Ennoia (en-no’-i-a): A kind of purposeful holding back of information that nevertheless hints at what is meant. A kind of circuitous speaking.
The kettle was boiling, singing its song—announcing that tea was on the way. It reminded me of the miniature steam engine I got one Christmas when I was around 14. You filled it with water, put a cone-shaped fuel pellet under it and lit it up. When the water boiled a wheel spun around and you could blow its whistle.
I started to think of what else I could do with the fuel pellets after I got tired of the steam engine. I had seen people make toy hot air balloons with garment bags from the dry cleaner stretched across crossed coat hangers with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol affixed where the coat hangers criss-crossed.
My older brother had a dresser drawer filled to the brim with condoms. He told me they were “just in case.” Anyway, I knew he wouldn’t miss just one, so I took one. My plan was to make a hot air balloon with a condom and launch it in one of my classes—most likely health class. First, I had to do a test launch.
The fuel pellets were down in the living room by the Christmas tree. So I went down and loaded one on the condom blimp. It had one of those reservoir tips—I was going hold onto that while I ran the test. So, I stoked up the pellet and the condom filled with hot air. Then the tip slipped out of my fingers. I didn’t count on the condom being lubricated.
It took off over the Christmas tree. The condom caught on fire. The burning blimp crashed into the Christmas tree, and the tree caught on fire. Our house burned to the ground.
This was the worse thing I had done, but not the only thing I had done. I had shot holes in my father’s company car—I wanted to see if .22 bullets would penetrate it. I had sawed off my little brother’s left thumb while I was showing him how to hold a piece of wood when it was being sawn. I had brought home a poison ivy plant and potted it and put in my sister’s bedroom as a birthday gift. She grew gigantic blisters in her nose and had been taken by an ambulance to the hospital.
After burning the house down, my dad said it was time to send me to a place in Colorado for “nut cases” like me. All my belongings were burned in the fire, so I left our motel with just the clothes on my back. The person I sat next to on the flight to Colorado asked to be moved to another seat because of my smell. She was refused. So, she waved a magazine at me for the rest of the trip to blow the smell away.
There was a man at the airport from “Under Where?” to pick me up. He was holding a baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire. He said “get in the fu*kin’ van before I hit you in the legs.” I ran. I jumped in one of the cars in the airport queue and begged them take me with them. I told them my story and they took me away.
They are wonderful people. I am their pool boy for their indoor pool. I look older than my age, so I’m getting away with it. So far, I haven’t done anything crazy. Mr. Clack’s wife has gone missing, but I’m 99% sure I didn’t have anything to do with it.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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