Paragoge (par-a-go’-ge): The addition of a letter or syllable to the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.
“Hi Ho Johnny-o“ said the jester to the king. “How many fruit flys will you kill before you go to sleep?” Things weren’t going well. I was trying to write a children’s story, but violence, bloodshed and death kept creeping in. I don’t know if fruit flies have blood, but they produce some kind of juice when you squish their irritating little bodies. Anyway, squishing kills fruit flies.
The story I’m working on is about a court jester who gets “The King is a Joke” tattooed on his butt after a night of drinking. One of his best tricks was “show Butt” where he sang a song about sitting in church that ended with him pulling down his pants. It was the king’s favorite. The king demanded the “pants down” song every day. Since he got the stupid tattoo the jester was in big trouble—he couldn’t show his butt and it’s message to the king—he would be executed, probably flayed by the king’s son Prince Plato, whose name far outstripped his capabilities. After three days of giving excuses, he had run out. His most recent excuse came close to failing: “Princess Hooters pushed me down the wine cellar stairs.” Princess Hooters believed anything He told her, so he told her she pushed him down the stairs. She asked him if he had gotten hurt. It worked (for now).
THE REST OF THE STORY:
The Jester’s Tattooed Butt
I had to go see Mollgrad the Excuse Broker. I scraped together my meager resources and headed to Mollgrad’s hovel. As a Jester, I didn’t have much to offer. I had three spare bells, a worn-out Punch and Judy set, and juggling balls painted to look like testicles. The Broker took my offerings without question. He left the room and same right back. He had a tin of pine tar and a piece of pigskin. He told me: “Stick the pigskin over your tattoo with the pine tar. Next time you perform, tell the king you backed into a hot stove and burned your butt, and the pigskin poultice is helping you heal.”
The ruse worked for two weeks, then the king wanted to know when I would heal. I panicked and told him in a couple of days. I went back to the Broker. He was surprised that the king cared. “You must see Gregory the Cutler. He is a friend and will not charge you for his services.” Gregory was a stout man—he was strong from grinding metals on his wheel. He told me to pull down my pants and press my butt’s tattoo agains the grinding wheel—to press as hard as I could. Gregory pushed on the wheel’s pedals making the wheel spin faster and faster while I p pressed tattoo against it.
It started to sting, and then it started to hurt. Gregory took a mouthful of rum and spit it on my butt. I started to moan. I started to cry. He went faster. I screamed with pain. He went faster. Then, suddenly he stopped. “It’s done,” he said. My jester pants were soaked with blood, and the the tattoo was erased! The cutler gave me some salve made from ground rabbit ears, hog fat drippings, and dandelions. I was to smear it on my butt twice a day, until my wound started to itch. Then, I was supposed to soak a rag in rum and press it on my wound to stop the itching.
I was saved—saved by lies and modern medicine.
COMMENTARY
As I read it again, I see it will not work as a children’s story. I should’ve realized that a story about a butt was unsuitable. However, as an adult-oriented story liberally seasoned with grown-up themes, I may get it published in “Cosmopolitan,” “Vanity Fair,” or maybe “Golf Digest” which has a really liberal idea of the relevance of golf to adult-themed short fiction.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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