3 word week: Invention

He knew as soon as his boss told him the plan that it was a bad idea. Yes, the device needed to be revealed to the world, but this was not the way to do it. They wouldn’t understand the importance of the find. Thanks to some incontrovertible evidence in the tomb, it was possible to date the parts very accurately, and they proved that mankind invented clockwork millennia earlier than was previously thought. This was big stuff; but would the uninitiated grasp the significance? Of course not – and he knew he’d be the fall guy.

Dennis had spent two years painstakingly copying each of the cogs and wheels and creating a working model. It had been in a woebegone state when it first arrived at his workshop. The rest of the team of archaeological investigators had carried out all of the tests they could on the bits and pieces and then brought him the remains to interpret. Luckily, many of the sections were still intact, thanks to the lack of rain at the dig site, but connecting up all the Heath Robinson gearing had given him a few challenges.

The work had been tough, but the finished article was a triumph. The key mechanism had been the trickiest: making sure it connected all of the rotors so that, when the brake disengaged, the whole apparatus danced majestically. Ratchets engaged, spheres spun, pivots balanced and the two flagellate arms swept delicate arcs around each other, making a soft swishing sound.

It was inevitable that the museum director wanted to make a show and so a press conference was duly called. Dennis was given his orders to set up the machine prominently so that, at the right moment it could be switched on for the crowd to admire. After a gushing introduction, the director handed over to him to explain how it all fitted together.  The journalists made suitably admiring noises and Dennis tried to give them every possible fact he could so that he could avoid the one question he dreaded: the one thing he could not answer.

As he reached the end of his talk and applied the brake to bring the mechanism to a gentle halt he hoped he had got away with it, but he should have known better. Just as the gentle machine hum ended a voice spoke up:  “But what does it do?”

*********

Three word week is Steve Isaak's challenge.  This week's words were: 

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.

Three Word Week: Playing hardball

For such a diminutive guy Borelli had a very large temper. It was not helped by the fact that he was an easy target for ridicule and his fellow soldiers missed no opportunity to make the little man feel even smaller. His portly shape and speech impediment had earned him the nickname ‘Thoftball’ - a corruption of the way he spoke. He had difficulty in pronouncing fricatives and his effs and esses came out flattened, with an accompanying whistle.


On the day he finally snapped, he set about one of his colleagues with a large wooden paddle. At each whack he shouted: “Thwine! Thith is what happenth when the thoftball geth hold of the bat!”
It took three people to hold him back and wrest the stick from him, at exactly the time that the commanding officer stepped out of the mess to investigate the noise. What he saw was an apparently cowardly attack by a group of NCOs on an individual, which is why they were dishonourably discharged for conduct unbecoming an officer, while Borelli was promoted to Captain.

*********

Three Word Week is hosted by Steve Isaak and is, just like it sounds, a weekly challenge to write something that includes three words he chooses.

This week's words are:
I.) diminutive - adj.

1. Extremely small in size; tiny.
2. Grammar Of or being a suffix that indicates smallness or, by semantic extension, qualities such as youth, familiarity, affection, or contempt, as -let in booklet, -kin in lambkin, or -et in nymphet.
n.
1. Grammar A diminutive suffix, word, or name.
2. A very small person or thing.

II.) fricative - n. -
1. A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.
adj.
Of, relating to, or being a fricative consonant.

III.) unbecoming - adj. -
1. Not appropriate, attractive, or flattering: an unbecoming dress.
2. Not in accord with the standards implied by one's character or position.

Falling Star. For 3 Word Week

Dirk Blaise looked hard into the mirror to check the crow's feet around his eyes. "Time for another tuck, Dirk baby," he muttered, as he continued to brush dye onto the canescent patches around his temples. "Or they won't be casting you as the varlet much longer."
He smiled his youngest-looking grin, revealing his newly re-whitened teeth.
"You CAN still pass as the juvenile lead," he asseverated, at the face that grimaced back at him.
But his reflection looked unconvinced.

*********

The wonderful 3 word week is back, hosted by Steve Isaak over at Reading & Writing by Pub Light. If you want to know the rules check them out here.  This week's three words are:

I.) asseverate - v. To declare seriously or positively; affirm.
II.) canescent - adj. -
1. Biology: Covered with short, fine whitish or grayish hairs or down; hoary.
2. Turning white or grayish.
III.) varlet - n. -
1. An attendant or servant.
2. A knight's page
3. A rascal; a knave; a deceitful, unreliable scoundrel.