Articles: Humor
What Was That Again?
According
to Oettle1, a Zen proverb
says that "a good craftsman leaves no traces."
In good legal writing, the prose moves along so smoothly
that the reader never stops to admire the writer's skills.
This is the ultimate goal—to focus the reader on the
argument, not the writing.
It
is refreshing to take a step back and reflect on the process
of learning to write. These contributions by high school
students2 remind us that
it is not easy to create analogies and metaphors.
Her face was a perfect oval,
like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed
by a thigh master.
His thoughts tumbled in his
head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a
dryer without Cling Free.
She grew on him like E. coli
and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
She had a deep throaty genuine
laugh like that sound a dog makes just before he throws
up.
He was as tall as a six foot
three inch tree.
Her vocabulary was as bad
as, like, whatever.
The revelation that his marriage
of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s
infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly
surcharge-free ATM.
McBride fell 12 stories, hitting
the pavement like a hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
The little boat gently drifted
across the pond exactly the way a bowling bowl wouldn’t.
Her hair glistened in the
rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
Her eyes were like limpid
pools, only they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.
The young fighter had a hungry
look, the kind you get from not eating for awhile.
The ballerina rose gracefully
on points and extended one slender leg behind her, like
a dog at a fire hydrant.
She was as easy as the TV
Guide crossword.
The hailstones leaped up off
the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot
grease.
Long separated by cruel fate,
the star-crossed lovers raced across a grassy field toward
each other like two freight trains, one having left
Cleveland at
6:36 PM, traveling at 55 mph, the other from
Topeka at 4:19 PM,
at a speed of 35 mph.
He was as lame as a duck.
Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck
that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine
or something.
It was an American tradition,
like fathers chasing kids with power tools.
It hurt like the way your
tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
The plan was simple, like
my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just
might work.
John and Mary had never met.
They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
He fell for her like his heart
was a mob informant and she was the East River
.
Even in his last years, grandpappy
had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left
out so long, it had rusted shut.
Shots rang out, as shots are
wont to do.
He was deeply in love when
she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage
truck backing up.
She walked into my office
like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
Her voice had that tense grating
quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that
needed a band tightening.
1.
(back)
Oettle, K., "Transition by repetition", New
Jersey Law Journal, Dec 16 2002.
2.
(back) Solares
Hill, Key West, FL,
Jan 3 2003. |
