Flashover

Cover image for the Flashover word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Flashover

n.
the moment a conversation becomes real and alive, when a spark of trust shorts out the delicate circuits you keep insulated under layers of irony, momentarily grounding the static emotional charge you’ve built up through decades of friction with the world.

In firefighting, a flashover is when all the flammable material in an area combusts all at once.

Thrapt

Cover image for the Thrapt word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Affogatia

miscellaneous items on a table

Licotic

Cover image for the Licotic word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Knellish

a blurry image of a person lying on a bed

Mal De Coucou

a blurry image of several men

Offtides

close-up of a chromed metal object