Ellipsis (el-lip’-sis): Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.
I could actually see the germs crawling around on my hands. They were . . . wriggling and curling up like springs. I was cursed with telescopic vision. The lenses of my eyes adjusted to distances, randomly without warning. One minute, I could see parameciums swimming in polluted water and then, without warning, the moon’s craters. Sometimes, when I looked in the mirror, I saw these microscopic bugs running around on my face. They were flesh colored and hairy and it looked like they were wearing tennis shoes. That really scared me. Although my ophthalmologist assured me I was suffering from telescopic vision, I thought I was losing my mind. She had prescribed me special glasses that were supposed to control my malady. But, before I was able to pick them up, I met the man in the moon.
I was moon-gazing out by my swimming pool when suddenly I telescoped toward the moon. I felt like I was flying through space. I was cold. Suddenly, I landed on the moon! There was a man standing there. He was wearing a calico nightshirt and black rubber boots. He said, “I’m the man in the moon. Who are you?” I told him I was Brad Bonecharge and I had an eye problem. He lifted up his nightgown and said “We all have our problems.” I telescoped in and I was shocked and panic stricken. There were tiny little people crawling around in his pubic hair. They did not seem to be very happy. I turned my gaze back to earth and telescoped into my back yard—to my swimming pool. I flew home and realized that I was starting to get some control of my malady. Nevertheless, I picked up my special glasses at the optometrist’s and started wearing them all the time.
I went to my first monthly appointment with my ophthalmologist. I sat across from her and we started to talk about my eyes. Suddenly, I heard mumbling coming from between her legs. She must have noticed my discomfort because she lifted up her dress and told me not to worry, “they” were harmless and had moved into her crotch a couple of moths ago. She said she didn’t understand their language, but she was keeping them because she enjoyed the company and the tickling sensation. She said the only inconvenience was waiting for them to climb off when she’s going to bathe. She has a doll house bench that they sit on while she takes a shower.
The more we talked about the little people, the louder the din became coming from her crotch. I was convinced that I had gone totally psycho, that my visit to my ophthalmologist was a total hallucination. Then, I felt a tickling in my crotch. I excused myself and went into the office bathroom. I pulled down my pants and saw six or seven little people talking and laughing. I pulled up my pants and ran out of the office.
How would I take care of these little people? How would I feed them? I found out that night. They latched onto me like tiny ticks. That’s when I realized they were vampires. They lived in the darkness of people’s underpants and were distantly related to leeches! I had read about them in National Geographic, but I thought it was a hoax. I realized, given they were vampires, if I pulled down my pants out by the pool in the afternoon they’d go up in smoke, or maybe, I could stick wooden toothpicks in their chests while they were sleeping.
I had a decision to make.
The next day I was out by the pool. I was ready to pull down my bathing suit in the bright sunlight and fry those little suckers. I put my thumbs under my waistband. I heard screaming and crying and what sounded like begging coming from my swimsuit. I relented. . . let them live.
I recorded their mumbling and took the recording to a linguist friend of mine. She was stunned. She told me the dialect hadn’t been spoken for 900 years when it was erased along with the little people who spoke it. She said is was a dark day in Romania when the little people were eradicated due to a rumor they were vampires.
My friend loaned me a valuable text that had been translated from “Vorbe Mici” (Small Talk) into English. It was a biography titled “Night Moves” (Mișcări de noapte). The “book” was one inch by 2 inches in keeping with the size of the author and his readers. I used “Night Moves” to learn the ancient dialect, using the English translation as a key. I realized that I was slowly becoming a vampire: I have been bitten over and over again. I got a night job at Cliff’s. I sleep during the day in an unplugged chest freezer in my basement. Since I’ve started sucking blood from my neighbor Thelma, my telescopic vision has gone away.
I told my ophthalmologist about my cure and she suggested we take a night walk down by the river where a lot of “juicy” homeless people camp.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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