Apostrophe (a-pos’-tro-phe): Turning one’s speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.
You are my pet goldfish and I like sushi too. I admit I wanted to eat you a couple of times. I don’t know what possessed me—maybe it was the thought of wasabi smeared over your chubby sides. I don’t know.
But now you are gone after five years of friendship, and cleaning your bowl, and sprinkling healthful fish food flakes on the water over your puckered gaping mouth.
Our friendship was mediated through your bowl’s glass. I would tap on it and you would swim around like you were panic stricken, but I knew it was all in fun. Sometimes I would try to hit you with marbles I dropped into your bowl. You would hide behind your castle, teasing me when I scooped the marbles with my net, You would swim around your bowl really fast, like you were terrified, but I knew you were just playing.
When I cleaned your bowl, I put you in a jar filled with clean water. You jumped out of the jar several times. I picked you up with my net and put you back in the jar. You floated on your side for a few ministers. Then, you were ok. I knew you were just showing off. My friends said you were trying to commit suicide.
Then, you started jumping out of your fishbowl. Again, I thought you were joking around until I found you all dried out and leathery—dead on the floor. Maybe you had committed suicide. I’ll never know. Still, I won’t give up my belief in our friendship and the good times we had.
Maybe I was too needy and put undue pressure on you to bond with me. I was alone and lonely and you were all I had. I am sorry Sparkle.
POSTSCRIPT
Boy, I’m glad that’s over. It is hard talking to a dead goldfish. Now, it’s time to get a new pet. I am thinking about a giant hermit crab from Trinidad and Tobago. They live in conch shells. I will just let it run around my apartment.
POST-POSTSCRIPT
He should have done more research. It was ill-advised to let the giant hermit crab run free. He was found dead in his bed with his face eaten off.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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