Effictio (ef-fik’-ti-o): A verbal depiction of someone’s body, often from head to toe.
“Five foot two, eyes of blue, has anybody seen my gal?” Why not seven foot eight, feet like crates? Or, four foot nine, big behind? I don’t know and I don’t care. To each his own. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Preferences are extensions of our freedom, but they are also founded in what we’ve been taught, for better and for worse, over the course of our lives. Taken on faith as unshakable foundations of thought and action, learned at the knees of respected authorities, as children we imbibed them without the critical apparatuses that come with age. As such, they may be immune to revision as “common sense,” “first principles” or “self evident truths.”
I was born with very short limbs—about six inches long. I’m not five foot two and I don’t have eyes of blue. I am “Turtle Boy.” I wear a realistic plastic shell and appear in “Chessy’s Rolling Freak Show.” We travel around the US in 2 motor homes, a camper van each, and a tractor trailer. Those of us who need it have a camper van driver. We do mostly county and state fairs. I am the main attraction, the king of the road. I make over $200,000 per year and live comfortably in Sarasota, FL during the off season, where I do the occasional birthday party for some rich family’s spoiled kid.
I have the same desires as everybody else. My parents loved me more than anybody can hope for. Although I resisted, I ‘m glad they gave me to Mr. Chessy, who has always been as kind and loving as my own dad. My parents still visit me in FL and we have a great time. I have professed my love for two women in my life and was quickly and forcefully rejected. It hurt so bad both times, but the second time was the worst. She made me think “I was the one,” while in reality she was trying to woo me away from “Chessy’s” and being paid by “Rumpo’s” to make it happen. When I eventually refused to join “Rumpo’s”, she called me every turtle boy insult in the book and smashed my shell to smithereens with a bar stool, almost killing me.
Well, despite all the hell I’ve experienced, I’ve hooked up with Sarah. She’s a contortionist. Part of her routine is to pose like a crane on my shell as I slowly trek across the stage. She’s on one leg and her balancing ability is almost like magic. When we retire to my van, she gently removes my shell, gives me a sponge bath, and applies skin lotion to my whole body. When we do other more intimate things, I feel like I’ve been liberated from solitary confinement—from a life sentence in hell pronounced on an innocent man by a jury of vindictive space aliens.
I want to marry Sarah, and live to old age with her. I am confident she will say “Yes” when I ask her to marry me. My confidence comes from our common bond as freaks, and the needs and desires we fulfill in each other’s lives as human beings.
Love has no limits: it may be borne by those we love, but it is the soul that animates love, as the movement of right desire toward the threshold of wonder, reaching out with edifying joy.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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