved his hand forward with a muted smile. “Perhaps you and I shall find amity after all.”
Thank you for your time!
Jeff
Myra knew candor was likely futile. Her fact-based reason held no sway with this group who believed in the mystical, the hocus-pocus, the divine.
Nevertheless, Myra would not abnegate her dauntless evangelization of the world’s core truth - there was no god - simply because she faced a group who believed themselves an erudite, theological powerhouse.
So Myra made an overture of amity, agreeing not to use the phrase “there is no god” and instead confine her presentation simply to facts. She would later realize, while being stoned to death, this decision was where things had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
“Yeah, well, sorry. We can’t all be as dauntless as you.” His eyes were cold and hard. Metal in winter. His face was even harder. The former amity had been frozen away. He might have been a stranger. “I’m done with this.”
I was silent for a moment. Forced jocularity would not avail in this case. The time had come for candor—no matter how much he hated me as a consequence. The truth. Even if it brought abnegation.
“Please,” I said, “please, listen. I have made a terrible mistake. I’ve been clever, but foolish. Erudite? Yes. Wise? No.”
As I stood over him, I made an abnegation of my erstwhile moral code. I wouldn't waste amity on this trash. He tried to receed, but I leaned in close. With calm and candor I said, "Some people mistake for you a erudite, but I know better. You're vermin. A dauntless pioneer into the beds of other men's wives. I could beat you to a pulp and you would still, somehow, slither where you don't belong. So I will hurt you no longer. I have to ruin you first. Then I'll kill you."
He believed me.
Lil and Margie lived on a cobbled cul-de-sac, homes and hearts separated only by a glowering A-frame. The eighty-somethings baked muffins, shared memories, and showed no abnegation at the library’s book giveaways. But amity turned to enmity when Mr. Pawpaw, the erudite librarian, moved into the A-frame. Cotton balls of hair fanned his ears, and his bespectacled eyes twinkled. He was a granny’s wickedest fantasy.
Margie concocted a lovely pie. A dauntless Lil whipped up an irresistible quiche. They hobbled to Mr. Pawpaw’s door with their seductive gifts.
With candor, he smooched Margie and honked Lil’s bottom. “I love cougars!”
His dauntless trek through the milky woods was waning. Darkness and the cold began working in amity as the wind erased his tracks behind. The deep powder gobbled his snowshoes like they were Mounds Bars and the edges of his knit cap collected crusty sweat. Anyone with half a brain knew sweating now was careless so he stopped trudging, punctuating his abnegation with a candor sigh rolling out beneath a crystalized gray mustache. He was lost, and scared. His wife’s erudite comments snapped inside his head. He’d wanted to leave her for years and this just might be his chance.
Foolish. Harsher words exist.
I tossed amity between our clans aside to burrow into his arms. I mistook abnegation for strength. Once dauntless and cunning, my cleared vision knew him a traitor and a fiend. Warmonger by proxy.
I’m no one’s scapegoat. My mistakes; my debt. I’ll pay none but mine.
Autumn leaves above mocked me. I’d been gone too long. I awaited my fate before a ring of erudite men who decided all. Candor was my only ally now.
“I was ignorant.”
They agreed.
“My penance?” I assumed my return.
“Death.”
“His?”
“Yes.”
“Done.”
Forgiveness with blood. Easy terms.
They said people weren’t perfect without CADE. I asked if Cade were a person. My mom said, “No, be more erudite.” I asked if Cade were a place. My dad told me to shut up for the sake of amity. I asked if I would have to eat Cade like I “ate” my spinach. Aunt Jessica told me my questions were dauntless.
By the time I asked Granny if Cade were an emotion (she answered negatively), I was ready for some candor.
“What is Cade?” I asked, surrendering.
There was no option of abnegation; together they said, “You.”
"Mother Theresa? Not sexy."
"Amity, were you named after the house or were your parents being ironic?"
"Abnegation is not sexy."
"No one honestly admires candor."
"Jane, people just say they shop at thrift stores. Kate Hudson is not hanging at Goodwill."
"Why do you care?"
"You're my roommate. Your coat is an etymologist's wet dream."
"Entomologist."
"What?"
"You mean bugs."
"The body lice will not care whose wet dream they're in or how erudite their host."
"Etymologists don't get off on bugs. Why are you here?"
"Too fearless for juvy."
"Well Sister Dauntless, Mother Superior requests your presence."
