The word of the week is:
Satellite
Definition:
Noun
- an artificial body placed in orbit round the earth or another planet in order to collect information or for communication
- Astronomy a celestial body orbiting the earth or another planet.
- something that is separated from or on the periphery of something else but is nevertheless dependent on or controlled by it
- Genetics a portion of the DNA of a genome with repeating base sequences and of different density from the main sequence.
An excerpt The Wintersongs a short story from There Are Little Kingdoms by Kevin Barry
Through and on, North Tipperary, weary hedgerows and chimney pots, and the far-out satellite stepping down from lorries, giving out to phones – and it darkened, as though on a dimmer switch, the morning became smudged and inky.
Losing the wheels, she said, was rough. When you’ve no wheels the options are limited. You’d be inclined to pack it in altogether. Of course if I had sense, I’d be driving still but I rode my luck and it gave out. I turned it over outside Tullamore. They’d every right to take the course of action they took. The startling thing was there wasn’t a mark on me and the car a write-off.
PRACTICE
Write for five minutes, using the word “satellite” as frequently as you can. When you’re finished, post your practice in the comments section.
Kudos to Audrey Chin who noticed my blatant error. Full of Christmas pud? Work it off with a bit of prose!
Also, extra credit if you use the word of the week in your daily practice!
The Night Lights of the United States (as seen from space) by woodleywonderworks
My Practice
“I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you’d care”
I listened to words of the song playing in the background, part of the hundred years retrospective, the gallwall flashed images of past famous people. I tried to keep up with the textlink but it was all too fast. All I could do was hang onto the music. A single instrument and a voice. A young voice, a boy’s or a young man’s and the instrument maybe a wooden guitar. What was that called again? The word escaped me.
I watched the screen, concentrating on the background. Tall buildings and green grass, cloth at windwalls, food, lots of it and smiling faces. She shivered in the bleak wind, thinking of her tent, she carried everything she owned on her back as did all the other survivors. There were no fireside hearths and happy children. Satellites, we have those, she thought, little balls in the slate grey skies that record our every move.
I could never imagine wishing on one, what was a star though? It sounded like something from above the sky. Oh Tezinni, stupid girl! I told myself off. The gallwall told us every day, we were the only survivors, we were contained, the universe destroyed but for this small section, the earth almost shattered but for the greatness of President Smith who single handedly saved this chunk. We must not wander past the city gate as mutant beings lurk in their satellite lairs.
We didn’t smile, just survived. The music changed more in keeping with our mood a young girl’s plaintive cry, a child’s. …“In the bleak mid-winter.”
In another place warm well fed children watched on video link the latest episode of ‘The Survivors.’ gleefully from their cozy homes they watched the cast struggling in a post apocalyptic landscape, a satellite community.
