Feeling Wordy

Feeling Wordy

Mark A Davis

270

The library was a large, open building, three stories tall with an open center.  It was dark, lit only by weak moonlight that filtered in through wide windows.  Everywhere tall bookshelves were draped in shadow.  The air was cool -- somewhere an air system hummed.  Like any modern library it was clean and orderly, but there was still a hint of the musty, dusty smell that you always get in the presence of old books.

Grandpa Anarchy, world's oldest hero, strode into the center and yelled, "Literate Lemur!  I know you're here!  Show yourself!"

Grandpa was dressed in his usual rumpled gray suit with the silver anarchy symbol stitched over his left breast.  Beside him stood his current sidekick, a young black man dressed in red converse hi-tops, a red robe and a red wizard's hat.  He called himself Hexcoder, Adept of Apps.

From high above them a voice called out.  "Tell me, Grandpa, did you follow my clues to the headwaters of my crime spree, or did you simply head for the nearest library as you usually do and just assume you'd find me there?"

Grandpa cracked his knuckles as he peered up into darkness.  "I think you know the answer to that," he said.

"I am sorry to say that I do indeed," the voice replied.   "Do you even care to know which books I am attempting to steal, or why I would want to steal them?"

"Nah," said Grandpa.  "The only book I'm interested in is the Book of Justice."

Hexcoder tapped what looked like a smartphone.  At the same time he exclaimed, "I cast magic missile at the darkness!"  A flash of light lit the room for a moment, revealing the Literate Lemur standing on an upper balcony.  He was a somewhat rotund man dressed in a costume of black and white stripes with a long, striped tail, a masked face and reflective eyes that flashed in the bright light.

"By Librarium!" exclaimed the thief, stumbling back.  "My eyes!  You should provide sufficient warning before you shatter the night with such fireworks!  I believe it was Ursula K. Le Guin who said:  When you light a candle, you also cast a shadow.  Thus am I revealed!"

Grandpa was running for the stairs to the second floor.  "You always talk too much, Lemur!" he called out.

"Naturally, as one who loves the literary arts, that would be the case.  As for your supposed Book of Justice -- I must say, there are of course actual books that you might be referring to, but sadly I know that you speak not of any physical book.  Really, any conversation with you is no more rewarding than conversing with a brick wall.  As Marcus Tullius Cicero said:  Silence is one of the great arts of conversation."

Grandpa reached the third floor and charged the villain, who stepped lightly off the balcony and dropped to the top of a bookcase below.  The Literate Lemur carried a satchel that apparently held several books, and carried a large tome in his hands.

"Those books are the property of the city public library!" Grandpa exclaimed.

The Literate Lemur laughed.  "As if any member of the public can appreciate them as I do.  No, books of this stature and age belong to someone like me who will cherish them for what they are."

"Binding Net!" exclaimed Hexcoder as he stabbed his device.  The Lemur leaped into the air, avoiding a net of glowing yellow light that appeared from nowhere.

"You shant catch me so easily, my good lad!" he called out as he disappeared between shelves.  He dodged around a corner, only to find Grandpa Anarchy waiting for him.

Grandpa punched.  The Lemur blocked with his book, then swung it in an arc, striking Grandpa Anarchy in the head.  As Grandpa staggered into a shelf, the villain disappeared again.  He called out, "Did you notice the sound that the book makes when I struck you?  Biblock!  See, that's a word of my own design -- a neologism and an onomatopoeia in one.  Quite clever, no?  I would expect a man as enamored with the Biffs! and Bams! and Pows! of the world as you are would appreciate it.  As the bard once said:  Action is eloquence!"

Grandpa chased the Lemur through the library as they exchanged blows.  His sidekick tried to keep up, and made two more attempts to ensnare the book thief.  The Lemur laughed, and used a grappling hook to suddenly ascend to the ceiling beams.

"You know, Grandpa," he called out, "a battle between us in an old library like this is almost perfect.  Where else would you and I choose to duel?  When I'm in places like this, I feel a profound sense of vellichor.  Do you know what vellichor is?  No, of course you don't -- although I can't really blame you, as the word is another neologism -- that's from the Greek  néo-, meaning new, and lógos, meaning speech or utterance, in case you didn't know.  Vellichor was coined by John Koenig ins 2013 in his remarkable online Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.  I am normally not a fan of online media but an actual book is said to be forthcoming and to be honest I find his work fascinating and worthy of attention.

