Hypallage (hy-pal’-la-ge): Shifting the application of words. Mixing the order of which words should correspond with which others. Also, sometimes, a synonym for metonymy (see Quintilian).
The mired deep sucked at my foot making an unmistakable sound as I slowly pulled it from it sloppy grasp. Each step was the same, slurping, burping foot pulling at the brown. At this rate it will take me a week to get to my destination—the family’s vacation cottage set on an island in the middle of this god-forsaken place. You would think that after 200 years of family ownership, somebody would’ve built a boardwalk, or installed a cable car.
I had soaked my body in Cutter’s insect repellent. Although there were hundreds of mosquitoes circling around my head, needling my ears with their annoying whine, they weren’t biting. I could only imagine what it must’ve been like for my ancestors, slathered with bear grease, barefoot, making their way through the smelly goo to “Kozy Kottage”: the name they had given to the log hovel they had built on the island. As patriots, they had hidden there during the Revolutionary War. They were so unimportant that nobody would venture through the muck to apprehend them. And anyway, there was speculation that Kozy Kottage was sited in Spanish Florida, but nobody in a position of authority was certain whether Spanish Florida still existed.
We were forced to trek the mud every summer for our family holiday. When I was 12 I got a giant leech on my foot. It was almost as big as my foot. One of our servants who had been raised in the swamp, knew how to remove a leech without killing it. He grabbed it by the tail and pulled. It made a sound like velcro and tore off leaving a bleeding circular wound the size of a silver dollar. It would probably become infected and my foot would fall off, but the the leech was still alive, squirming, trying to get out of my hand. My new pet! I named him Mr. Sucker, put him in a bucket of mud that I would water every day, and put the bucket outside, under the porch. But where would I get the blood to feed him? I felt like Dracula taking care of a bitten charge—I needed to find blood for Mr. Sucker. Then, I realized I was loaded with blood! I could share my blood with Mr. Sucker. I could slap him on my arm every couple of days.
I held my forearm over his mud bucket. His head rose out of the slurry. He wiggled a little wiggle, shot out of the bucket and clamped on my arm. I had trepidations, but they faded—he had manners, and he wasn’t a pig. He finished up oh his own and slid back into his bucket. That afternoon I painted “Mr. Sucker” on his bucket and refreshed Mr. Sucker’s mud. That night, I was sound asleep when a tickling on my arm woke me up. It was Mr. Sucker! I was frightened and astounded. I used the Velcro rip off method to remove him from my arm. I put him back in his bucket and covered it with a board with a big rock on top. He started whining! I freaked out and threw Mr. Sucker and his bucket as far as I could back into the swamp. I realized immediately that I should’ve chopped him up into little pieces and burned him. I took my father’s shotgun down from above the fireplace and loaded both barrels with #6 birdshot.
That night I kept my oil lamp lit, in anticipation of Mr. Sucker’s visit. I just knew he was going to haul his slimy body out of the bucket and out of the swamp and come to me to feed on me. I got in bed with the shotgun across my chest. I heard a sound on my bedroom stairs, then Mr. Sucker’s head poked under the door. He was slowly moving toward my bed. I raised the gun and fired both barrels. Everybody in the house went crazy. I looked on the floor and Mr. Sucker’s blown to hell remains were not there—no stain, not a trace. I told my father what had happened and he started crying. Two servants carried me across the mire to the mainland strapped to stretcher. They dumped on the ground and went back to Kozy Kottage. As I lay there I felt something crawling up my leg. It was Mr. Sucker! I pulled him off my leg, picked up a rock, and pounded him into oblivion. I was free! I headed back to Kozy Kottage. About halfway there, the swamp slurry started boiling with leeches. They didn’t bother me. It was as if they were celebrating Mr. Sucker’s death and thanking me for mashing him into paste. I wish I could say I felt gratified, but the whining cloud of 100s of mosquitoes circling around my head were driving me crazy.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. A Kindle edition is available for $5.99.
The Daily Trope 