Syllepsis (sil-lep’-sis): When a single word that governs or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. A combination of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect. Not to be confused with zeugma: [a general term describing when one part of speech {most often the main verb, but sometimes a noun} governs two or more other parts of a sentence {often in a series}].
My toe and my bank account were hurting! I didn’t know how my toe had become inflamed. It looked like a zucchini with a blackened claw at the end. I had visited at least 100 doctors. At $200 a shot, the bills were mounting. The remedies provided by the doctors made loud quacking sounds when I took the pills or followed instructions for doing things that would cure me:
- Snort dried rabbit poop ground into dust.
- Sit on an opened can of tuna fish until it imprinted a circle around my anus.
- Dip my foot in warmed goat urine seasoned with ramps and poison ivy.
- Take a pill filled with strawberry-flavored ground dog fur.
- Super-glue a set of dice to my toenail.
These are just a few of the 100s of remedies that I was prescribed and tried to no avail. I had a custom-made shoe crafted to wear on my errant foot. It looked like a meatloaf with a heel. People would cringe when they saw it, especially if we were crowded in somewhere like an elevator. One day on the subway, some kid stepped on my foot. I screamed so loud that the subway stopped. I’m not sure why it did, but it did. Everybody started yelling at me: “Go home creep!” “Nice footwork asshole!” “Limp to hell fu*k weed!”
I limped off the subway at my stop. I was thinking “Typical fu*king New York.” Then I saw it! Scrawled on the wall it said: “Try Doctor Hoo Doo. He will make you whole.” There was a phone number. I pulled out my cellphone and immediately called the number. There was a recorded message: “Who do voodoo? We do voodoo. Leave your number.” I left my number and Doctor Hoo Doo called me the next day. He is located in Haiti. I had to fly to Port au Prince the next day for my appointment.
When I arrived at the airport, a horse cart was waiting to take me to my appointment with Doctor Hoo Doo. The driver dropped me off at the end of an alley, and pointed down it. I started down the alley and saw a man sitting on a stool at the end of the alley wearing a track suit and holding a baseball bat. He told me to take off my meatloaf shoe. He sprinkled some kind of powder on my foot and started beating my toe with the bat. Strangely, it didn’t hurt. After beating on it for about 10 minutes, my toenail shot out of the send of my toe and flew away like a butterfly, dripping some kind of vile-smelling yellow goo. My toe deflated with a long farting sound and I felt better than I had felt for the past ten years.
Doctor Hoo Doo said “There! You’re cured! You will serve as my slave for the next two years. Then, you may go home.” Two years as a slave was a small price to pay for having my toe cured. I would’ve gone for five. I readily agreed.
I work at a pikliz factory out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, I do not know where it is, however, I can hear the ocean waves crashing at night. I have learned some French. My fellow workers are dull-eyed slow-moving sluggards. They look like they’ve sold their souls or something. They all work on the night shift which leaves me on my own to make pikliz during the day.
I met Doctor Hoo Doo’s overseer yesterday. He said “We don’t think about escaping, do we?” I knew he was joking, so I agreed with him. He has a subscription to Amazon Prime. We’re going to watch “Night of the Living Dead” tomorrow night while all the dull-eyes are working in the cabbage fields.
My foot is doing fine. As far as I can see, everything’s going great. One year and 9 months to go!
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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