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 was big, sizable, gigantic, humongous, gargantuan. It was my pimple of the week! What was worse, it was on the end of my nose. My nose was already too big—it was starting to look like a volcano ready to erupt.
I wouldn’t it let get to me. I put a bandaid over it to conceal it and went to school.
I was sitting in math class when it started dripping on my pop- quiz. I tried erase it, but it made a big hole in my paper when I rubbed it. What would I tell my teacher, Mr. Sine? I was on the verge of crying when a little red woman popped out of my bandaid. “You’re the only one who can see me” she said as she hopped down onto my desk. “I am the Scarlet Pimple-null. I vanquish pimples wherever they rear their pus-capped heads.”
Now I knew I shouldn’t have smoked that doobie on the way to school. Everything was catching to with me—a pimple from hell, a little red imp, and now Mr. Sine was heading toward my desk.
“That thing smells Mr. Tweezit. Go the nurses office, now!” Scarlet laughed and straddled my nose like it was a horse. “I’m on my way!” I exclaimed, sounding dutifully aligned with Mr. Sine’s command. I looked cross-eyed at Scarlet. She was holding her nose and laughing. I asked her when she was going to get rid of “this thing” (referring to my pimple). She laughed and pointed. It was the school janitor Mr. Fignoocker. He said, “That thing on your nose smells. Let me give it a squirt of my all-purpose surface cleaner, and, by the way, who’re you talking to?” I told him “Nobody, and no thanks, I’m on my way to the nurse’s office.”
I got to her office. As I got ready to enter, Scarlet jumped down, and said “You don’t need me any more—the nurse will take care of you. Bye!” With that she vaporized in a cloud of red mist.
As I opened the door, there was Ms. Stooletti waiting for me. “Pull down your pants,” she said with a sparkle in her eyes. I pulled them down and she gave me a thorough examination. “Nothing amiss down there,” she said in a dreamy voice. I said, “It’s my nose. I have a gargantuan pimple under the bandage.” She tore off the bandage. The big red pimple was on the verge of erupting. She held up a gauze bandage between my pimple and her face. I erupted and splattered smelly goop on the bandage between us.
It was over.
Ms. Stooletti carefully folded the bandage and laid it on her desk, and then, wiped my nose off with a warm washcloth.
“What’s next?” I asked myself as I felt another pimple beginning to swell on my right ass cheek.
