Enigma (e-nig’-ma): Obscuring one’s meaning by presenting it within a riddle or by means of metaphors that purposefully challenge the reader or hearer to understand.
“The river is wide and deep. The current is strong. We must swim from shore to shore. We will be exhausted. We may drown.” My friend Joseph always spoke in riddles—like parables in hyperbole.
His father wrote horoscopes for a living and Joseph had been influenced by him. In the example above, we were on the way to the Mall. It was a couple of miles away and there was a steep hill we had to climb, and we would cut across a busy highway that had a narrow drainage ditch running alongside it. Joseph had exaggerated what was in store for us on our hike. Especially the prospect of death.
None of Joseph’s dire warnings ever came true. if anything, they came off as benign versions of themselves. Like getting your foot wet in the a drainage ditch by the highway, instead of drowning.
We were going grocery shopping with his mom the next day, in the hope of scoring some candy or a box of “Little Debbie’s” honeybuns. Joseph said: “Lo, tomorrow we shall be transported to the heart of abundance. Rows and rows of foods and spices and products that clean surfaces await our famished soiled hands. We will fill our shining steel wagons to overflowing, including buns of honey, and pay the towering price through the beeping flow of numbers pulsing on a green screen.”
I sat and listened to him out of respect for our friendship. I almost told him to shut up, but I knew it would break his heart. I was the only person who listened to his ranting. That is, with the exception of our English teacher Ms. Commaski who encouraged him. She would say things like “Ooh Joseph, you make my hair stand on end—look here behind my ear!” She was quite crazy.
She would do things like make us write about our toenails or what it would be like to kill somebody. I actually had a favorite assignment: Write a letter to Satan. Mine turned out to be 25 pages long and I got an A+.
Anyway, at Ms. Commaski’s behest, Joseph went to college majoring in Religious Studies. When he graduated he became a soothsayer, using his literary skills to fabricate credible-sounding futures. He operates out of a tent he pitches every day in the park. He calls himself “Karma-Cadabra,” I help him set up the tent every day and sit in the back corner wearing a gold-colored turban and nodding my head while Joseph mystically pontificates.
I stay until noon and then go to my office where I offer my services as a therapist. Today, I’m meeting with a woman who believes she actually left her heart in San Fransisco. I have a fake autographed photo of Tony Bennett that I am planning on selling to her.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
Daily Trope is available in an early edition 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.
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