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December 16th, 2019

Rumors and stories lure them down, deep into the belly of the beast. They say it’s not that bad. Shying away from bleeding, it holds its cards close to its heart. The entrance may deceive.

But this beast is not bluffing.

Truth awaits in the main chamber.

Cluttered tables house cases of discontinued soda, lighter than they should be, tempting them to take a swig.

There is no good here.

Photographs captured beings having been here once, happily. They too, however, are blurred and foggy. No showcase of life is evident. The windows peer into deep, desolate, nothing. This beast’s soul is absent, but the exhibit is still open. Back then, the soul pooled down here, warm and inviting. Gloom pools down here as of late.

Livor mortis set in long ago.

The unwholesome effluvia of blighted records, magazines, and textbooks, afflicted by years of decay, wanders throughout. Shelves line the walls, filled with textbooks and half-century old liquor. The ceiling creaks, the wood worn out and weak. A shift in the air follows a sudden cool breeze.

Algor mortis, now.

Stuffed dolls, just as alive as the bodies in the textbooks, look towards an old medical cabinet.

Almost nearly perfect, the cabinet was an untouched, unreal shade of ultramarine blue. One glance and she could tongue-tie up a gift basket of awe for the onlooker. Upon further inspection, it comes to light that she has cancer; lung.

Almost nearly destroyed, cigarettes sit atop a chalky shelf of what was once glass, cases housing clamps, clips, cutters, forceps, scissors, lay neat and clean within the chamber’s core of compassion, as cracks in the varnish—vast, vexatious veins of a deep navy value—coat the cabinet.

Capable characters choose careful careers.

The textbook pages which created those careers are home to hundreds of poor souls; the end of their mortality immortalized within photographs and captions. Shattered glass on one page details the logistics of crime. Shattered bones on another detail the gruesome crime itself.

This chamber, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. She smudged, they cracked, he shattered beyond repair.

Maybe the beast would have surrendered with just a little bit of grace, but it is no longer concerned about attempts to save the chamber. It is too far gone. The damage has been done.

It is time to run.

Rigor mortis has begun.

(394)

EXPLANATION: Context, Symbolic Elements, and Metaphors

I had not gone down into my grandfather’s basement until I was fourteen. It is the eeriest place I’ve ever stepped foot in. I do not like it down there. Everything down there is gross, and old, affected by the decay of half a century. But there are so many things down there that want me to stay down there, to keep looking at them. My two symbols were my father’s embalming textbooks and my grandmother’s medical cabinet, which both tied to the light motif of the scientific aspects of death. I wanted that to be in the forefront of the story as it is a big piece of not only that house, but my father, and of how I view Michigan. I used my father’s textbooks as a symbol of him, and the fact that he now lives in my grandfather’s house, alone, and the consistent curiosity I’ve had about his line of work and how it affects him and us. I used my grandmother’s medical cabinet as a symbol of her, even using personification to further reinforce that fact. She was the only good thing to ever come from the Estes family, and she’d married in. I wanted to make that clear in the story, explaining that the medical cabinet was beautiful, and the cleanest thing down there, but that she also had flaws. She gave us my father, gave me my name, and gave us love.

Rhetorical Language Requirements

SCHEMES: Structures of Balance

Parallelism:

Livor mortis set in long ago...

Algor mortis, now...

Rigor mortis has begun.

Explanation: These are part of my motif, of death, mortuary and forensic science, and the stages of death. Since all three terms end in mortis, which means death, it adds style, and I specifically spent some time looking into each, whether by calling my father, or reading his old textbooks. It keeps the story set around this motif, and the motif around the story, as well as adding some darkness and gruesomeness to the overall theme.

SCHEMES: Changes in Word Order

Anastrophe:

Upon further inspection, it comes to light that she has cancer; lung.

Explanation: This was honestly the hardest scheme/trope to achieve. I used this to set a pause, to emphasize that it was lung cancer, because immediately following this sentence, I bring up cigarettes. I think the tone of the cabinet shifts, then. Because she, in part, brought the sickness upon herself. This adds to the theme, bringing more darkness and gloom into it.

SCHEMES: Omission

Asyndeton:

Almost nearly destroyed, cigarettes sit atop a chalky shelf of what was once glass, cases housing clamps, clips, cutters, forceps, scissors, lay neat and clean within the chamber’s core of compassion, as cracks in the varnish—vast, vexatious veins of a deep navy value—coat the cabinet.

Explanation: I wanted the array of what the cabinet contained to really seem vast, that there were lots of different things that used to do so many things. I used it here specifically because I wanted to add “C” words, because I was on a roll already and wanted it to continue, building the style and theme.

SCHEMES: Repetition

Anaphora:

Almost nearly perfect, the cabinet was an untouched, unreal shade of ultramarine blue. One glance and she could tongue-tie up a gift basket of awe for the onlooker. Upon further inspection, it comes to light that she has cancer; lung. Almost nearly destroyed, cigarettes sit atop a chalky shelf of what was once glass, cases housing clamps, clips, cutters, forceps, scissors, lay neat and clean within the chamber’s core of compassion, as cracks in the varnish—vast, vexatious veins of a deep navy value—coat the cabinet.

Explanation: I wanted to touch on the fact that the medical cabinet was the most well-kept thing in the basement, that it was the nicest thing, but that it too had its flaws. This helps visualize the cabinet, and it’s place in the story, physically and metaphorically.

Anadiplosis:

Back then, the soul pooled down here, warm and inviting. Gloom pools down here as of late.

Explanation: I wanted to use the term “pool” because it directly plays off of the motif I included—the stages of death. This specifically, playing off of livor mortis, the second stage, when blood post mortem pools at the bottom of the body (wherever it may be, depending on the way the body is positioned) and turns the body a blue-ish hue. All the life in the body, all of the blood, goes to the bottom. And that’s what happened in this house, all life was always in the basement. But now, we barely go down there, it’s just a reminder of what it used to be.

