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wotd: pablum

pablum \PAB-luhm\, noun;
1.Something (as writing or speech) that is trite, insipid, or simplistic.
2.(capitalized) A trademark used for a bland soft cereal for infants.


He's five years old, this boy on the playground, walking stiff-legged behind my back with his arms raised before him, vaguely chasing another child. "I am a robot," he says in a mechanical voice. "These are my pink bombs. I will kill you."

I whirled from my supervision of the monkey bars and aimed the laser beam of my full attention on that kid. "You may not talk like that at school," I said. In that same stiff-legged gait he clomped past me, a dreamy smile on his face. "I am a robot. These are my pink bombs. I will kill you."

This is a boy you don't spoonfeed pablum. This boy eats forkfuls of shredded steel for breakfast, then eats the fork. He's beyond my abilities and somehow untouchable. And my heart aches for him.

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