Catacosmesis

Catacosmesis (kat-a-kos-mees’-is): Ordering words from greatest to least in dignity, or in correct order of time.

I was laying on the ground outside the library. I had been tossed out by the two goon “shush” monitors. I had been talking very quietly to my hand puppet Lance as we collaborated on our research project. Lance was an experienced hand puppet and that put him in good position to be a co-creator, fumbling through the past with me—literally my right-hand man. Lance’s head was a likeness of George Washington, and his body was made from a small post-revolutionary American flag.

We were reading and discussing a rare book that couldn’t leave the library. It was part of a collection worth a fortune. The “Oggle Osborne” collection consisted of books about the nineteenth century. That was the ordering principle of the collection, not subject matter or fiction vs. non-fiction: just the nineteenth century—all books.

Lance and I were interested in the concept of “squeezing.” Lance’s status as as a hand-puppet perfectly positioned him to follow the trail. My teenage bouts with acne had prompted my interest in squeezing as well as my obesity which made “squeezing” a daily occurance in my life.

We were reading “Liverpool Train” set on the overcrowded 19th-century train between London and Liverpool—there were aristocrats, tradesmen, laborers and human scum packed into the train. Some of the cars carried only men. Woman had their own cars too. According to the author, this segregation was a residue of Victorian moral and social values and was seen as the best way to “squeeze in” passengers. There was abundant evidence that in the previous century mixed sex “squeezed in” passengers would turn the train into a coal-powered orgy, especially in tunnels, in the dark.

This is what Lance I were talking about when we got the boot from the library. We had both seen the Japanese movies about sex on public transportation being caused by being squeezed in, standing up. But this doesn’t happen in US movies, so, we concluded there must be a cultural component. That’s where conversation ended.

I stood up and pulled Lance off my hand and stuffed him in my backpack. It was a tight fit, but I squeezed him in. When I got home, I put my backpack on my living room sofa. I noticed some movement—the top of my backpack was rhythmically moving up and down and I heard teeny-tiny moaning sounds. I unzipped backpack and there was Lance and my other hand puppet Molly in flagrante delicto on my balled- up sweatshirt. Lance turned his head toward me and blushed shamefully and Molly leered at me. As fast as I could, I zipped up my backpack and went into the kitchen and drank a half-glass of vodka.

I never discussed this incident with Lance. I had trouble washing the stain off Molly’s dress.

The two of them had been squeezed in. What else could they do?

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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