Scesis Onomaton (ske’-sis-o-no’-ma-ton): 1. A sentence constructed only of nouns and adjectives (typically in a regular pattern). 2. A series of successive, synonymous expressions.
Speeding Cars, roaring trucks, whooshing bicycles, squeaky scooters, rolling roller skates, clunking big wheels, chugging trains. I know this is crazy, but I’ve been thinking about wheels for the past couple of weeks. I ran over a grey squirrel with my truck. I can’t stop thinking about rolling along, and then suddenly a squirrel ran out of some bushes right by my truck. He was under my front wheel before I could even hit the brakes. I pulled over and looked out the back window. He was flatted and his eyeballs had popped out. I was nearly sick to my stomach. I got out of my truck and kicked him into the gutter so he wouldn’t get run over any more, or cause somebody to swerve and get into an accident. I picked up some leaves from the road shoulder and covered his corpse, which was steaming in the late October chill.
That night, I had a nightmare. I had befriended the dead squirrel and named him Nutty. He was alive. We were riding down the street in my truck when, all of a sudden, Nutty jumped out the the truck window. I heard the rear tire go budda-bump. “Oh my God it’s Nutty. I’ve run him over again!” I stopped and jumped out of my truck, only to be sickened by what I saw: A little girl with a tire track across her stomach and blood trickling from her mouth. I called 911, but I kept getting the same message over and over: “You have killed a little girl with your big truck. You had better call Triple-A.” I called Triple-A. I got a recording: “We are unable to dispose of any corpses right now. Please call back later.” I woke up screaming. I was terrified. I was totally freaked out. I was fear itself!
That’s when I started thinking about wheels. I’m not sure why. I got a thick notebook and started writing down everything I could think of that has wheels. I organized it alphabetically A-Z. Airplanes were my fist entry. When I got to an alphabet letter that I couldn’t think of a wheel for, I drew a frowny face and moved on. Then, one evening there was a knock on my door: “Girl scout cookies.” I opened the door. It was a little girl and what I assumed was her mother. I was startled. The little girl looked almost identical to the little girl I had run over in my nightmare! It was weird. I tried to hold back, but I was so glad to see her that I took a step toward her with my arms open wide. She backed up and fell down my porch steps. Luckily, her mother was there to help her up. As she limped away holding her mother’s hand, she turned and said, “I’m glad you didn’t call 911. It’s not like I’m dead or anything.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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