Hyperbaton (hy-per’-ba-ton): 1. An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition, it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe. 2. Adding a word or thought to a sentence that is already semantically complete, thus drawing emphasis to the addition.
I felt really dizzy, ready to fall down. I had lost control of my magic carpet somewhere over Pennsylvania. I had gone 900 years without a tuneup. I should’ve taken it to the shop when I hit 700 years, but I was so busy flying all over North America granting wishes and cleansing souls that I’d lost track of time.
Wishes are constituted by desire and absence tangling together in deeply personal and intense feelings—so intense that they seep into one’s soul, throwing it off course—from its interest in eternity and salvation. My job is to determine whether to “wipe” the wish or manifest it. I routinely wipe evil wishes, which are surprisingly prevalent in North America. For example, there was a politician named Mich who was having such horrendous wishes that I had to turn him off in the middle of a press conference. Thank God he was led away, and the wishes went unspoken. That was an unusual case. Usually, evil wishes can be handled with a quick memory wash, cleansing the soul of the root of the evil wish, which is often very trivial. For example, in one case the wish was rooted in resentment of a mandated bedtime. It grew and festered until, as an adult, the person hated being on time and affected his liberation by always being at least ten minutes late. His wish, as it was perfected, was to eliminate time altogether. I washed the foundational memory out of his soul and manifested a solid gold Rolex wristwatch and gave it to him. When he put it on his wrist he looked like he had just seen a cute bunny running through his yard. He yelled: “Time is on my side!” He yelled: “I have an appointment with swimming pool guy in 10 minutes! I’m on my way. I refuse to be late.”
I circled the magic carpet Repair Dome and landed smoothly on the front ramp. It was located in the middle of New Jersey’s pine barrens, protected by ani-detection devices, that were probably dependent on some kind of advanced magic. I stepped off my carpet and went into the dome. It had a sign hanging over its entrance that said “Watch Out: This Place is Crazy.” That was Bento’s sense of humor. There he was, standing behind the counter making a cat’s cradle out of bread bag twisties. I told him I had gone 200 years past my 700-year tuneup. He dropped the cat’s cradle on the counter, started flashing red and making a sound like a car alarm. “What!?” He asked, wide eyed and trembling with fear. Two of his assistants ran up to the counter. “We heard the impending disaster alarm you blew, we’re ready for action.” Bento pointed at my carpet and yelled “Tune it!” I had forgotten that my carpet model was programmed to self-destruct if it wasn’t properly maintained. My carpet was not properly maintained. The self-destruct function’s origins were obscure. It is such a bad idea that nobody can find a good reason for it, yet it persists, like so many other things—like wearing a sword or Morris Dancing.
After he repaired it, Bento told me me my carpet’s “diectionator” was almost completely shot. A couple more turns without repair and my carpet would’ve evaporated, along with me. Now, I could be on my way.
There was a terribly deluded man in Florida who was wreaking havoc on one of the longest-lasting democracies the world has ever seen. His delusions are ubiquitous and are steering his soul toward absolute evil, I may have to give him a total cleansing, a “Big Wash”—sort of like rebooting a computer and bringing it back to its original state. But, I fear this person’s original state is evil. In that case, he will eventually go to hell where he’ll sit in a circle with his feet in a fire, moaning and screaming along with Caligula, Charlie Manson, Rasputin, Mengle, and the other devils populating the pantheon of evil. For his sake, I hope I can wipe him.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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