Chiasmus (ki-az’-mus): 1. Repetition of ideas in inverted order. 2. Repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order (not to be mistaken with antimetabole, in which identical words are repeated and inverted).
I was going crazy—mad as a mental patient. I do not know what happened to my psyche. I am nut and nuts is me. Nuts up. Up nuts. Nuts, nuts, nuts. I am chattering like an aggressive squirrel. My psyche is like a dog who had moved in, fleas and all. My brain was barking and growling and whining and scratching at the door.
I felt hopeless. I decided to jump from the roof of my apartment building. I climbed the stairs and came out on the roof. I was ready to fly. I was trotting to the edge when I noticed a beautiful woman sunbathing on a blanket. I stopped and said hello to her and told her that I was going to commit suicide by jumping off the roof. She laughed and said I must be joking. I was the third suicide she was going to witness that day. I was taken aback—she was laughing and flapping her arms like wings.
I didn’t think it was funny—I was going to end my life! I was infuriated. I dragged her across the roof and was going to heave her over the side. She told me she thought I was crazy. I told her that was true. I let go of her and she ran back to her blanket and started crying. I sat down alongside her and tried to comfort her. I held both her hands and looked into her eyes. She put her arms around my neck and gave me a big kiss.
At that, my mental illness started to subside. It was what I was waiting for for the past five years when all this started when my pet hamster Hammy had died on his exercise wheel from cardiac arrest. This strange woman was bringing me back from the abyss.
We went down to her apartment and got drunk on Martinis. We got married 5 days later and went on a honeymoon to Ecuador. She ate some bad ceviche and died.
I became crazy again, but with the memory of her I didn’t want to harm myself. Instead, I wanted to harm other people. I became a thug and enjoyed wearing a balaclava and beating people on the back of the head with a piece of pipe. Oh, I still enjoyed martinis even though I had become cruel and rude.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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