Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.).
I was going down to the river to shoot my baby. She had made a mess of my life. After all was said and done, I hadn’t even gotten started. It was confusing, but not impossible. I went to Dick’s and bought at .410 shotgun—the kind you give to your kid when he turns 8. I went to Agway and bought some rope—it came packaged in cellophane and was way more than I needed to tie up my baby—“Maybe I could tie her to a tree” I thought as I whipped out my credit card and slid it through the card reader. I bought some silver-colored duct tape too. I was going to wind it around her head, leaving only little slits for her eyes, so she could see me point the .410 at her face. Loaded with #6 birdshot, it would blow off her face. I was ruthless.
What the hell did she do to deserve such a fate—yes, fate! I don’t know if she deserved what I had in store for her, but it was coming her way anyway: 1. She was way smarter than me. I’m a man. She’s a woman. Enough said. She took over paying my bills when I paid my mortgage payment three times. 2. She has a beautiful singing voice and gets standing ovations at the karaoke club when she sings “Are You Lonely Tonight?” When I sing “Stairway to Heaven” people leave and some people boo. 3. She had a boyfriend. That is, she cheated on me. She was dating my father. What did they think I’d think when I saw them snuggled on our couch, or they went up stairs to “read together” in bed. My mom was long gone, there was no impediment to Dad’s philandering. After they read, she and I would go out to dinner, check into a motel after dinner, and do some “reading” of our own. It was creepy, weird, unnatural, and immoral, but she was the only girl who wanted anything to with me. I am blind in one eye and lost my right foot in a farming accident—it got caught in a hay baler. I have a screw-on rubber prosthetic foot that does not have any toes. When I go to the beach it becomes a topic of conversation. Sometimes I take it off and we play catch in the sand. Without my foot, I can’t play or even stand up, but I like to watch my foot making people happy.
I want to kill her so bad. I have a killer hunger like I’m starving to blow her head off. I am really mad. It is amazing how a person can put you in a homicidal rage without knowing it. I picked her up at five to go down by the river and “take a little walk.” I loaded up my “tools of death” and put them behind my truck’s seat. I was so excited! Boom! All my problems solved. I couldn’t wait.
When we got to the river, I told her we were going to try something new, and I tied her to a tree just like I planned. I made her head into a duct tape mummy head. I let her squirm around and whine for around 20 minutes while ate the baloney sandwich I had brought along and drank the box of apple juice too. After I finished my sandwich and drink, I picked up the .410, aimed it at her head, and pulled the trigger. The .410 went “click” and nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun and the box of shells was sitting on my workbench in my garage. I was really mad. I decided to stab her with my Buck knife. I had left that home too. But, I did have the box cutter I had used on the rope when I tied her up! I decided to slit he throat with the box cutter and sit on a log and watch her bleed to death. Maybe that was better than the .410!
The razor blade in the box cutter was too dull to do the job on her windpipe. Luckily, I had my pruning saw. I had been pruning my apple trees that morning and had left the saw in my truck. So, I killed her—the newspaper called it “A Brutal Slaying Down by the River.” Given the circumstances, I don’t consider the murder “brutal.” My only regret is that I couldn’t shoot her.
I’m in the “Hogarth Prison for the Criminally Insane.” During the day, I make multi-colored pot holders. At night, I sleep and dream of murdering my baby down by the river.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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