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A Likely Story: "Once Upon a Time" by Nadine Gordimer

In this unsettling "bedtime story" by Nadine Gordimer, a community goes to extreme lengths to protect their homes from intruders.
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Full list of words from this list:

  1. anthology
    a collection of selected literary passages
    Someone has written to ask me to contribute to an anthology of stories for children.
  2. aperture
    a natural opening in something
    I felt the apertures of my ears distend with concentration.
  3. distend
    become wider
    I felt the apertures of my ears distend with concentration.
  4. intently
    with strained or eager attention
    I could never listen intently as that in the distractions of the day, I was reading every faintest sound, identifying and classifying its possible threat.
  5. epicenter
    a point on the Earth's surface directly above an earthquake
    There was no human weight pressing on the boards, the creaking was a buckling, an epicenter of stress.
  6. flourish
    a short lively tune played on brass instruments
    The misbeats of my heart tailed off like the last muffled flourishes on one of the wooden xylophones made migrant miners who might have been down there, under me in the earth at that moment.
  7. inter
    place in a grave or tomb
    The slope where the fall was could have been disused, dripping water from its ruptured veins; or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs.
  8. profound
    situated at or extending to great depth
    The slope where the fall was could have been disused, dripping water from its ruptured veins; or men might now be interred there in the most profound of tombs.
  9. itinerant
    traveling from place to place to work
    They had a housemaid who was absolutely trustworthy and an itinerant gardener who was highly recommended by the neighbors.
  10. inscribe
    register formally as a participant or member
    They were inscribed in a medical benefit society, their pet dog was licensed, they were insured against fire, flood damage and theft, and subscribed to the local Neighborhood Watch, which supplied them with a plaque for their gates lettered YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED over the silhouette of a would-be intruder.
  11. suppress
    put down by force or authority
    The riots were suppressed, but there were many burglaries in the suburb and somebody's trusted housemaid was tied up and shut in a cupboard by thieves while she was in charge of her employers' house.
  12. befall
    become of; happen to
    The trusted housemaid of the man and wife and little boy was so upset by this misfortune befalling a friend left, as she herself often was, with responsibility for the possessions of the man and his wife and the little boy that she implored her employers to have burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of the house, and an alarm system installed.
  13. implore
    beg or request earnestly and urgently
    The trusted housemaid of the man and wife and little boy was so upset by this misfortune befalling a friend left, as she herself often was, with responsibility for the possessions of the man and his wife and the little boy that she implored her employers to have burglar bars attached to the doors and windows of the house, and an alarm system installed.
  14. heed
    careful attention
    The wife said, She is right, let us take heed of her advice.
  15. keen
    express grief verbally
    So from every window and door in the house where they were living happily ever after they now saw the trees and sky through bars, and when the little boy's pet cat tried to climb in by the fanlight to keep him company in his little bed at night, as it customarily had done, it set off the alarm keening through the house.
  16. bleat
    the sound of sheep or goats (or any sound resembling this)
    The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs.
  17. din
    a loud, harsh, or strident noise
    The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs.
  18. rouse
    cause to be agitated or excited
    The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs.
  19. cicada
    stout-bodied insect with large membranous wings
    The alarms called to one another across the gardens in shrills and bleats and wails that everyone soon became accustomed to, so that the din roused the inhabitants of the suburb no more than the croak of frogs and musical grating of cicadas' legs.
  20. discourse
    extended verbal expression in speech or writing
    Under cover of the electronic harpies' discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes, taking away hi-fi equipment, television sets, cassette players, cameras and radios, jewelry and clothing, and sometimes were hungry enough to devour everything in the refrigerator or paused audaciously to drink the whiskey in the cabinets or patio bars.
  21. audacious
    not held back by conventional ideas of behavior
    Under cover of the electronic harpies' discourse intruders sawed the iron bars and broke into homes, taking away hi-fi equipment, television sets, cassette players, cameras and radios, jewelry and clothing, and sometimes were hungry enough to devour everything in the refrigerator or paused audaciously to drink the whiskey in the cabinets or patio bars.
  22. compensation
    something given or received as payment or reparation
    Insurance companies paid no compensation for single malt , a loss made keener by the property owner's knowledge that the thieves wouldn't even have been able to appreciate what it was they were drinking.
  23. importune
    beg persistently and urgently
    Some importuned for a job: weeding or painting a roof; anything, baas, madam
  24. ransack
    steal goods; take as spoils
    But every week there were more reports of intrusion: in broad daylight and the dead of night, in the early hours of the morning, and even in the lovely summer twilight — a certain family was at dinner while the bedrooms were being ransacked upstairs.
  25. sheer
    very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front
    The man and his wife, talking of the latest armed robbery in the suburb, were distracted by the sight of the little boy's pet cat effortlessly arriving over the seven-foot wall, descending first with a rapid bracing of extended forepaws down on the sheer vertical surface, and then a graceful launch, landing with swishing tail within the property.
  26. reconcile
    make compatible with
    The man, wife, little boy and dog passed a remarkable choice: there was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance-points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plaster urns of neoclassical facades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white).
  27. aesthetics
    the branch of philosophy dealing with beauty and taste
    The man, wife, little boy and dog passed a remarkable choice: there was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance-points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plaster urns of neoclassical facades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white).
  28. urn
    a large vase that usually has a pedestal or feet
    The man, wife, little boy and dog passed a remarkable choice: there was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance-points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plaster urns of neoclassical facades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white).
  29. facade
    the front of a building
    The man, wife, little boy and dog passed a remarkable choice: there was the low-cost option of pieces of broken glass embedded in cement along the top of walls, there were iron grilles ending in lance-points, there were attempts at reconciling the aesthetics of prison architecture with the Spanish Villa style (spikes painted pink) and with the plaster urns of neoclassical facades (twelve-inch pikes finned like zigzags of lightning and painted pure white).
  30. affix
    attach to
    Some walls had a small board affixed, giving the name and telephone number of the firm responsible for the installation of the devices.
  31. frill
    ornamental objects of no great value
    It was the ugliest but the most honest in its suggestion of the pure concentration-camp style, no frills, all evident efficacy.
  32. efficacy
    capacity or power to produce a desired result
    It was the ugliest but the most honest in its suggestion of the pure
    concentration-camp style, no frills, all evident efficacy.
  33. serrated
    notched like a saw with teeth pointing toward the apex
    Placed the length of walls, it consisted of a continuous coil of stiff and shining metal serrated into jagged blades, so that there would be no way of climbing over it and no way through its tunnel without getting entangled in its fangs.
  34. cornice
    the topmost projecting part of an entablature
    The sunlight flashed and slashed, off the serrations, the cornice of razor thorns encircled the home, shining.
  35. breach
    make an opening or gap in
    And it was true that from that day on the cat slept in the little boy's bed and kept to the garden, never risking a try at breaching security.
Created on Tue Apr 09 16:07:23 EDT 2019 (updated Wed Apr 10 08:14:53 EDT 2019)

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