The Loony Lampoonist

I am a compulsive eavesdropper on telephone conversations. I have found that watching cloud patterns change in the sky as the hours pass by in waiting at the train station is not as interesting as listening in on the dialogue between a fellow passenger and his correspondent on the other end. The loveliest of women have been wooed, the most distant of star-crossed lovers united and the most tyrannical of governments toppled as I play my part of an onlooker, or on-hearer rather, in the proceedings.

All that would pale in comparison though, to the conversation I overheard this morning as a young man passed me on my way to the workplace. I heard him speak rather loudly discussing his domestic affairs, and as he was right beside me, the topic seemed to switch to his personal hygiene where he observed that he was sweating like anything. In those exact words, as I paraphrased them. And as I shall quote him now, to be recorded for posterity : He said, "I am sweating like anything..." The rest of the conversation went unheard as I stood there, gasping at the brilliance of this literary discovery. This plainly dressed man had, in the course of a banal telephone conversation, created a simile of infinite possibilities. I goggled at his receding form as he walked away, the discoverer of a hitherto unknown grammatical technique. He had constructed a simile that drew an analogy between the subject and infinity. I felt the feeling that the explorer feels as he gazes upon the dark beyond. What could possibly describe the state of perspiration of the young man? Was he sweating like a spy who knew his cover was about to be blown? Like a fat Russian Mafia don spending a Sunday evening in the sauna? Like a rickshaw puller in Calcutta during the tropical summers? I might never know. I knew however, that this was a potent weapon and its usage could break the narrative flow of every book it was used in. I imagined readers shaking their heads in despair, unable to form the end of similes of infinite possibilities, as Harry Potter confidently waved his wand, and cried, "I shall smite you, you who shall not be named, because you are as evil as anything and someone as evil as that must not be allowed to live!" Has Harry misjudged the evilness of the one who shall not be named, the reader wonders, putting down his book, never to pick it up again. The publishing industry collapses, the art of story-telling is lost to mankind and the world embraces absolute realism. "I am sweating", his descendant says, unaware that generations ago turns of phrases existed that brought colour to description and life to stories.