Seeing the lie of the land and bracing for impact, I stepped up to the plate and prepared to eat my words. In the hollow blankness of the auditorium, my creaking cough thundered like a volcano going off, a single pistol-shot in the echoing cavern of expectation before me.
’So,’ I said, my throat as dry as my wit, which was as sharp as my tone, ‘we seem to have reached a fork in the garden path you’ve been leading me up like a lamb to the slaughter. A turning point of no return, you might say.’
I knew that this would hardly be a ground-breaking barnstormer of a speech, but so far, it was going down like the stock value of a lead balloon manufacturer. The silence that followed was as long as a freight train, as deep as a philosophy textbook and as uncomfortable as this analogy.
Mixed metaphors elevated to art. Bravo!
ReplyDeleteThat was a metaphorical stir-fry, sizzling with over-cooked imagery.
ReplyDelete"it was going down like the stock value of a lead balloon manufacturer" brilliant!
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing was good, but the last sentence was sublime. Nice.
ReplyDeleteDeep in the bowels of my mind I aspire to such heights.
silence as long as a freight train, awwwesome!
ReplyDeleteI love it when characters talk this way, but not the narrator.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite bit has to be the "turning point of no return."
ReplyDeleteI particularly like "ground-breaking barnstormer." If a barnstormer breaks ground, they're doing it wrong.
ReplyDelete