Category Archives: hysteron proteron

Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.).

I had gotten lost again. I wasn’t functioning. I got on my bicycle and rode off. I said goodbye to my mother and stuffed my ham sandwich into the tool bag hanging from my bicycle’s seat. I would feed it to the ducks when I got to Bella Park somewhere beyond the city limits.

I knew something was wrong when I passed a large sign that said “New Jersey, The Garden State.” I had started out in New York, not far from Newburgh. I didn’t see any gardens. Maybe the sign was a joke. All I saw were mountains, rocks, trees, and a river. “Ha, ha. Very funny” I said to the sign. If I was in New Jersey, I was the most lost I’d ever been.

Then, I saw him. He was twisting a small tree branch around in his ear. He was wearing avocado green down puffer pants and a rainbow-colored sarape. His shoes really caught my eye. They had wings on them!

He looked pretty old.

I asked, “Is this really New Jersey?” He said, “Everybody asks that. You must be lost. So am I.” I took out my ham sandwich and started eating it. I said, I get lost all the time. Somebody always finds me and brings me home. My nickname is ‘Missing.’ I’ll just sit on that log over there and wait for somebody to find me.” The man started laughing. “It’s not going to happen. Once you enter New Jersey, you’re lost forever. This is not the New Jersey. It’s the New Jersey invented by Thomas Edison in the last days of his life—it was an anniversary gift for his wife. You end up here randomly when you don’t know where you’re going and you’re in or on a wheeled vehicle. Actually, there is a way out. You may have noticed that my shoes have wings.”

I was scared to death. I tried to get back into New York, but I couldn’t. It was like the border had become a trampoline turned on its side making me bounce off of New York every time I rushed it.

The man was wearing, in addition to all the other crazy stuff, an adult size baby backpack. He told me to climb in and he would take me home. “But you’re lost too,” I said. He told me he was just trying to create some kind of rapport with me so I would calm down. He was lying when he told me he was lost.

He pulled a hat out of his serape. It had wings! He strapped it under his chin. I climbed aboard the baby backpack. He looked down at his feet and yelled “Fly” and the wings on his shoes and hat started flapping. We slowly took off like a helicopter and then soared over fake New Jersey. We met with turbulence as we crossed into New York. My bike was tied by a piece of rope around the man’s waist. He had to be careful that it didn’t get it snagged on a tree or a tall building.

When we got to my house we landed gently. I untied my bike and rode it up the driveway. I thanked the man and he flew away.

Nobody believes this story. They tell me it’s bullshit and insane and not worth listening to. Even though I show them the feather I pulled from the man’s shoe, they look at it and say I pulled it from my pillow or one of my chickens.

My father knows an ornithologist at the college where he works. After weeks of begging my father finally took the feather to school and showed it to him.

He was shocked. Its description was identical to ancient descriptions of the feathers on Mercury’s sandals. He couldn’t confirm the connection to Mercury, but he said, given the feather, my story sounded like I may have met Mercury.

I keep the feather by my bed in a small leather-covered box. After my trip to fake New Jersey, I stopped getting lost.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

Hysteron Proteron (his’-ter-on pro’-ter-on): Disorder of time. (What should be first, isn’t.).

I was going down to the river to shoot my baby. She had made a mess of my life. After all was said and done, I hadn’t even gotten started. It was confusing, but not impossible. I went to Dick’s and bought at .410 shotgun—the kind you give to your kid when he turns 8. I went to Agway and bought some rope—it came packaged in cellophane and was way more than I needed to tie up my baby—“Maybe I could tie her to a tree” I thought as I whipped out my credit card and slid it through the card reader. I bought some silver-colored duct tape too. I was going to wind it around her head, leaving only little slits for her eyes, so she could see me point the .410 at her face. Loaded with #6 birdshot, it would blow off her face. I was ruthless.

What the hell did she do to deserve such a fate—yes, fate! I don’t know if she deserved what I had in store for her, but it was coming her way anyway: 1. She was way smarter than me. I’m a man. She’s a woman. Enough said. She took over paying my bills when I paid my mortgage payment three times. 2. She has a beautiful singing voice and gets standing ovations at the karaoke club when she sings “Are You Lonely Tonight?” When I sing “Stairway to Heaven” people leave and some people boo. 3. She had a boyfriend. That is, she cheated on me. She was dating my father. What did they think I’d think when I saw them snuggled on our couch, or they went up stairs to “read together” in bed. My mom was long gone, there was no impediment to Dad’s philandering. After they read, she and I would go out to dinner, check into a motel after dinner, and do some “reading” of our own. It was creepy, weird, unnatural, and immoral, but she was the only girl who wanted anything to with me. I am blind in one eye and lost my right foot in a farming accident—it got caught in a hay baler. I have a screw-on rubber prosthetic foot that does not have any toes. When I go to the beach it becomes a topic of conversation. Sometimes I take it off and we play catch in the sand. Without my foot, I can’t play or even stand up, but I like to watch my foot making people happy.

I want to kill her so bad. I have a killer hunger like I’m starving to blow her head off. I am really mad. It is amazing how a person can put you in a homicidal rage without knowing it. I picked her up at five to go down by the river and “take a little walk.” I loaded up my “tools of death” and put them behind my truck’s seat. I was so excited! Boom! All my problems solved. I couldn’t wait.

When we got to the river, I told her we were going to try something new, and I tied her to a tree just like I planned. I made her head into a duct tape mummy head. I let her squirm around and whine for around 20 minutes while ate the baloney sandwich I had brought along and drank the box of apple juice too. After I finished my sandwich and drink, I picked up the .410, aimed it at her head, and pulled the trigger. The .410 went “click” and nothing happened. I had forgotten to load the gun and the box of shells was sitting on my workbench in my garage. I was really mad. I decided to stab her with my Buck knife. I had left that home too. But, I did have the box cutter I had used on the rope when I tied her up! I decided to slit he throat with the box cutter and sit on a log and watch her bleed to death. Maybe that was better than the .410!

The razor blade in the box cutter was too dull to do the job on her windpipe. Luckily, I had my pruning saw. I had been pruning my apple trees that morning and had left the saw in my truck. So, I killed her—the newspaper called it “A Brutal Slaying Down by the River.” Given the circumstances, I don’t consider the murder “brutal.” My only regret is that I couldn’t shoot her.

I’m in the “Hogarth Prison for the Criminally Insane.” During the day, I make multi-colored pot holders. At night, I sleep and dream of murdering my baby down by the river.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.