Past possible tense [Three word week #38]

Luke knew she dreamt prophetically – witness the dream she told him of all those years ago, when they were both thirteen.   Admittedly she only told him after the event but she had her reasons and by then, even if she had told him (and he would have believed her) there would have been no getting out of going on that trip.
  
And that it turned out so horrifically was nothing to do with psychic over-ride as such.   Yes, it had involved psychological manipulation, the ‘divide and rule’ thing, and he, that man whose name he no longer cared to mention (not because he had not got over the experience – and he thought to a small degree he never would because it was part of him) was fully grown and had well-honed his methods.
  
All they, at thirteen, had had was the sort of knowledge of each other that came with growing up together, but even so there had only been the two of them who had had the guts, the self-belief, the understanding of the need for urgency to even try to combat it.   All those hours of whispered urging the others to believe, to understand what the man had been aiming at, in that room filled with what Dee kept calling ‘janky’ furniture, the stained mattress and folding metal chairs, white enamel paint mostly peeled off, but rusty-edged where it hadn’t.    Every time Dee said the word Luke thought of ‘jankers’ and remembered his uncle who had told him jankers was an army prison, which could equally apply to this.

Much of it had been physical control, which was why every time the four of them had had to lay and listen to the fifth one who was in with him, to hear the whimpered anticipation and the aftermath sharp yip of pain, it undid all the talk of ‘together we can beat him.’
  
In the end it had just taken two, but because there was only two, and because the rest weren’t with them – hadn’t been able to be brought to see sense or the need for action – those two had had to carry out a far larger task, and keep it secret from not only him but the others too.   So big and with such consequences that they had had to claim it an accident, to keep their part in it a secret, to lie about what happened, both to the others and subsequently to everyone who ever asked.   You’d’ve thought that would mean their loyalty to each other would be forever steadfast.

You’d be wrong.

But, back to her.   Back to today and how he’d got here.   Was it due to her hyperinduction?   Her entering his mind, his dream and causing him to make a plan to come back here?   Truly not knowing until she reappeared that that was what had happened?

He could no longer say that was impossible.

This week’s entry for Steve Isaak’s Three Word Week http://www.readingbypublight.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/3-word-week-38.html

A selection which for once I’ve been able to incorporate into an on-going piece of work, whose provenance owes much to Lisa Ricard Claro’s Book Blurb Friday http://www.writinginthebuff.net/p/book-blurb-friday.html and continued development to the daily prompts on Thinking Ten http://www.thinkingten.com and may well become the follow-up to my NaNoWriMo 2011 novel ‘Not wanted on voyage’, for which I’ve just about finished the first draft. 

I.) hyperinduction - v. When someone psychically overrides - controls - the will and actions of another person. (Source: Alphas, Season 1, episode #1: "Pilot"; original air date: 7/11/11)
II.) janky - adj. - Inferior quality; held in low social regard; old and delapidated; refers almost exclusively to inanimate material objects, not to people.
III.) yip - adj. - n.A sharp, high-pitched bark; a yelp.; intr.v. To emit a yip; yelp.

Super stud unscrewed [Three word week #37]

‘You’re at it again!’   She slammed the mug of instant coffee down onto the worktop with sufficient force for it to slop over and puddle.

‘At what?’   He had hoped to project male disdain at excessive female emotion but his head hurt too much for him to raise his eyebrows.

‘Using those poncey made-up wank-words, the ones you keep bringing home from that American girl that you say you hardly know, and never speak to.   ‘Inoculatte’ my arse – it’s not lack of  coffee that makes you late, just lack of will power – though I suppose you’re expecting me to be tactful about that too …’

Over the rim of her glass of peppermint and jacaranda tea, she studied him.   Not only was he self-pitying and failing to perform but he looked unattractive too, face sheened and glaucous, eyes dull and a couple of whiteheads appearing on his chin.

Seeing her eyes on him he strove to gain further sympathy.   ‘I’m not sure I’m well enough to go to work … I’m clearly suffering from an invasion of xenobiotic antibodies …’

He’d misread her expression, misread the tone of her voice and misread the gentleness with which she set down her own mug.   Deceptively calm, she said ‘And I’m suffering from an invasion of Zeno stoicism.’   She handed him his jacket and his briefcase.  ‘ Go.’

