Scesis Onomaton


Scesis Onomaton (ske’-sis-o-no’-ma-ton): 1. A sentence constructed only of nouns and adjectives (typically in a regular pattern). 2. A series of successive, synonymous expressions.


“Big Buffalo prairie cabal.” That’s what I called it. The massive herd was slowly moving toward me, heads down, except for the alpha Buffalo “Shaggy,” head up with a dead rabbit impaled on one of his horns.

The buffalos picked up the pace and soon were galloping full tilt toward me. Did they want to kill me? I answered “Yes” in my head and jumped behind a large boulder.

The herd came streaming by—hundreds of buffalo. They smelled like unwashed underwear. They made a mooing sound like a car with a dead battery—ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh, ruh—only louder. It was a nightmare. I tried praying but I couldn’t remember how. So, I just yelled “Help!” There was a naked guy riding a white buffalo wearing a buffalo horn hat and thick eye shadow. He yelled “Stop!” And the herd stopped on his command. He looked at me and said “I am the Buffalo God. Go now! Go back to your family. Go back to your friends. Go back to MTV if it still exists. Or, you can ride the plains with me.”

I took him up on his offer, stripped naked and climbed on the buffalo he pointed out. “Her name’s Pandora” he said. I asked what we do in cold weather. He told me we fly to a nudist colony in Florida for the winter and that he was able to make us invisible for the flight.

We rode the plains all summer long. When it came time to go south naked, we took an Uber to the airport. We were arrested for public nudity at the airport’s entrance. Something had gone wrong with the Buffalo God’s invisibility spell. I was shocked and disappointed.

Under questioning, the police told me he was a certified nutcase. But then, he disappeared from his cell. Nobody could find him. Then, the police station’s entrance door opened and closed by itself. The Buffalo God had fixed his spell! The next thing I knew, I disappeared too!

We did a reprise of our trip to the airport, boarded a United Airlines flight to Miami, and then, took a bus to “Nudy, Nudy Nudist Colony.” We swam. We fished. We para-sailed. We water-skied. We ate the best food. We drank the best cocktails.

We both looked forward to returning to the buffalo.


Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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