Isocolon

Isocolon (i-so-co’-lon): A series of similarly structured elements having the same length. A kind of parallelism.

I came. I saw. I fired.

I had just bought a Ruger .357 magnum at the Piggly Wiggly. With my state’s liberal gun laws, you could by a gun anywhere. I wasn’t looking for trouble when I loaded it’s six-round cylinder in the parking lot. I wasn’t looking for trouble when I parked in the driveway, got out of my pickup, and headed to the front door. I started looking for trouble when I noticed Nick’s SUV parked up the street. The same Nick my wife dated in high school and the same Nick who thought I’d be out of town on business for one more day. I opened the front door. There she was, sprawled on the living room couch naked. There was Nick standing over her naked.

I cocked my .357. I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I wanted to shoot somebody: Nick was in the batter’s box. I could claim I thought he was assaulting my wife. Next, I had to decide where to shoot him. I told him to go face the wall. Then, I stood to the right of him, aimed, and put a bullet in his ass. The slug went through both of his butt cheeks and embedded in the opposite wall.

Nick was crying and screaming like a baby. I pointed the gun at him and told him to shut the hell up. Meanwhile, my wife was calling me all kinds of names, like there was something wrong with shooting her boyfriend in the ass. She called me a “monster.” She called me a “loser.” She called me a “barbarian.” I called her a “wayward woman” and a “dirty rotten cheater.” I told her I would blow her head off if she didn’t shut the hell up. In the meantime, Nick kept screaming, and he’d started begging for a doctor.

I started cursing myself. I couldn’t believe what a stupid thing I’d done. It was beyond stupid, wherever that is. It was so damn easy to buy the damn gun and ammunition. I am not a killer. I am not a shooter. It was for home defense. But, I guess shooting a guy getting ready to screw my wife is a sort of home defense. Anyway, it seemed like Nick was dying in the corner across the room. He had quieted down and his breathing was shallow. Crying, my wife asked me to call 911. That did it. Something snapped in my head, and I pointed the gun at her. I was just about to shoot her in the arm when three police officers, guns drawn, burst through the open front door. I heard sirens. Nick had managed to call 911 on his cellphone when my wife and I were yelling at each other. I dropped my gun and explained what was going on—that Nick was getting ready to assault my wife when I walked in the front door. My wife yelled “My husband shot my boyfriend in the ass!” The cops clicked their tongues and shook their heads and looked at each other, and one of them asked my wife why her boyfriend would want to assault her, implying that he was not really her boyfriend—hat she was trying to frame me. The ambulance came and they took Nick away on a stretcher, in handcuffs, moaning loudly. When my wife went upstairs to put some clothes on, we had a little discussion downstairs and decided Nick got what he deserved, that my wife was too distraught and traumatized by what had happened to make a coherent statement, and that Nick would be charged with assault.

I looked at my gun on the floor and thought if I didn’t have it at the time, I would’ve just beaten the shit out of Nick and filed for divorce. I didn’t want the gun any more. If I had to defend my home without it, I’d use a crowbar, a length of pipe, or a baseball bat. What a mess!

Nick will be sentenced tomorrow after being found guilty of assault by a jury of his peers, despite my wife marching up and down with a sign outside the courthouse saying “I Love You Nick.” As a “hysterical woman” she was not permitted by the Judge to testify in Nick’s trial.

I will be filing for divorce after things cool off a bit. I’ve started dating Nick’s sister, Wanda.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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