216
helpless
No one knows who he is, only that he's fallen to the pavement and is sobbing so hard he can't speak.
needed
Garbage bags bulging with skirts, blouses and sweaters.
oasitic
Footsteps echo in the atrium, and faint voices, but all the sounds arrive as from a distance. Birds skim the vaulting glass. There's no breeze, but the trees rustle.
rigidity
He considers the model of masculinity people tried to make him live up to: No feelings, except for anger and physical appetites. No tenderness. An internal world made up of steel girders with huge blank spaces in between.
sapor
Knowledge is a treasure to them and a pleasure to all the senses. They taste new facts. They savor what they learn.
stricken
She looks perpetually stunned by the indifference and cruelty around her. The magnitude of it empties her eyes. She's left with a smile that creases her face but never reaches her eyes.
uninhibited
Actors try to banish their self-conscious impulses. They howl and prance in public. They pretend to be jaguars and squirrels.
217
body
I'm uncomfortable among people who are being cued to do the same thing at the same time: chant, scream, clap or stomp their feet. If they're a large crowd and look like they're really into it, this puts me on edge even more.
exhort
At her age, she's both exploring new opportunities and also warning younger people not to make the same mistakes she made. But they don't all agree with her on what is or isn't a mistake.
gall
She usually likes it when other people are worse off than she is. At the same time, she doesn't want to be uncaring. So she offers comfort and advice. Only there's a bitter satisfaction in her tone that make people turn away from her anyway.
nerves
Branches spasm in the wind.
persevere
Her first impulse is to say it's too difficult and to back off. But then she weighs the disappointment that might come from a failed attempt against the greater regret of never trying.
rumble
The ground is trembling with the trains passing beneath it.
sopping
The vestibule is soaked in the heavy smell of wet coats.