This week’s entry for Steve Isaak’s Three Word Week

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/3-word-week-37_22.html

I.) glaucous - adj. 1. Of a pale grayish or bluish green.
II.) inoculatte - v. - To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. (Source: The Washington Post's Style Invitational, 2005)
III.) xenobiotic - adj. - Foreign to the body or to living organisms. Used of chemical compounds.
n.A xenobiotic chemical, such as a pesticide.

Read the small print [3 Word Week #36]

I don’t like stating the bleeding obvious, or being predictable, but it really is impossible to use the words ‘Heath Robinson’ without also saying ‘contraption’   You try it.   Although I  did think that surprise had something to do with my loss of verbal control.  
This is how it happened.  My Dad coaches one of the top football teams (can’t tell you which for reasons of discretion) and he's always let me tag along to training sessions at weekends and in the summer holidays, so I always got to know the players, seeing them come and go as I grew up.   A couple of summers ago, when I was fourteen, he said he didn’t want me to join in the swimming pool sessions, last year it was no shorts, and at the beginning of this holiday he presented me with a track suit – expensive, top-of-the range, very nice, but bloody baggy!    I knew what he was up to, of course, I’m not stupid, but no amount of argument would have him change his mind.   Last summer I eventually gave in, not without sulking.   This summer, no problem, meek as the proverbial!
And the reason for that?   

Aha, as I said, I’m not stupid, so I’m not telling you his name.   Suffice it to say, lest you think the obvious, he wasn’t one of the footballers.   No, he was one of their Dads – bet you weren’t expecting that were you?   Anyway, to cut what might be getting a too long story short, him and me had been getting on really well for a few months, if you know what I mean, so when the team got to the European Cup and were away for a week I decided I'd surprise my bloke by turning up at his house to spend some quality time together. 
Well, he was surprised, yeah, but so was I, because the first time I went into his bedroom there was this … well, believe you me, ‘Heath Robinson contraption' is the only word.   Levers and pulleys and swivels and angles and chains and all sorts of springy spikes and slightly sharp-edged bits and pieces.   Being of a practical disposition, it took me ten seconds max to work out what it was.
‘So,’ I said, demonstrating I was an understanding sort of girl, ‘You put your foot in here,’ (indicating) ‘or your hand here,’ (ditto) ‘move it up and down, faster the better, and Bingo, you got pain.’
He went red, poor sod, all embarrassed and a bit woebegone too, like a little boy caught with his hand down his trousers and a dirty magazine under the mattress, but me, I’m dead straight as well as practical so I said ‘Look, love, if it’s flagellation you want, absolutely no worries, I only charge triple rates.'   He should’ve known that already, it was on the card I gave him at the beginning – as I said, I don’t like stating the bleeding obvious.

http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/03/3-word-week-36.html
I.) flagellate - tr. v. 1. To whip or flog; scourge., 2. To punish or impel as if by whipping.
adj. 1. Biology Flagellated., 2. Resembling or having the form of a flagellum; whiplike.
3. Relating to or caused by a flagellate organism.
n. An organism, such as a euglena, that is equipped with a flagellum.
II .) Heath Robinson - adj. - Absurdly complex and fancifully impractical. (The term was coined after W. Heath Robinson [1872 - 1944], a British artist known for drawing ingeniously complicated devices.)
III .) woebegone - adj. - 1. Affected with or marked by deep sorrow, grief, or wretchedness.
2. Of an inferior or deplorable condition: a rundown, woebegone old shack.  

In days of olde ... when knights were absent [Three word week]

Victoria turned from the turret window, from which the pluming dust of the Crusade-bound cavalcade, led by her liege lord in response to the king’s summons, could now barely be seen.   Disbelievingly she regarded what lay on the pewter dish, the canescent globes unappetising in the extreme.   One raised eyebrow was sufficient to permit the waiting varlet to speak.

‘My master asseverated that your chastity could only be assured if you ate these especially selected mushrooms daily – on pain of death I am to make sure.’

Victoria smiled – her lord could hope, but she knew that neither her chastity nor the varlet’s death would be an issue  – unless issue became one instead.

This is my first post for Steve Isaak's three word week challenge http://readingbypublight.blogspot.com/2012/02/3-word-week-31.html

where you will also find definitions of the relevant words:  asseverate, canescent and varlet.