The word of the day is molar.
It’s not the real word of the day. Not the one on Stede’s whiteboard, written out with his impeccable handwriting in a rainbow of colours. Well, a sans-green-and-blue rainbow of colours, anyway.
Molar is the answer to the day’s Wordle puzzle.
It feels like it’s going to be an exceptionally lucky day for Stede, because he gets it in just two guesses. He tries realm (a favourite starter-word - high-frequency consonants, double-vowels, always a winner), and he gets a whopping four yellow tiles, right off the bat. And then he tries molar, and bam, there you go. Magnificent, the game tells him, and it’s probably a mite pathetic how much pride he takes in that. Yes, I am magnificent. Thank you for noticing, New York Times.
In that moment of solving, those green squares flipping over one by one, it feels a little like a sparkling-gemstone sign from the universe.
See, Stede? Things do still work out for you sometimes. You’re clever, and you make good choices, and when life throws you into a muddle you have the aptitude and the competence and the fortitude needed to unmuddle it. Stede, you are adequate. And it isn’t at all pitiful that you’re lying in bed in your sterile, cardboard-box of a bachelor pad, doing the Wordle at six in the morning, squinting at your phone with your eyes all gluey and gummed-up with sleep. It isn’t pathetic that you just need a tiny shred of accomplishment to start your day, because without it you might completely fall apart. It’s not one bit embarrassing that you seek words of affirmation from a bot because no actual human being is willing to give them to you. That’s normal, Stede. Don’t even worry about it.
Much later, Stede will realise that the word of the day, molar– well, it is a sign from the universe.
Just not the one Stede had quite been expecting.
Stede’s still in bed when it happens. He’s moved on from Wordle and is now slogging his way through Connections, knowing full well that the longer he procrastinates rolling out of bed, the more frantic his morning routine is likely to become. But Stede has never been much of a morning person. And besides, it’s inertia, really. It’s not Stede’s fault. An object at rest always stays at rest, until a new force comes along and gives it a bit of a shove.
Today, this force just happens to be a jangled, desperate phone call from Mary Bonnet.
(Well. Allamby again now, Stede supposes.)
The word of the day is molar, and it is six o’ clock in the morning, and Stede - crumpled and pasty like a used Kleenex squashed between the sheets - gets a phone call from his ex-wife. And he answers on the first first ring.
(Admittedly, he had not meant for this to happen. He’d still been doing the Connections, and the call had come through, and he’d tapped the accept button by mistake. Bugger.)
#wipwednesday is here again y'all, and the ball is officially rolling on chapter 2 of According to Plan 👀👀