Pathopoeia ( path-o-poy’-a): A general term for speech that moves hearers emotionally, especially as the speaker attempts to elicit an emotional response by way of demonstrating his/her own feelings (exuscitatio). Melanchthon explains that this effect is achieved by making reference to any of a variety of pathetic circumstances: the time, one’s gender, age, location, etc.
How many roads must a man walk down before he buys a car, or takes a cab, or hops a bus? The answer my friend is filled with grief. The answer is filled with misery and tears.
I walk because of my unending sorrow, my deep sense of loss—deeper than any ditch you’ve ever seen, or fallen into. I am so sad that the front of my shirt is always soaked with tears. I am so sad I sob when I talk and people keep saying “What?” I am so sad that my eyes are always red. My boss told me to stop smoking pot on the job or he’d fire me. I keep lying in a fetal position on my desk. I’ve been reported but my boss hasn’t seen it yet. When he does, I’m sure I’ll get the boot. But, I won’t stop crying—I have a knife in my heart and a boot up my ass. I am the epitome of bereft.
Why?
My wife and two daughters are dead. I killed my wife in a car crash. We were late for a Corn Hole game at my brother-law’s. He was State Champ and I always dreamed of beating him. After five years, I never came close, but I played anyway, hoping to learn something from him.
We were speeding—80 MPH on a twisting country road. I rounded a sharp curve and we ran head on into a National Guard tank parked in the middle of the road. My wife had unhooked her seatbelt to look for my whiskey flask on the back seat. She flew ass-first through the windshield breaking her back and severing her head. I’ll never forget the look on her face when I found her head wedged in the front of the tank. It was the scowl I’d seen over the years whenever I screwed up.
I vowed to never drive again.
Two weeks later my 1st daughter was shot and killed by an insane cab driver. In questioning by the police he said, “I aimed Little Lucy at her face and said “This ride’s over. I only shot her once and she was whacked. I killed her because I noticed she had horns sticking out of her head and she smelled like rotten eggs. Also, she had a little goatee. Can you blame me?” I thought, “Jesus Christ, it was Halloween! She was on her way to a party, I was broken, cracked, devastated, heartbroken. I was falling into the abyss.
I vowed to never take a cab again.
Then, only three days later, my other daughter was killed in a bus crash. Some nut had hijacked the bus and vowed to drive it to Atlantic City, quite a distance from Bangor, Maine. He was wearing a MAGA hat with sticks of dynamite duct taped to it like candles on a birthday cake. The hijacker kept singing “The Wheels on the Bus” over and over into the bus’s P.A. system.
He had the dynamite’s detonator in one hand and the other hand on the steering wheel. They rode over one of New York’s notorious potholes. It was a foot deep and they hit it at 65. The hijacker lost his grip on the steering wheel and dropped the detonator on floor, blowing him up and instantly killing the passengers in the first two rows. The bus kept going and went over the Palisades, blowing up in flames and killing the remaining passengers—my daughter included. Again, I was devastated, my soul hurt, I filled the kitchen sink with my tears. I couldn’t cope. I sat in my big chair and watched FOX News 24-7.
Never, would I take a bus anywhere ever again.
After a week of whining grief, I decided to do something. I filed lawsuits. I sued the National Guard. I sued “Lucky Cabs.” I sued “Bucky Buses” and the New York D.O.T. When I told my story in each case, the jurors cried, as I did when I told it. If I didn’t win at least one of my lawsuits, I had decided to become a homeless man, spending my days on a sheet of cardboard alternatively crying and lashing out at passersby with righteous indignation.
I won all three of my lawsuits for $20,000,000. I have a new wife named Sassy. She’s 22 and I’m taking Viagra to try and conceive a child with her. I try not to think of my former family, but sometimes I can’t help it. When it happens, I turn to Sassy and she absorbs my pain with her luscious body.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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