Nyctous

a person walking in the middle of a street

Nyctous

adj.
feeling quietly overjoyed to be the only one awake in the middle of the night—sitting alone with a laptop and a cup of tea or strolling down the center line of an abandoned street—taking in the world like an empty theater between productions, stripped down to a simple black box, open to be whatever you want it to be.

From Nyctocereus, a genus of cactus that blooms only at night. Pronounced “nik-tuhs.”

Affogatia

miscellaneous items on a table

Blinkback

a wall full of pictures and objects

Walloway

water faucet that seems to emanate from the ground

Anaphasia

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

Achenia

a close-up of a bottle with an organic object inside

Ioia

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