"The word means the strange wistfulness of used bookstores, which are somehow infused with the passage of time -- filled with thousands of old books you'll never have the time to read, each of which is itself locked in its own era, bound and gagged and papered over like an old room the author abandoned years ago, a hidden annex littered with thoughts left just as they were on the day they were captured."

As the thief talked, Grandpa and Hexcoder had once again run up the stairs to the third floor.  Grandpa climbed atop a bookshelf and leaped for the rafters.  He scrambled onto a steel beam and ran the length of it, charging towards the Literate Lemur.

"Quite a lot to take in!" exclaimed the Lemur as he dodged Grandpa's first punch.  The two exchanged blows as he continued to talk.  "But I find this word perfectly describes my own feelings when entering an old bookstore or library.  A feeling of melancholy that comes over any lover of books when in the presence of so many old and wonderful tomes -- the smells of old books, the look of such waiting on shelves, the dust of years and the hopes and fears of the death that you will find within them -- these are such things as haunt my dreams, and it is wonderful that a word exists to describe them."

Dodging a kick from Grandpa, the Lemur dove backwards off the beam and fell three stories to the ground floor.  Halfway down he fired another grappling hook and swung to the far side of the library, where he landed before the history section shelves.

"The word is obviously from the Latin vellum, meaning fine parchment, and quite possibly borrows an ending from petrichor, meaning the pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of dry, warm weather," said the Lemur.  "In short, it's a perfectly cromulent word.  Another that I'm feeling at this moment is kuebiko -- a state of exhaustion brought on by many acts of senseless violence."

"Never felt that," Grandpa said as he raced back down the stairs.  "But I got one for ya.  What is a word for the feeling of wanting to punch someone in the mouth?"

"I'm pretty sure that is simple anger," the Literate Lemur replied.

"No," said Grandpa Anarchy, "it's not anger.  My motivation is justice -- the desire to bring about justice through violence."

Grandpa was on the second floor now.  He leaped from the balcony to the top of a bookshelf, which shook when he landed.  His sidekick was right behind him, magical app device in hand.  They hopped down and charged the Lemur, who stood in the same spot, apparently unconcerned.

"Ah," said the Lemur.  "I do not believe such a word exists.  But if I were to consider for a moment -- justice is from Latin, but the Old English equivalent is probably rehtwisnisse, or right witness, which is akin to righteousness -- although technically that derives from righteous, which is made up of the words right and wise.  Yearning is Old English as well -- actually they believe it's Proto-Indo-European, the word gher, to like or want.  Likewise fyst is an Old English word derived from Proto-Indo-European penke, meaning five."

The floor opened beneath Grandpa and his sidekick.  They fell into a narrow pit with smooth sides.  The Lemur appeared at the lip, staring down at them.

"I'm no expert in conjugating Old English," he added, "to say nothing of Proto-Indo-Europrean, but I think a word like yearpenkewise or 'yearning for a wise fist' should do nicely.  There you have it:  yearpenkewise, a new word to describe the longing or desire to punch someone for the sake of delivering justice!

"Sadly, you must continue yearning, Grandpa -- for once again you fall into my trap, and I shall make my escape with my stolen goods.  You know, if you only read the clues and solve my riddles you might have avoided this.  I suspect what you are feeling right now is a  profound sense of énouement -- that is, the bittersweet feeling of having met the future but being unable to warn your past self about it."

A shadow appeared behind the Lemur.  "Nah," said Grandpa Anarchy.  "I've never felt that."  The shadow grasped the thief by the shoulder and spun him about.  The Literate Lemur found himself face to face with Grandpa Anarchy.

"What?" exclaimed the villain.  "But... how...?"

"I'm Grandpa Anarchy from the future," the second replied, "here to warn myself about a terrorist bombing in downtown New York.  But I got a moment to deal with you too.  Yearpenkewise this!"

He punched the Literate Lemur in the face.  The villain staggered backwards.  He mumbled, "That... is an improper use of the word," and collapsed into oblivion.

FINI