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Word for Word: Amidship
I’m in a writers’ group that meets on Zoom, though before the pandemic we met in person. Every week, we do a writing prompt: someone gives a page number, and our organizer picks a word from a huge dictionary. We write for five minutes. In this example, the word is: Amidship
The Pirate Queen stood amidship and surveyed the crew preparing for a storm. A nearly black, menacing cloud hovered in the distance. Convinced it was moving closer, the Pirate Queen peered at it. As the enormous dark cloud shifted, it seemed to form a skull and cross bones.
The Pirate Queen slapped her forehead. This cloud could be a curse, she surmised. One way to confirm this was to consult a wise witch — and she knew a witch was in the lower decks. She turned on her heel and headed down the stairs.
Chests and a trunk were piled high in the witch’s tiny cabin. On a bracket shelf above the door were candles and a peculiar jar that caught the Pirate Queen’s eye every time she stepped into the room. She remembered the first time she saw that jar and asked about its contents.
The witch chuckled. “That’s the… thumb… of Matt Gaetz, the toe of Josh Hawley, and the smallest appendage belonged to Donald Trump.”
The Pirate Queen knew about the bizarre accusation from witch-hunters that witches collected penises in chests or nests, The…