chappow
Finals were three weeks away. The library was crowded. In spite of this, the seats on either side of him were empty. Several times, he’d watched students climb the stairs to the mezzanine and spy the vacant desks, only to veer off at the last second.
chaprassi
Chris Fletcher, nineteen years and three hundred and sixty-four days old, was searching for his safe word. That was why he was hunched over the first volume of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary at ten o’clock on a Wednesday morning, when he would normally be in PSYC 103, or still asleep if he’d stayed up late the night before. Speed-reading from page 1 (a, AA, aam, aandblom), muttering under his breath. To start with, he’d received a few angry glances, but then they worked out what he was doing and turned their backs, plugging in their earbuds to block the noise.
chaps
With each new word, he waited for the flash. Like a warm blanket after being rescued from a blizzard was his mother’s (peripatetic) description. His sister Jeannie insisted that twelve princesses on pink ponies joined her in a happy dance when she found her safe word (sparkle), but she was only eight at the time, so this was understandable. Rick (widdershins), his friend and partner in mischief since primary school, had been more prosaic on his Wordday.
chaptalization
“Yeah,” he said. “It was pretty cool.”
chapter
When that flash came, he would know that he had found it, and everyone could relax. As his father (discombobulate) left for work this morning, he’d slapped Chris on the shoulder.
“Knock ’em dead, bro,” he said.
Parents should never try to talk like teenagers. Chris felt like pointing out that he was his son, not his brother. But Dad meant well.
char
Life for people who didn’t find their safe word was – he didn’t actually know, because he’d never met anyone. There was that documentary a couple of years ago, The Wordless Ones, but that turned out to be fake. Still, it couldn’t be good. No decent job, no friends, no girlfriend. Definitely no girlfriend.
chara
A young blonde walked across the central atrium below. Kelly. No, her hair was the wrong shade. How many times had that happened this week? Seeing someone he thought was her, hoping and wishing it was her, and then discovering it wasn’t.
charabanc
According to Google, the Shorter Oxford contained 600,000 words. If he could read three words a second, it would take – he did some calculations on his phone – 3,333 minutes. That divided by sixty equalled fifty-five and a half hours. Two days and seven hours, more or less, minus the two minutes he’d just wasted working this out.
characin
And he only had one day left. Tomorrow was his twentieth birthday. He was so screwed.
character
Dumbass. He smacked his forehead. He must have used that word a million times, so he’d already know if it was his safe word. He couldn’t afford to squander his precious time on common words like that. He skipped over characteristic, characterize and charade, and moved on to the next unfamiliar one.
charango
His mates had all found their words. He was probably the only person in the whole year who hadn’t. Hardly a week went by without one group or another celebrating in the cafeteria, the successful word-holder wearing the blue logofer’s bonnet.
chare
A brown paper bag dropped on his desk, stained dark with grease.
“Here, get that inside you,” said Rick.
Chris paused in his reading. “No food or drink in the library. You know that, right?”
“Who’s going to say anything?” Rick gestured at all the students who were carefully ignoring their conversation. “I reckon today you’ve got special dispensation.”
Chris opened the bag and took a big bite of the steak pie inside. “I’ve got bubonic plague, more like. And tomorrow, it’ll be even worse.”
“Nah. Nothing will change.” The corner of Rick’s mouth twitched. “We’ve always hated you, and we’ll still hate you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah, bugger off.” Chris forced a laugh, flicked pastry flakes off the page in front of him. Then he drummed his fingers against the edge of the desk.
Rick jammed his fists in the pockets of his jeans. “Well, I better leave you to it.”
“Yeah. I’ll see you when I see you.”
With a jerk of his chin, Rick spun on his heel and wandered off. Chris finished the pie, scrunched up the packet and stuffed it in the top of his backpack.
charivari
Another Kelly look-alike strolled past on the ground floor, at least six inches too tall. He sniffed his disappointment.
“A birthday party?” That’s what she said when he caught up with her after class last Friday. “I’ll check my calendar.”
chark
For several weeks, Dad had been pretending that everything was peachy, but yesterday Chris had walked in on his mother weeping silently in the kitchen. Even Jeannie, who he thought was oblivious, absorbed in her Year 10 dramas, had been affected. This morning he found a friendship bracelet – woven yarn in red, yellow and green – tied round his cell phone. He was wearing it now.
charkha
His left leg went numb. He stood up, bouncing on his toes. Then he knelt on his chair, elbows on each side of the dictionary.
charley horse
“Yo, man, what are you up to? Is that yoga?”
He looked up to see Neil, a sort-of friend-of-a-friend who often ended up at the same parties.
“You studying already?”
As if he didn’t know. Neil had never revealed his safe word, but Chris and Rick long ago decided it was butthead.
“Something like that.”
“Such dedication. I’m impressed. Hey, see you at happy hour tonight?” His grin glittered like a hornet’s sting.
Chris grunted and waved him off. Then he bent to his task, dismissing butthead from his mind.
charlock
charmeuse
He didn’t know Kelly well enough for her to share her safe word, but that hadn’t prevented him from speculating. Droll. Intriguing. Malodorous. Probably not that one.
charneco
The page ripped, a three-inch tear right through the middle of “Chas.” and “chase.” He peered around furtively. It sounded deafening to his ears, like a fart in an exam room, but nobody seemed to have noticed it. He smoothed it flat with his palm. If he replaced the book on the shelf afterwards, no one could prove it was him.
charnockite
“I’ll check my calendar.”
She hadn’t exactly accepted his invitation, but she hadn’t burst into incredulous laughter either. Plus she was smiling, so that was a good sign. He should have come straight out and asked her, though, instead of just hinting at it.
charophyte
Anyway, he’d overheard his mother on the phone on Tuesday, cancelling the cake. There wasn’t going to be any party.
charpie
Someone was singing, badly. What the hell, dude? Oops. He realised he was rapping, linking the words together in a nonsense lyric. The Asian couple in the corner, who held hands as they studied and with whom he’d developed a nodding acquaintance, quickly gathered their things and left.
Yep, bubonic plague. He went back to his former quiet chant.
charpo
Who even knew if his safe word was English? It could be Latin or Swahili or Norwegian.
lutefisk
Was that Norwegian? It was the only Scandinavian word he could think of, but it obviously wasn’t right – maybe his safe word wasn’t a real word at all. He slammed the first volume shut and opened the second. Started flipping through the book, backwards and forwards, stopping wherever a word caught his attention.
pronk
“Knock ’em dead, bro.”
turpeth
orpharion
Rocking in his chair, he turned the pages faster and faster.
yardang
“See you at happy hour?”
squarson
His eyes kept darting to the clock on the pillar.
Xanthism
rigwiddy
So screwed.
waught
qintar
His mouth was dry, his voice hoarse.
pressel
“We’ll still hate you tomorrow.”
Niffer
His left arm wrapped itself across the top of his head.
ubac
pulza
“I’ll check my calendar.”
Stephen Coates comes from Christchurch, although he has been living in Japan for many years. His stories have appeared in Landfall, takahē, Reading Room and Headland, as well as various overseas journals. His story ‘Brendon Varney Opens the Door’ took third place in the 2022 Sargeson Prize. He is a firm believer in Terry Pratchett’s maxim, ‘Writing is the most fun you can have by yourself.’