Cacozelia

Cacozelia (ka-ko-zeel’-i-a): 1. A stylistic affectation of diction, such as throwing in foreign words to appear learned. 2. Bad taste in words or selection of metaphor, either to make the facts appear worse or to disgust the auditors.

The little baby bird had been run over in the street. It couldn’t move and it was peeping in pain. It was bleeding. I watched it for couple of minutes and then stomped on the chick with my heavyweight lumberjack boot and ground it into the asphalt. I wiped off my boot’s sole on the grass by the curb and headed off to the animal shelter where I work as a volunteer.

Today, I was in charge of starving cats—malnourished cats picked up off the streets of Belltone where I live. Belltone was originally named Udderville until the milk plant moved away. Belltone made hearing aids and most of the people who were employed there were hard of hearing. The company’s logo was a dig ear with the word “What?” in an arc above it. They’re still in business and make mini solar-powered recyclable hearing aids.

Today, at the shelter, I’m going to play food hockey with the cats. I duct tape their feet to the floor and bat full cans of cat food at them with a broom. When I hit one in the nose, it howls and often bleeds on the floor. I made this game up myself and feel quite proud of it, although I have to keep it secret. I clean up after a round, so nobody’s any the wiser. Eventually, I feed the cats, so all is well, but I love to hear them yowl.

It is time to head home. It’s 4:00. Grandma’s there alone, usually hiding in her bedroom closet. I tear open the closet door and yell “Here’s Barney!” I’m like the guy in “The Shining.” Grandma usually shits her diaper. I take her to the top of the stairs and ask here menacingly “Do you want to fly Grandma?” She screams “No!” and I give her a playful little shove. Then, we go downstairs a play horsy in the living room. She makes horse snorting noises and I ride her around. I call her “Trigger.”

It’s around time for Mom to come home, so I climb off and I point my pistol at Grandma’s head and tell her I’ll kill her if she squeals on what we do. She keeps her mouth shut.

We eat dinner and I go to bed where I put down a sheet of plastic wrap and make little cuts on my arms with a razor blade. The blood drips and I taste it—warm and red and salty. It reminds me of what I would like to do to everybody: slash and smile and stay awhile. When I move away from home, I really want to be a serial killer. I’m going to get a little car like Ted Bundy’s and travel around killing people. I think I will specialize in nursing homes, killing elders in their wheelchairs. I know I’m lazy, but I’m not ashamed. Anyway, stabbing people takes a lot of energy, and the mess it make is almost impossible to clean up. I’ll leave it to the nurses. Ha! Ha!

I actually think I’ll start my career with Grandma. I’ll send he off on the night of my high school graduation. I will stab her and throw her in the canal.

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

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.