Doug Skinner: An Archive on Your Gizmo

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The Chromatologist

August 15th, 2016 · 1 Comment

Ever eager for literary constraints, I wrote this tale in heroic couplets, alternating masculine and feminine rhymes, with each stanza an acrostic of the title. Heroic couplets seemed appropriate, since it concerns adultery at a cosplay convention. Here’s the first stanza (of eight):

The Chromatologist was colorblind:
He had to check the colors in his mind.
Eccentric though it seemed as a vocation,
Considering his crucial limitation,
He’d boldly made the choice to specialize,
Regardless of his insufficient eyes.
Of course, he kept his failing from his clients,
Mistrusting them to comprehend that science
Assumes that even normal sight’s too dim
To work the work that they’d entrust to him.
On many jobs, his young amanuensis,
Labouche, corrected some chromatic census,
Or verified a red was really red,
Green green, and not some pink or brown instead.
In short, the doctor’s eyesight was defective,
So he employed Labouche as a corrective.
They’d just wrapped up a case that afternoon.

Tags: *Words · C

1 response so far ↓

  • 1 mamie // Aug 19, 2016 at 11:12 pm

    Wow! That’s crazy!