Abash

abash
verb, transitive. To cause to feel embarrassed, disconcerted, or ashamed. Usually used in the form of the adjective "abashed".

Ellen turned her face away from the bright windows and examined the next paper in the stack. The familiar feeling of disappointment welled up as she read the few sloppily-handwritten paragraphs. Were these children learning nothing from her? She picked up her red pen again and began to mark the grammatical and spelling mistakes.

As she worked, part of her mind began to daydream. She longed for a day when her patient tutelage and example would abash the class into taking in what she was trying to teach them. She was convinced that was the way to get through to them. Surely it would succeed where harsh criticism and punishing assignments would not.

She finished marking up, concluded by assigning a grade, then recorded it. The next theme awaited.

Suddenly, she could stand it no longer: not on a day like this. She got the canvas tote out of her bottom desk drawer, grabbed the students' papers, and stuffed them into it. She retrieved her purse, seated its strap on her shoulder, grabbed the tote's handle and headed for the door. She barely slowed to flip the lights off, and by the time she was halfway down the hall, she was running. She would derive some happiness from something today, or know why.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Zap

zap
verb, transitive. To destroy or obliterate. To cause to move suddenly and rapidly in a specified direction. To cook or warm food or a drink in a microwave oven.
verb, intransitive. To move suddenly and rapidly, especially between television channels or sections of a video recording by use of a remote control. Also a noun.

Chloë's manager, Margaret, did her job by wandering around the office with a mug of coffee clenched in one fist. She never seemed to linger at anyone's workstation for long, until she came to Chloë's. She would stand at Chloë's left elbow, silent, sipping, for a minimum of five minutes, watching the younger woman work, then move away at last.

Chloë always took a deep breath of relief when the scrutiny ended. She reviewed her every move at the light table, wondering what she had been doing to warrant such intense interest. She was new at her job and didn't feel comfortable talking about Margaret's behavior with any of her unfamiliar colleagues.

One day, Margaret interrupted Chloë's work by speaking. She had paused to watch, as usual, then said, "You're the only one who does that."

Chloë raised her head and looked at the manager, startled.

"Beg pardon?"

Margaret sipped at her coffee, made a face, then jerked her head toward the studio door.
"Walk with me," she commanded.

Chloë placed her Xacto knife against the ledge at the table's lower edge, slid off her stool and followed as Margaret left the room. The two women walked down the hall without speaking. Chloë was relieved when she realized they were going in the opposite direction from Margaret's office, then apprehensive. Was Margaret going to walk her to the entrance of the building, only to order her to leave and never return? Why? What had Chloë done? Quelling her panic, she reflected that if Margaret was planning to can her, she would have ordered Chloë to collect her things. At least, she thought that would have been the case.

Margaret turned into the break room door, walked to the microwave, and placed her mug inside. After she keyed the buttons to zap her coffee, she turned to address Chloë.
"You're the only person in that studio who uses a triangle with the T-square. Where did you learn to do that?"

Chloë blinked. "Drafting class," she replied after a moment. She wondered how the others were drawing perpendiculars if they weren't using triangles. She didn't know any other method.

Margaret withdrew her mug from the machine, sipped and, for the first time since Chloë had met her, smiled.

"That explains it," she stated.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Yammer

yammer
noun. A loud and sustained or repetitive noise.
verb, intransitive. To make a loud, repetitive noise. To talk volubly.

Rudy stood next to his brother John in the doorway to the kitchen. Yes, Michael was yammering on, as usual, despite being warned only the day before. He turned toward John as he gestured at the voluble baker.

"Listen to that! He never shuts up. I told him we couldn't have this going on in the kitchen all the time. Evidently, he can't control himself."

John looked on with a look of genuine amusement, to Rudy's disgust. "You're right. I don't think he can."

"What are you going to do about it? You hired him."

John was silent for a moment, watching the kitchen's occupants. While Michael held forth, the rest of the staff continued working, merely glancing at him from time to time. Occasionally one would utter a remark, when Michael paused for breath. The man was the most animated person in the kitchen, not only working the dough on the table before him, but windmilling his arms to emphasize a point every few sentences.

"I'm not going to do anything. He produces as much as any two other employees, and his product is topnotch. He's not distracting the others. See? Everyone is working." He turned to his brother and narrowed his eyes. "You don't like what he's saying, do you? That's why you brought this up. Get over it." He turned and went back to his office, leaving Rudy watching the scene in the kitchen, his face crumpling into an expression of sour discontent.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.

Xerox

xerox
noun (trademark). A xerographic copying process. A copy made using such a process. A machine for copying by xerography.
verb, transitive. To copy a document by the xerographic process.

Every so often, she got it out and read it again: the science-fiction story she had xeroxed out of a thick anthology before she passed the book along to a friend. The author's name was Bill Johnson. The story was entitled "We will Drink a Fish Together." It was one of the best short stories, in any genre, she had ever read.

It was long, as short stories go. She chuckled when she recalled the rainy Sunday afternoon when she had asked her husband and son to sit and listen while she read it aloud to them. It was that kind of story. Though each complained about the story's duration at different points in the narrative, in the end they were glad she had insisted on sharing it with them. Neither was a science-fiction fan, but they had enjoyed it as much as she had.

What she had always liked in science fiction was the fact that the human beings, despite their otherworldly environments and the as-yet-uninvented technology they so casually used, remained quintessentially, utterly human. As with so many other things, this aspect had two sides, but she found it comforting, nevertheless.

In "We will Drink a Fish Together," the main character who happens to be an alien seems just as human as the earthlings he befriends. This fact gives rise to the camaraderie of shared strife as well as a good deal of humor. The little rural American community where most of the story takes place is both unique and universal: the kind of place that, if you hailed from there, you would never really leave.

So she returned to the story now and again, to refresh that sense of delight she had gained the first time she had read it, to enjoy the nascent love story subplotted beneath the main arc, to laugh at the characters' mutual jibes and at the lawnmower race. Yes, there's a lawnmower race. Most of all, she enjoyed the anticipation of what she guessed the next phase of that community's life might be, hoped she was right, and wished Mr. Johnson had written a novel about it so she could read it, too.

Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.