Traductio (tra-duk’-ti-o): Repeating the same word variously throughout a sentence or thought. Some authorities restrict traductio further to mean repeating the same word but with a different meaning (see ploce, antanaclasis, and diaphora), or in a different form (polyptoton). If the repeated word occurs in parallel fashion at the beginnings of phrases or clauses, it becomes anaphora; at the endings of phrases or clauses, epistrophe.
My truck was dead. My Christmas Cactus was dead. Worst of all my goldfish Sparkle was dead. We had been living together for 12 years. I was 10 when I stole him from the pet store and brought him home in a baggie and dumped him in my bathroom sink. Then I found a pitcher in the kitchen cupboard and Sparkle had a new home. I called him Sparkle because he sparkled—his orange scales were like so many sunsets decorating his sides. Now he was dead. I ground him up in the garbage disposal and sent him to the big fish pond in the sky where he will have eternal life among the catfish, sunfish, polliwogs, and frogs. Bless you Sparkle.
Then there’s my truck—faithful Buck the Truck. I rode the highways and byways in Buck, stealing mail and packages from peoples’ front porches. I fenced so many valuable things at “Humming Fence Goods and Services.” My friend Stewy ran the business which he had inherited from his father who was serving twenty years to life. It’s unfair. He shouldn’t even be in prison. Everybody knows that Stewy’s mother was decapitated by a faulty chainsaw that Stewy’s father was waving around. He spun into Stewy’s tied up mother and the chainsaw wouldn’t turn off. Stewy’s mother was tied up because his father was practicing knot-tying for his motorboat license. Even though Stewy’s mother was having an affair with the mailman, Stewy’s father was ok with it. He only threatened to kill him three times. Stewy’s mother was threatened on a daily basis but she took it in stride—she knew that Stewy’s father was just kidding.
Anyway, my tuck had rusted so badly it collapsed in the driveway in a tangle of oxidized metal. The rust had started with the bullet hole in the driver’s side door and slowly infected the whole truck. The bullet was meant for me, but it missed and hit my little brother in the shoulder. It didn’t kill him, thank God, but it killed his prospects for being a professional golfer. He was bitter for the rest of his life. He ended up selling used cars at “Smarty Arty’s Rolling Rods.”
I had had my Christmas Cactus nearly my whole life. It was given to me 10 minutes after I was born. I was too little to appreciate it, but as I got older, I appreciated it more and more. It had beautiful reddish-orange flowers that poked out of the petals’ tips like little fists. I named my cactus Calvin and watered him once a week. This went on for 33 years. Then, two days ago he dropped dead—literally. All his leaves fell off, piling up around his pot. Today, I put Calvin in a paper shopping bag and threw him on the pile of crap in my back yard. Now, when I look out the kitchen window I feel a twinge of sorrow, but I’m too lazy to move him somewhere else. It’s horrible.
The fish. The truck. The plant. There’s nothing I can do except fill the void with new versions of the fish, the truck, and the plant. I’m going “fishing” at the pet store this afternoon. Equipped with a zip-loc bag, I’m sure to score a new Sparkle. My brother is setting me up with a “broken in” 1992 Ford pickup. Aside from the missing headlights, the “relaxed” bench seat, rusted rims, and missing truck bed, it’s good to go. I’m excited—it comes with a complimentary quarter tank of gas!
The Christmas cactus is a real challenge. I headed off to Lowe’s. They had baby Christmas cacti lined up under a purple grow light. Security had been tightened after a rash of yard tool robberies. Since people are no longer able to hire illegal immigrants to do their landscaping, they have do their own. The tools are expensive, so they steal them.
I got an idea!
I yelled “I saw a Venezuelan guy with tattoos, over there!” I pointed toward the other end of the store. All the security people ran to the other end of the store. I grabbed the cactus and ran out the door, jumped in Buck II, and drove home.
I was whole again. My grief was vanished.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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