Sitting in the waiting room outside the headmaster’s office, Rupert fought to keep his face neutral, but his pulse was racing. He studied the portraits on the walls - previous graduates of the prestigious Sleep Academy, who’d gone on to great things. Roger Bederer. Rafael Napdal. Maria Snorapova. Would he join their ranks?

Finally, the headmaster’s door opened, and a student stepped out in a daze, his expression unreadable. “Rupert Duvet,” came the headmaster’s low voice, carried from deep within the office. Rupert swallowed, stood, and made his way past the other student into the room, closing the door behind him.

The headmaster sat behind a huge oak desk, stirring a cup of chamomile tea. With his free hand, he indicated one of the chairs in front of the desk. Rupert crossed the office and sat.

“Mister Duvet,” began the headmaster, eyes on his tea. “I have here your evaluations on your midterm exams, in both the Singles and Doubles categories.”

Rupert could barely contain himself. “How did I do, headmaster?”

The headmaster looked up at Rupert. “On Singles, you’re a natural. The footage from your exam makes this clear. Five minutes post-recline, you were asleep. No tossing or turning. Comfort ratings were high throughout. I haven’t seen breathing so even since Pillow Sampras sleepwalked these halls.”

Rupert’s breath caught. “That’s… thank you, sir!” he sputtered.

The headmaster nodded slightly. “Your Doubles performance, on the other hand… I’m afraid your partner has asked to be reassigned, and after reviewing the exam footage, it’s not hard to see why. Simply put - you’re somnasty.”

The blood drained from Rupert’s face. “I… what did I do? Did I snore? Did I hog the blanket?”

The headmaster looked down his nose at Rupert. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that, son. You went diagonal.”

“Yo, Urman!” is a syllagram of “Your Man.”

Be careful when turning a name or title into a URL or social network handle, as you may unintentionally evoke a syllagram of your intended meaning - Experts Exchange certainly ran afoul of that one.

When someone actually wants to wish someone else success on a particular endeavor, they will either simply say “Good luck!” or name the endeavor, as in “Good luck with your essay!” or “Good luck making the sale!” The phrase “Good luck with that,” on the other hand, is a sarcasphorism, virtually never intended sincerely.

“Wait, your company tried to recruit you before they IPO’d? Wow - do you regret not applying back then?"
“Not really. I wasn’t ready to work in a startup environment yet. I had some lessons I needed to learn first. It wasn’t a missed opportunity - it was more of a vaportunity. If I’d gotten the job back then, I would have been fired within a month.”

Browsing through the New Releases albums, Claudia was only dimly aware of the music coming from the store’s PA. As the track changed, she dispassionately noted they were playing what had once been her and Eyal’s song, and thought she should text him to ask what he thought of the latest from Aphex Twin. A moment later, she did a mental double-take - she hadn’t spoken with Eyal since their messy breakup two years earlier, and she was accustomed to thoughts of him being accompanied by dull pain and smoldering rage, not idle curiosity. But she wasn’t angry anymore, and it didn’t hurt anymore. Maybe it was time to vivimend with him.

Elin was always bothered by the idea of loneliness. She was too busy to waste time socializing, she told herself. The desire for company was a vesturge that she tried to push to one side, but if she went too long without spending time with friends she started feeling depressed and couldn’t get her work done.

I’m metangry about that insulting comment that anonymous poster left on my blog. I know I shouldn’t care what some random hater thinks about my work, and the fact that I’m thin-skinned enough that it bothers me just bothers me more.

“Look, I’ve apologized about forgetting to invite you to the party, and you agree it was clearly unintentional. But you’re still mad at me. I think the party isn’t the rageroot here. What are you really angry about?”

“Wait, you did what?" asked Josephine, her voice suddenly cold.
“I… I drank your soda from the fridge,” said Alesha. “It’s okay - I got you another one!"
Jo leaned in, her eyes narrowing. “But what if I’d been thirsty in the meantime?” she asked. Hearing herself, she stopped. She leaned back and took a deep breath.
“I… I’m sorry?” said Alesha.
Eyes closed, Josephine said, “Alesha, I’ve had a rough day. I know a soda doesn’t really matter, but you taking it is a ragespark. I need you to leave me alone while I calm down.”

“Hmm,” said Dan to himself, watching the rain from his apartment window. “I should make a word for someone who really likes rain. First, a quick internet search to see if there’s already a word for that… Pluviophile? Really? But that’s such a lame word… what a inferiation. Too bad the internet seems to have already settled on it.”

Bored of hitting the random link on TVTropes, Scot glanced at the corner of his computer screen. “Geh!” he said involuntarily, as the listed time gave him a twiddleshock. All he’d done was glance at articles online - nothing big like read a book or watch a movie. How could three hours have passed?

Suzana knew that it was important to keep her apartment clean, and she took care of it every weekend. But it was hard to feel accomplished or proud of a maintenance activity that just made the place look normal instead of bad.

“And the insurance won’t pay for it either - that’s assuming they let me keep the job in the first place,” said Dorian. He shook his head. “Anyway, enough about me. How’ve you been doing?"
Isaiah opened his mouth, and then closed it. Before he met up with Dorian at the bar, he’d been upset from finding out how small his annual bonus was going to be that year. After hearing Dorian vent about what was going on in his life, Isaiah knew his own problems were so much further down the whinescale that it would be rude to even mention them.
“Oh, you know. I’ve been good,” Isaiah said finally.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Wera. “It’s my birthday in a couple of weekends, and I’m putting together a camping trip! You should come!"
Lucas paused. He wasn’t much for camping under the best of circumstances, and Texas in the middle of July was hardly the best of circumstances for spending time outdoors. Still, he didn’t want to offend his new friend, so handling this invosition was going to require some tact.

Gabriele considered the cards in his hand. None of the nouns he held seemed to fit especially well with the adjective card, “Radiant”, in the middle of the table. “Doing the Dishes” wasn’t radiant. Neither were “Knock-Knock Jokes."
“Come on, Gab, make your play,” said Madelaine from beside him. Gabriele sighed and threw “Lobster” down into the pile of red cards. Maybe he had a chance if this round’s judge liked seafood. Probably not. He drew another noun card from the deck, and—
“Man! Every time! I’m always postpwning in this game!” he blurted, looking at the new card which bore the words “Marie Curie.”

“Man, Adam really hates Omar."
“Hmm, I’m not so sure."
“What do you mean? He’s always complaining about him."
“Exactly. It’s an obfatuation. I’m starting to think Adam has a crush on him.”

Rudolf knew full well that staying up late wouldn’t allow him to get out of giving a presentation in the morning, and in fact would make things worse by leaving him tired and groggy the next day. But he was in desomnial, so he kept reading his book hours past when he should have gone to sleep.

Evgeniya was just entering the job market, and she was finding it very difficult to put together a persuasive resume. She knew she was smart and hardworking, but a lack of industry experience made it much harder to exluminate. She knew she had what it took, and was sure that anyone who got to know her would agree - the challenge was in showing it to people she’d never met.

My corstock comes from constructovalidation, so when I lose sight of who I am and what I’m capable of, I talislode by looking back at what I’ve built. It helps me find my center again.

We all like to believe that we are special. That we matter. And as long as we keep our focus on our own lives, it’s true - we are each hero of our own story. But there are moments when we clash with forces and entities that are far, far larger than ourselves and completely indifferent to us. Like staring up at the stars and recalling how vast and distant they truly are, these moments are dimiphains that can leave us awed or crushed.