Ominatio

Ominatio (o-mi-na’-ti-o): A prophecy of evil.

I felt the gas bubble moving through my intestines. Soon, there would be a foul smelling stench permeating the elevator. I felt blessed. I hated these people and any evil that befell them delighted me. I would announce that I was the fart’s perpetrator. I would say “Please excuse me” as if I cared. Like I said, I didn’t care. I hoped they all fainted on the elevator’s floor, overcome by my fart’s gas.

These were my co-workers. I was 22 and going bald. They made fun of me whenever they could. “How’s shiny mountain?” “Hey chrome dome.” “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” “You’re getting really thin.” There were 50 or 60 more insults regularly hurled my way. Suffice it to say they all hurt me. My colleagues would laugh a cheerful laugh when they insulted me, like we were somehow having fun together. I hated it. My hatred had led me to eat only fart food and hold my farts for the elevator ride to the 40th floor. Some days I was luckier than others, today’s fart fest netted an elevator almost solely filled with co-workers. It was beautiful. But now, they were calling me “Fart King Baldy.”

I couldn’t take it any more. On our next ride up in the elevator, I said, “I predict you’re all going to die a horrible death.” They all laughed. One of them said “You’re farting up the wrong tree amigo.” Little did he know I had hatched a plan to kill an elevator-load of the goddamn bastards—including him (if he was aboard).

I started monitoring the elevator, seeing who boarded it. When it was packed with colleagues, I would jump aboard. When we got to the 39th floor, I would press the emergency stop button, which would keep the elevator stopped in place for 15 minutes. I would talk them into letting me climb out the elevator’s top hatch to see if maybe I could fix the elevator. I had a pair of bolt cutters hidden in my trench coat. I was going to cut the elevator’s cable and dangle there while the elevator plunged 40 stories and killed everybody. I would escape and nobody would be the wiser.

It happened!

I cut the cable and enjoyed hearing everybody scream as they plunged 40 stories to their (well-deserved) deaths. Then there was a loud boinging sound at the bottom of the shaft. There were safety springs that absorbed the elevator’s fall!

There were a few minor injuries, but nobody died. I got away. A couple of my colleagues suspected me, but their suspicions went nowhere.

I stopped eating fart food and was fitted with a Neil Young toupee last week. Everything has quieted down. I’m learning how to play the harmonica.

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

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