Thaumasmus

Thaumasmus (thau-mas’-mus): To marvel at something rather than to state it in a matter of fact way.

I was filled with wonder and hope. When I heard the gunshot, I felt free. It was the sound of liberation from my travails. I had imagined hearing it before and was elated. I went downstairs and looked around but nobody was home. My chains reached to the living room, so I sat on the couch and watched “The Daily Show.” It was so funny and politically charged that it often clouded my trepidations and made me forget the state of my life for awhile.

The state of my life was bleak. He had been picked me up hitch-hiking 2 years ago. I was on my way to a job interview at “Billy Bill’s Catering.” I never got there. He took me home with him and put me in chains. He was my father and I was a runaway. I was 12 and I had skipped out 11 times already. I wanted adventure. I wanted to see the world. But, all I saw were cops picking me up and calling my father. He hadn’t intended to pick me up that day, but he lucked out. He was on his way to “Skinny’s” his favorite hangout. It was a sleaze bar frequented by the dregs of Prong Port, where we lived. We drove straight home.

He chained me up to keep me home. He was home schooling me. This week we would be studying “Chrome Plated Things.” We were examining a hubcap from a ‘56 Chevy, a steam iron, and a ballpoint pen. We would hold them up and move the around in the light and talk about the positive connotations of “shiny” as an adjective. On the last day of “class” we had vegetable soup served in hubcaps with crackers and grilled cheese sandwiches that Dad made with the iron. It was festive, but I wanted to leave. I was 14 and believed I could fend for myself. Four years later my dream came true.

I had put a sign in my window that said “Shoot the man who mows the lawn.” Nobody ever did. But, I had graduated from “How Now Home School.” In addition to my diploma they had mailed me a wooden plaque with a key glued to it that said “Your future is the key.” Dad handed it to me and said “Congratulations.” I took it and ran up to my room. In addition to the diploma and plaque, the envelope contained a plane ticket to Las Vegas where Mom worked as a pole dancer in a nursing home. Somehow, she managed to pull this off. It took her long enough!I

I pried the key off the plaque with my fingernail clippers. I inserted it in the lock holding my chains. The lock went “click” and I was free. The plane was leaving for Vegas 1:00 am. I didn’t even pack a toothbrush. I had to hitch-hike to the airport.

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

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