Topographia (top-o-graf’-i-a): Description of a place. A kind of enargia [: {en-ar’-gi-a} generic name for a group of figures aiming at vivid, lively description].
It was cold and dark. It was my heart. It was a metaphor. I was unemotional and secretive. A cat got run over in the street right in front of me. I felt nothing, absolutely nothing. it was like I saw it, but I didn’t—blank, invisible, non-existent. I was unaffected and continued on my way to school. I told my biology teacher in a flat voice that I had seen a cat run over. He brightened up and smiled and asked me where. I told him and he took off leaving the class sitting on their stools at their work stations trying to figure out how to dissect their formaldehyde-soaked frogs. I cut my frog’s legs off and threw them at the blackboard.
Mr. Shed kept a dove in a cage in the classroom. It was named “Peace.” I let it out of its cage. It flew around in a panic. It flew into a closed window and broke its neck. That was the end of Peace. Some of my fellow students were crying. I felt nothing in my cold and dark heart. “Let’s cremate Peace!” I yelled. My fellow students cowered and whined, but they stayed to watch!
I fired up a Bunsen burner and gently laid Peace on the flame. His burning body smelled awful. So I extinguished him in the sink. That’s when Mr. Shed came back. He was carrying the mangled cat by the tail and threw it down on his desk. “What’s that smell?” He asked. The class said in unison “Peace, Mr. Shed.” I told him what had happened and he asked me if I had disposed of Peace properly. “Yes sir” I said, “He’s in a paper bag in the trashcan by the door.”
Mr. Shed told us to make sure the janitor took him away promptly. We all knew the janitor would probably eat him. He was scary. The way he held his squeegee made us feel like he wanted to decapitate us.
So much for my absent emotions. Like I said, I was secretive too. I wouldn’t tell people my name—not even a fake name. At most, I might use “Mr. X” to let them know politely that I didn’t want disclose my name. I knew if I told people my name I’d start getting spam in my email and getting spam phone calls. I NEVER gave out my address! Who wants strangers showing up at your front door to kill you? I don’t! I also wear disguises. My favorite is the Maytag repairman, followed by one of the Mario Brothers. When I’m in disguise I feel free—concealed beneath cloth and makeup. In some respects I feel like a movie actor. Maybe some day I’ll win an Oscar.
What’s best is my secret life. By day, I work at “Sudsy Fender Car Wash” as a finisher—using a rag to wipe off washed cars. At night, dressed as the Maytag repairman, I stand in a statue pose in front of Carnegie Hall. Almost everybody walks by not even noticing me. People who notice me usually say “What are you trying to prove?” Or, “Go home num nuts.”
Anyway, my life is complicated by my cold and dark heart—it is a place that is closed—like a refrigerator or an ice chest sitting at the North Pole. The are no Northern Lights, there are no sunrises, no Eskimos. There are just dreams frozen into nightmares and nightmares guiding my life.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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