Tenebrous/ Happy Mother's Day
Each Sunday, starting today, I will release a word with a lengthier example passage. I think you’ll enjoy this one. Happy Mother’s Day.
Tenebrous- creepy; gloomy; dark; shadowy
Ex: Vanessa was instructed to never open the door leading down to the tenebrous cellar. Oftentimes she would hear what sounded like muffled talking coming from under the floorboards. For years, she was too afraid to venture down into the cellar. That was until one day, one fateful day, when she summoned the courage to investigate just what lay beneath her home. She opened the door, took a deep breath, and began the perilous descent down the foreboding, cracked concrete steps. Slowly, almost painfully so, she put one foot down after the other, inching closer towards the bottom. As she encroached upon the cellar room, she began to hear noises growing louder and louder, clearer and clearer. They were people’s voices, voices that sounded distinctly…Jamaican. It was too late to turn back. She had no choice but to yank the chain hanging off of the light at the bottom of the staircase. And with a spark, a flicker, a flash, the room was suddenly illuminated. And what she saw made her gasp and shake and writhe in fright. Standing before her were two massive antique wooden chairs with paisley upholstery and leather straps strewn around their arms. Seated, or more accurately, propped up, in the seats were two large, lifelessly pale Jamaican men, bound tightly to the chairs by the leather straps. Their skulls had been sawed open, and their brains sat, exposed, atop their heads. There were probes dug into the brains with wires attached to them. Vanessa, now a ghastly shade of white herself, scanned the length of the wires and traced them to the vent at the foot of the closed door on the far side of the cellar. Vanessa, never taking her eyes off of the two Rastafari cadavers that sat in front of her, even though she would have liked to, made her way, trembling, across the room and over to the door. As she grasped the doorknob, Vanessa tried, and failed, to steady her breath. Her heart was beating furiously in an attempt to escape her chest. She turned the knob and swung open the door, taking a fighting stance to prepare for whatever lay inside. There was a man inside the room. A living, breathing man, this time around. She suddenly heard the words ring out, “BIG UP DE WHOLE ISLAND ITS YA BOI CHET AND ALLAT, BOMBOCLATT, BOOYAKA BOOYAKA, YA HURRR”. Agasp, she stood there, not knowing whether to be scared or comforted by who she was looking at. Inside the room sat Chet Hanks, with the two wires protruding from his scalp. In some sort of Get Out-type experiment, he seemed to be draining Jamaican men of their cool linguistic cadence and unique island slang. “I KNEW IT!” shouted Vanessa, “I knew you couldn’t nail that culturally insensitive accent without some extra help. Although this…this is way more fucked up than I ever expected.” Chet began to plead his case, “Vanessa, it’s just an island ting, ya hurr? Me no means no harm, bomboclaat. De Big Boss Jordan, Jordan Peele, he inspire me on a big-up big inspiration type ting, ya hurr.” Vanessa, almost at a loss for words, shook her head and responded, “You are a piece of shit. Now gather your little science experiment and get it out of my basement, NOW! You can enjoy your white boy summer anywhere else, just not here. Your father would be ashamed of you.” That last line struck a chord with Chet, he had been doing all of this as a result of his father never giving him the approval that he so badly craved. “My fada, big-ups to da man, he forced me a do dis! You think Chet wanna do dis, you think Chet wanna make mediocre rap music and act like Jamaican all di time? Hell no, wagwam! Chet just wanna be seen! Chet just wanna be appreciated! Ja Feel, mi sista?” Vanessa suddenly felt sorry for Chet. She probably should have felt sorry for the two dead Jamaicans in the other room, but she couldn’t help feeling sorry for Chet in that very moment. It was in this vulnerability that Chet was able to convince her to take on the role of the daughter from Get-Out. From that point on, Vanessa became a talent scout for Chet. She racked up hundreds of thousands of sky miles on her trips to Kingston, always flying home with a dread headed Jamaican man with a booming voice who was convinced he was flying with her back to America to carve out a new life for himself with his new American girlfriend. With Vanessa by his side, Chet never ran out of his sacrificial Jamaican subjects. He would always, and forever, be from di island, mon.