Word of the Day: Silver-Tongued

 

January 12, 2018: silver-tongued \ SIL-ver-TUHNGD \  adjective;

1. Persuasive; eloquent.

 

When she won the oration exhibition, she had been proud. More than proud. It was proof, they told her, that she was silver-tongued. Which, of course, was a great honour.

When they had guided her off the stage amidst the still thundering applause, she was embarrassed to admit she had been a little disappointed. She had wanted to stand in and soak up that adulation a little longer.

When they had taken her through the building, to a small, sterile looking room with a large mechanical chair under a spotlight, she had been confused. She should have been more scared.

She was scared when they strapped her into the chair, and she demanded to know what they were doing.

Giving you your prize, they had said, all smiles. One of them even congratulated her again, as he stuck a needle into her arm.

When she awoke who know how long afterwards, she was stiff. It took her a moment to recognize her own bedroom, her own bed. Her mouth felt numb and strange, so she reached over for a glass of water, and tried to take a sip, but something was wrong.

Pushing herself out of bed, she stumbled downstairs to look for her husband. He would know what was going on.

When she reached the living room, she been doing all she could to throttle down the growing sense of dread. It didn’t help to find her husband, sitting on the couch, staring at the mantle above the fireplace with abject horror.

When she finally saw it, she wished desperately she had never honed her silver tongue. For there it sat, on her mantel piece, plated and filigreed and monstrous, light reflecting off each little ridge and bump.

And she cried a wordless cry.

 

Note: A super quick foray into what I hope is horror? I’m not sure I built the mood enough, but I still like the basic idea, so I may revisit it again and drag it out a little more. I sort of desperately want to write some horror, so this was a lot of fun — hopefully tomorrow’s word conjures up imagery so quickly for me. Weeeeee.

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