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 worked all and day and by night I labored. My life was a tangle of work, poverty, and anxiety. I had two jobs. My wife and two daughters were a laughing stock—teased for the ill-fitting frayed second- and third-hand clothing they wore, not to mention the fact that their collective I.Q.s added up to 160. For example, if I asked my daughter how many apples were in the bowl on the kitchen table she would just look at me, and then, walk away.
I was the exact opposite of my big brother Manny and Manny was the reverse of me. Our parents had invested in him. He went to College, and then, law school. He was married with two dazzling children and a wife with the good looks and brains of Madame Curie. His older daughter had won Miss New Jersey and was headed to Edinburgh for the Miss World competition. She had also won a merit scholarship to Harvard University—free tuition and an annual $10,000 stipend. Her brother is not far behind. His Junior science project won the top prize of $5.000 plus the free services of a patent attorney to help commercialize his project. The project was a chemical additive for house paint that makes the house invisible to enemy aircraft (and everything else). He has affiliates in the Gulf States, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Gaza who will be marketing the paint to homeowners and owners of high-rise apartments in their regions.
And here I am stuck in my smelly apartment with my smelly family, their smelly clothes and their smelly breaths: they think garlic is attractive. My day job is making donuts. I sell donuts at night. I sit outside “Risky Billy’s Topless Lounge.” I say “Donuts for sale” to the patrons as they enter Risky Billy’s. My day boss gives me a “special donut” every day after work. It has icing that says “Thirteen.” A guy with a scar on his face gives me $5,000 every night for it. He says “Thanks” and gives me a $100 tip.
I guess my life isn’t’t that bad. When my older daughter was bringing me supper the other night, she met the guy with the scar on his face. Come to find out his name is Geppetto and he collects antique puppets. I think it was love at first sight with my daughter! She’s started “making the rounds” with him at night in his black Escalade. She tells me he picks up and delivers things in fairly small boxes. She asked him what was in the boxes and he slammed on the brakes and said “You don’t want to know!” My daughter told me she did want to know. I told her to fagetaboutit.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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