Alliteration:

Almost nearly destroyed, cigarettes sit atop a chalky shelf of what was once glass, cases housing clamps, clips, cutters, forceps, scissors, lay neat and clean within the chamber’s core of compassion, as cracks in the varnish—vast, vexatious veins of a deep navy value—coat the cabinet.

Capable characters choose careful careers.

The textbook pages which created those careers are home to hundreds of poor souls; the end of their mortality immortalized within photographs and captions.

Explanation: I liked how it sounded and I can’t stop myself. I do not have the stop gene. It adds to the style! It makes it sound nice. And it also describes the medical cabinet, so it’s also substance-y. I also wanted to say that I really, really, really enjoy the sentence “Capable characters choose careful careers”, because I’m talking about my grandmother, being a surgical tech, and my father being a mortician. It also helped me tie it back to the textbooks, which I wasn’t sure how to do, so that is nice!!

TROPES: Reference to One Thing as Another

Allusion:

Maybe the beast would have surrendered with just a little bit of grace, but it is no longer concerned about attempts to save the chamber.

Explanation: This alludes to a verse on one of my favorite songs at the moment, “Nothing is Safe”, by clipping. I reworded the line and made it fit my setting and theme. Not only does this line have a horrific theme to it, a common theme in clipping.’s work, which adds to the tone and feeling of the setting overall, but it also uses a very specific word that might have saved the basement from becoming the beast: Grace. I touched on the decision to use the word “grace”, below, as my choice of irony.

The verse goes as such:

Didn't no one summon what was comin'

But it’s creepin' on a come up

Now it's right up in your face

Face it, let it resonate up in your bone a minute

When you shiver, make a sliver

Big enough for it to have a space

Ripped life slipping away

Maybe you can make it out with just a little bit of grace

But it truly doesn't give a fuck about the fear you feelin'

It is here to make you understand that nothing is safe

Nothing is, nothing is safe

Nothing is sacred

This chamber, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. She smudged, they cracked, he shattered beyond repair.

Explanation: Here, I allude to a quote from Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet In Heaven”. This quote has always stuck with me. At the time of reading the book, I was in sixth grade, and my father just left us for the first time. I felt as though we weren’t prioritized by our own father, and he’d been prioritizing his father, my grandfather, over us. I think this quote not only applies to how I felt in that situation, but also how my father felt under my grandfather’s abuse and power.

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”

Simile:

Stuffed dolls, just as alive as the bodies in the textbooks, look towards an old medical cabinet.

Explanation: This is tied to my dad’s embalming textbooks, which are filled with really really gruesome photos of murder victims and their trauma, the crime scenes. Every photo of a human in the book is of a dead one. And that’s Not Fun! Very Scary, Actually. But, that scariness adds to the overall theme and tone of the story, and also helps visualize these dolls, which are stiff and look extremely creepy.

Metaphor:

Rumors and stories lure them down, deep into the belly of the beast. Shying away from bleeding, it holds its cards close to its heart. The entrance may deceive.

But this beast is not bluffing.

Explanation: I wanted to compare the basement to a beast, because it is very overwhelming, and in a way, unable to take care of. It really is too far gone. And it lures you in, from what your brother’s told you, it’s something you want to go see. I used this to begin the story as it sets up the theme, and effect I was going for, as well as helps set the pace for the following.

Personification:

One glance and she could tongue-tie up a gift basket of awe for the onlooker. Upon further inspection, it comes to light that she has cancer; lung.

Explanation: I used the medical cabinet as a symbol for my grandmother, who passed away in 2000 from lung cancer. It was her medical cabinet, and she was a very clean woman. Her things were kept nice, and she took care of them. I think my grandmother was a large piece of this story because of how antithetical she is to the basement, and furthermore my grandfather. I think this adds to the story, because without that knowledge it allows the reader to go down the rabbit hole, trying to figure out who She may be.

TROPES: Wordplay and Puns

Onomatopoeia:

The ceiling creaks, the wood worn out and weak.

Explanation: The ceiling of the basement is the foundation for the main floor, and the wood is really dilapidated and gross, and whenever someone takes a step upstairs you can hear it below. This contributes to the theme, because the creak means something’s moving upstairs. You’re not alone down there...

TROPES: Substitutions

Anthimeria:

One glance and she could tongue-tie up a gift basket of awe for the onlooker.

Explanation: Being tongue-tied means you’re at a loss for words. I used the noun as a verb here, in an attempt to get the point across that this cabinet, and what it symbolizes, is an anomaly within this basement and this family, and shocks the onlooker.

TROPES: Overstatement/Understatement

Litotes:

They say it’s not that bad.

Explanation: This works to create a sense of expectation, to say that the onlooker is going in with the mindset of it being bad, which it is, but are coaxed in because of this understatement. This adds a sense of fear and urgency to the piece, further establishing the tone and theme.

TROPES: Semantic Inversions

Irony:

Maybe the beast would have surrendered with just a little bit of grace, but it is no longer concerned about attempts to save the chamber.

Explanation: I chose to use “grace” because of the fact that “grace” means to do things beautifully, to do them with kindness and love. Kindness and love is rare in the Estes family. We have realized, that the only good Estes (besides my father), was my grandmother, who’d kept the house clean, and wouldn’t let my grandfather hoard. But since her death, nearly twenty years ago now, that house, and especially the basement, had been susceptible to my grandfather. She was also the one to name me Grace. It’s almost as if she knew my dad would need some after she went, that this wasn’t going to be an easy battle without some grace, and readily offered some up.

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