Auxesis

Auxesis (ok-see’-sis): (1) Arranging words or clauses in a sequence of increasing force. In this sense, auxesis is comparable to climax and has sometimes been called incrementum. (2) A figure of speech in which something is referred to in terms disproportionately large (a kind of exaggeration or hyperbole). (3) Amplification in general.

It hung to the floor. He tripped over it getting out of the shower. He could crack it like a whip. Once, he used it to tow a tractor trailer cross the Walmart parking lot. He tried to play jump rope with it, but nobody would play. He used to paint it to look like a boa constrictor and scare what few friends he had after he tried to choke Billy Johnson with it after he grabbed it on the way to school.

His unusually long penis was a curse. His parents wouldn’t’t pay to have it shortened. They were religious and believed that the eight foot long penis was God’s will and shouldn’t be tampered with. They believed it would bring famine and plague down on their home. Whenever he asked for the surgery they would admonish him and make him go naked in the back yard garden and write “I am a sinner” in the dirt 10 times with his penis.

It was humiliating. He left home and found his place working in King’s Traveling Circus sideshow. He did tricks with his penis. His best was twirling it like a lasso over his head. He met and fell in love with Alligator Lady. She had razor sharp teeth. He knew it would bring his career to end, but he asked her to chew him down to size. At first she resisted, but gave in to his nearly constant begging. She bit his penis off at eight inches. The blood gushed out. She thought fast and put a condom over it with a rubber band secured tightly at the base. His penis healed without a problem.

He stayed with the circus to be with Alligator Lady, working his way up from picking up elephant shit to ringmaster. He and Alligator Lady got married. They had a child—a girl. She had Jumborganitis like her father. She was born with adult-sized breasts and now, at 20, she’s a size 52. They have her bras custom made in Thailand. She wants to have breast reduction surgery, and they’ve going through with it for her on next birthday.

After the surgery, she had phantom boob syndrome—the sensation that her boobs are still there. It is normal among amputees and she is managing it well.

So, this is the story of a family with disproportionately large inherited body parts. After dealing with organs the size of Nebraska, they came to terms, whittling themselves down to size and going on with their lives. Having a penis stretching from New York to LA is no more. Having boobs as big as Mt. Rushmore is no more. Thanks to modern medicine and crazy-ass behavior, all is well.

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

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