He had first admired her candor and wit. Then, as their relationship transcended amity and grew passionate, his admiration approached veneration. She was erudite, dauntless in her pursuit of linguistic excellence and purity. Her vocabulary seemed boundless, her punctuation was impeccable. (And, she was extraordinarily pulchritudinous.) His devotion was complete, and until that morning, he had perceived no reservations or rancor on her part.
He picked up the “Dear John” note — the abnegation of their love, if you will — she had left upon his pillow. He reread it, and began to reconsider her virtues.
“Eschew obfuscation,” it said.
Their amity began on the playground.
Her denim overalls had grass stains, but she approached him with dauntless confidence. “Do you want to go on the swings?”
He nodded, and they spent the rest of grade school together. In high school, however, her abnegation of academics provoked his irritation. Erudite from the start, he couldn’t understand her frustrations.
“You can’t honestly like this crap,” she said, flipping through his math book with disdain.
“I do.” His voice was a mixture of candor and confusion.
“I’m going to go outside,” she said, and he knew she wouldn’t be back.
Abnegation of civility allowed it to roam the shallow coves. It’s hellish grim rimmed in red, she faced it, dauntless, her bravery replaced by the candor of her own inexperience. She was, no doubt, erudite, but not when it came to slaying the horror which lived beneath the surface. So it was, the woman who faced with candor the terror of the depths, lived in amity with evil. For this she was rewarded two tons and twenty feet, it’s carcass. Her name, Reid, the revulsion beneath the waves, carcharodon carcharias, great white.
If she had cared enough, she would have ‘fessed up. Despite her somewhat restless abnegation, she always thought herself erudite, supremely capable of deflecting his accusations. He was dauntless in pursuit of the truth, and the truth was, he deserved to know. But as years had passed, so too the respect and amity that should have flourished. A far cry from the candor she claimed to embody, he was realizing no longer knew her.
Out of Time
By : Bruce Lockhart
“If you fail then it will have all been in vain, everything we’ve worked for, she won’t just be dead they’ll eradicate her bloodline from history, and then they’ll do the same to you.”.. “You always told it like it was, I admire your candor, it was one of the things I enjoyed most about our amity.”.. “Your lack of abnegation is disturbing, old friend, your erudite enough to know the ramifications of what you’re about to attempt.”.. “She was dauntless in her actions and died because of it, I’m going back, and I can save her, I have to.”
Damn containment failure.
My whole torso ached from my continuous scratching. Especially my right ab. “Negation of this itch is what I long for. Number in specimen now?”
Antonio cleared his throat. “Merda. The numbers will but daunt.”
“Less was too much to ask for. Their reproduction rate doesn’t make sense.”
Neither did Antonio’s lack of symptoms. Repeated exposure to a mity person. He should be crawling with them.
“What are you hiding?” I asked.
“Er, udite, udite,” Antonio switched from Italian. “Hear me out.”
I cut him off. “Can dor beetles be up next? You can be the subject.”
The crass voice unnerved me.
I swayed. The amity that existed with Dr. White and I didn’t negate my uneasiness of needles.
The voice followed me.
Shhh.
I passed Dr. White and the other erudite doctors. I ignored their silence.
Dr. White’s candor was appreciated but my abnegation of the source was keeping me here? Ridiculous.
The lone window was honest. I stopped and gripped the cold bars. An able, dauntless bird landed on the sill.
Help me.
I turned to silence the voice.
Shhh.
The room was empty.
I followed the black squares until they collided with the wall.
By Suzie Lockhart
Creature of Light?
This Monk, well versed in abnegation, stood staring at all the magnificent gifts this erudite creature offered. “Please accept my amity, great gain it will be for you and your brethren.”
The candor of this being took his breath away, but he was not dauntless in accepting this friendship. It did not sit well with him, and slowly he shook his head.
The angelic creature’s face suddenly transformed, it’s underlying evil now revealed. The Monk ran back to the Monastery as fast as his legs would carry him, thankful for the ability to discern it’s true nature.
“We came in amity, but you greet us with abnegation,” said the alien ambassador to the human representative that it had found.
“You keep using them $10 words and I’ll let my shotgun do my talkin’,” said the angry hillbilly.
“Let me speak with candour. Continue with your threats and you’ll find us dauntless,” responded the alien.
“Get the fuck off my land,” yelled the hillbilly, aiming his rifle at what he thought was the alien’s head.
“I tried so hard to be erudite, but I see I have failed,” said the alien as it evaporated the earth.
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