The Daily Trope

Assonance (ass’-o-nance): Repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words

Water bubbles across the yard. The broken well makes mud. “Drink it! Drink it!” My heated brain yells. “What am I, nuts?” This is the right question under the circumstances.

I am writing a play titled “All is Well.” It makes me thirsty.. I head into the kitchen for a glass of water. I notice a fist shaking at me from out of the sink’s drain. It’s wearing an expensive watch! Then, I realize it is after three a.m. and my medication is wearing off. My condition induces vivid hallucinations that are easy to confuse with reality. Last week I thought I saw a murder take place in my front yard. A little man in a trench coat stabbed a woman in a wheelchair to death, and then, wheeled her away down the street. I checked the murder scene the next morning and saw no blood on the pavement and decided it was a hallucination. I just have to remember to take my anti-hallucinatory medication, “Delusionoff.” The only problem with it is that sometimes I think that things that are real are hallucinations. I was almost killed by a FedEx truck last week. I stepped in front of it thinking it was a hallucination. That’s a real problem that my medication should solve. I am going to talk to Dr. Farmazzi next week & see if there’s anything he can do. I saw a supplement on the web called “Sanizine.” It is supposed to help you distinguish between illusion and reality. It says: “Tired of seeing what’s there and thinking it isn’t? 25 Sanizine per day will fix it!”

Yesterday, despite taking my medication, I saw a cow on my neighbor’s roof. My neighbor was playing a guitar with a small amplifier and singing a song about being a rich man. It was annoying me, so I went outside to confront him. He was working in the flower bed in front of his house and singing the Beatles “Money.” I was so embarrassed that I helped him work in his garden for a half-hour. We sang “Money” together and talked about soil—mostly loam. Kidding around, we sang “Loam, loam on the Range” and laughed.

So, eventually I’ll finish “All is Well.” It’s about a broken well that needs repair or its owner will run out of potable water. Just as the well repair team arrives, Timmy, a neighborhood boy, falls in the well and gets stuck. It starts to rain and the well-water rises. Timmy drowns. He is so stuck in the wall that he can’t be extracted. As time goes by Timmy starts to decompose. The well water is ruined. But the owner of the well bottles it and sells it as “Timmy Memorial Water.” People come from hundreds of miles to purchase small vials for $50. 10% of the profits go to the “Tmmy’s Foolish Boys and Girls Camp Fund” which provides training in how to avoid doing foolish things, like falling in a well. The camp runs for one week in July every year. Nobody knows if it does any good, but it’s the money-making gesture that counts. If “All is Well” becomes a movie, I am hoping to get Danny DeVito to play Timmy., and maybe, Sting to play the well’s owner. I think Madonna will be perfect as Timmy’s mother. Johnny Depp will play Timmy’s father. Peter Falk will play a tricky detective in a filthy trench coat who suspects Timmy is “faking it” down in the well so his parents can collect on his life insurance policy.

Right now, I’m looking at a giant cockroach holding a paddle with a number on it, like the ones used by judges in sporting events. It says “127.” I don’t think my Sanizine is working.

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

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