Systrophe (si’-stro-fee): The listing of many qualities or descriptions of someone or something, without providing an explicit definition.
Exciting! Breathtaking! Mega-tremendous! Off the charts! Spectacular!
I had ridden on it 240 times. So far this summer, I added another 22 trips to the edge heaven. It seemed like it went every direction all at once.
I took acid and rode it.
Although it only took six minutes to transit its course, on acid it was like two days. I saw my high school Math teacher hanging upside down and scratching one of his armpits and saying “Two times two is nine—number nine, number nine, number nine.” He had a Beatles wig on and was dressed like Pee-Wee Herman. Then, after a breath-taking dip—a quarter-mile straight down at 100 MPH—behold: Tinker Bell! She was holding a fly swatter instead of a wand. I turn into a big fly and she pulls off my fly wings and swats me on the back of the head. Then she turns into a turnstile and says “You may pass shithead.” I speed off in my paper sky boat. It catches on fire—pretty blue and orange flames. I stand up and whip it out. My penis turns into a fire hose streaming red Kool-Aid. The fire goes out. Ahead, I see a tunnel. It has a banner hanging over the entrance saying “Love Tunnel.”
I whoosh into the tunnel. It is filled with naked women reaching for me and saying “Please” over and over again. I reach for one and she turns into a puddle of cackling yellow goo. I look down. The floor is covered with yellow goo. A cadre of school crossing guards marches into the tunnel from the other end. They use their stop sign paddles like snow shovels to shovel up the goo. I am saved! I move on.
I come out the end of the tunnel. I’m stretched out on my living room couch. I’m watching Wink Martindale beating “Tic-Tac-Dough” contestants with a tire iron.
The acid wears off. It’s been another awesome day and it’s time to go home. As I walk home picking up deposit cans off the roadside and putting them in a plastic bag, I wonder why the cans are not talking to me today.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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