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.
Je ne sais quoi drifted across the room. There was a nonsequitor hovering over the place like a mist straddling our meeting, like at any minute I would be yelling et tu, Brute into the fierce-looking faces of the people, where the vox populum was crying out for my resignation from the Workshire City Council.
There were complaints directed like slings and arrows toward my coherence—the citizens’ weak minds couldn’t climb the cliffs of glory looming hermeneutically in the waysides of their little shrunken crania. When I spoke they wretched and cowered.
I often wondered why this unwashed hoi polloi voted for me. I am so far above them. Surely it was the tantalizing stylings I made through the oral fog blowing from my face.
I was clear about my promises because I knew they were the rungs on the ladder I would climb to the apex of their hopes and acme of their dreams—spanning the alpha and omega of their feeble little desires.
I promised them:
- $5,000
- Lower taxes
- Free health insurance
- New shoes
- Handgun permits
- Pardons for them and their relatives and friends
- Free harmonica lessons
- Free electric bicycles
- E-Z passes
- Goats
This was my ten-point plan.
The fools want me to keep my campaign promises, but alas, “All the world’s a stage” and it’s just one big act. C’est la vie Workshire. My bags are packed. My motor’s running. The loot’s in the trunk. The curtain’s coming down. Catch me if you can!
POSTSCRIPT
They chased him, they caught him, they tried him, they convicted him. He had stolen the mayor’s regalia and mace, a silver punch bowl, a laptop computer, a set of police walkie-talkie-talkies, and a painting of “Big Al,” Workshire’s first mayor.
He is currently serving a six-month sentence in a très inconfortable cell.
Que sera sera Councilman Rousseau. You canis sordidus. You dirty dog!
