Articulus (ar-tic’-u-lus): Roughly equivalent to “phrase” in English, except that the emphasis is on joining several phrases (or words) successively without any conjunctions (in which case articulus is simply synonymous with the Greek term asyndeton). See also brachylogia.
Hope, fear, hope, fear, hope fear. The life-cycle of my life. Like a clothes dryer with only two settings, I go around, around, around. One minute I am as happy as a pig in shit for a fleeting moment, the next minute I’m biting my nails worrying about tomorrow’s episode of “This Dismal Life,” my favorite TV show. The last episode ended with Little Nell holding a gun to her head, threatening to kill herself if her father forced her to “go steady” with Peter Pinkston, a known pants wetter, but heir to the Pinkston fortune—billions of ill-gotten gains from war, and land grabbing during famines.
I was so anxiety stricken that I couldn’t even get dressed for work. So, I went to work in my bathrobe and was fired on the spot by the line Boss Elroy Fitz. He said my robe’s belt would get caught in the machinery, killing me, and what was worse, close down the line—a conveyer belt laden with die-stamped front doors that I helped unload at the end of the line.
I was escorted out of the plant and drove home. At that point, I realized what my anxiety problem was all about.
It was the future! Living in a world of “What will be?” without a grip on “What has been?” Was tilting my life toward the unknowable: the spacious site of uncertainty—where anything I could imagine that was bad, wicked, unholy may possibly happen. I only had rare glimpses of a future garnished with truth and beauty—with hope for the pink horizon of a beneficent future. My glimpses of the good were far too infrequent. But I knew, since the future hasn’t com yet, I could imagine its trajectory—I had control.
I started reading romance novels.
A world of happy endings opened up to me. As I habituated myself to their fidelity to triumph over evil and a triumphant sort of love, I became Lance Ruddy, signed up for a dating site, hung out in singles bars, wore Blundstones, black muscle shirts, tight-ass blue jeans. I worked out and grew a stumpy little pony tail and a well-groomed beard.
As Lance, my future is always bright. I can predict, pretty much, what I’m gonna’ get. Aside from STDs, the future’s anxieties have faded away. I have become the master of my destiny.
I am Lance Ruddy: womanizing pretty boy.
