Be.

We sampled the future
in echoes of the past,
made is were
before are even was.

Reasonable.

He did a wonderful impersonation of a reasonable man.

Actinic word sequence.

Think.

I often think therefore I frequently am.

Foible.

Do the flaws and failures of those in whom I place trust (they having asked for it) more clearly exhibit their or my own foibles? We want those who purport to be authorities, advisors, friends, to not be hopeless underneath it all; and especially not to leech hypocrisy through a regretfully thin veneer.

Julie.

Alistair, who once won advertising awards and is now constantly anxious, ducks around the corner to smoke a large bowl of crack. Sweating, he returns to his spot on Queen Street and delivers his speech for the 100th time that day. He eyeballs people going about their business. “Our time is up. Do you know who I used to be?” He spits menacingly at all who would avoid his gaze. He used to be the small boy who’d fall asleep with his head on his sister’s lap, he remembers. But Julie was taken away somewhere because dad molested her and Alistair hasn’t seen either of them since.

Drown.

As he lost the ability to concentrate at length, his brain attempted to imbibe information while his spirit drowned in it.

Behaved.

He was unsure if he suffered from Whorfianism (he'd never heard it said); nevertheless he behaved as if he thought he did.

Sentence.

Ventured.

'Nothing ventured, nothing gained', some people liked to say. However, he was at a stage in life where the things he wouldn't get around to doing outnumbered the things he intended to do. He ought to feel unfulfilled. Instead, he feels himself pleasantly unburdened. Nothing ventured, nothing strained.

Ability.

Her ability to self-sabotge was limited only by her lack of confidence that she would do it properly.