News from the Front Lines

IMD Ignites War of Words

Bacchic Aubade reporting for   Front Lines News

Yesterday, a lone soliloquy suffered post lexicon disorder (PLD) after going over an Improvised Mime Device (IMD) with a run on sentence. The soliloquy had just made a dramatic entry after internal conflict had triggered a major scene.

“When the IMD went off I was sure we would all be carried off in cacophonies,” said one witness before breaking down into monosyllables..

As the IMD went off, fragments of Improvisational Gestures and Exaggerated Facial Expressions were embedded between the lines. Character Revelation and Emotional Intensity was reduced to fits and starts, followed by lengthy pauses.

Symptoms of escalating alliteration were immediate and consequently resulted in jarring jargon, severe solipsism, and spells of sound and fury signifying nothing. The soliloquy needed to be immediately placed into isolation before the more serious symptoms slipped into the rest of the text.

The Head Honchos and Nameless Experts from Central Synecdoche say it will take up to a year of intensive linguistic analysis and active parsing to recover lost levels of meaning and subtle shades of symbolism.

After surveying the damage one official said, “All that may be left is a couple of significant asides.”

The situation worsened when Circus trunks loaded with Comic Relief slipped on a second IMD. A bystander, who had just recovered from a pratfall, observed, “ It was an absurd mess. Broken shticks were slapping in the wind and the groaners were all over the road. I tell you, we were all in summer stock. We just stood there in medias res. You could hear a pun drop.”

 

The IMD triggered a verbal melt-down that left plot holes across the entire narrative arc. Several minor character roles rapidly expanded, only to collapse into ambiguity. A paradox was seen quickly approaching the Climactic Moment. The Moment immediately stalled in a state of Uncertainty and was unable to recover any momentum.

Witnesses report that Motivation lost total sense of direction after encountering clouds of ennui. It meandered into the State of Apathy. All efforts to redirect Motivation proved fruitless.

A protracted war of words soon broke out as gathering Dark Metaphors loomed over the plot line. Cause and Effect were lost midst the confusion of punctuated attacks.

Editorial Support said things became desperate as Descriptive Details succumbed to Vague References. When asked for possible outcomes, General Hyperbole responded with great agitation, “Attempts to gather a clear understanding of textual integrity have begun to fail. We could end up in a Book Remainder Bin, or worse be reduced to the Slush Pile.”

Narrative Coherence was oblivious to Efforts at Central Clarity. Spurious Rumors staying at Inn Uendo only offered baseless comments. The lines of communication were completely broken. The only thing that got through was the sound of one hand clapping.

Soon after that, the Tankas rolled in. Line movement was quickly cited. A complement of seven line stanzas marched out of the marginal spaces. The lines, containing five and seven syllables, imposed structure and emotional impact. The zone of conflict had been indented with tropes.

Haiku parachuted in with Haiga support. Haiga support, worth a thousand words, extended the Haiku’s metaphorical range into the non-verbal.

Parachutes floating –

The sky full of white blossoms,

The front all quiet.

A Brief Explanation or an Apology (Depending on your sense of humour): The above piece of writing grew out out of my addiction for puns & word-play and reading  Jasper Fforde’s latest Thursday Next novels, One of Our Thursdays is Missing.  The setting for most of the novel is Fictionland where the fictional version of Thursday Next must find the real Thursday.  The Thursday Next series is a romp through an alternate reality, where time travel and access to the reality of the book-world/Fictionland makes for adventure and satire. The whole series is highly recommended. For a unique police proceedural series check out Fforde’s  Nursery Crime Division.

How I did that: The images were created with the assistance of wordle, an online site that lets you generate word clouds. I then used the word clouds to create the images using  Paint Shop Pro-X and virtualPhotographer plug-in.