What is Truth?
Is truth a metaphor in and of itself? Some might say so. Some govern as if it were so. But truth is not really something dependent upon perspective, except among certain elements in society like commercial organizers with an agenda:
“Truth is that thing which makes what we want to happen happen.”
"Your own personal Gene."
The story “Winky” is about a self-help guru; the type of snake oil salesman whose own life is the selling of metaphor. What does he mean by “your own personal Gene?”
“The name of the person you perceive to be crapping in your oatmeal.”
As previously indicated, this story is about those people who make a living selling things as ephemeral as the last breath you take.
Obscure Metaphor
Similes are most powerfully utilized when they are used to compare something difficult to describe to something universally recognized. The more people who understand that which comes on the other side of “like” or “as” the more revealing the comparison. Likewise, obscurity on that side of the comparison seems to dull the point. Such as with this example:
“I'd like to encourage you not to behave like one of those Comanche ladies who bite off their index fingers when a loved one dies.”
FIRPO
“The End of FIRPO in the World” is all about metaphor. The title uses a word which seems as though it will be likely be an acronym for something. Or perhaps a personal name for a corporation. Instead, it turns out that “firpo” is a universal metaphor coined by one of the characters:
“the word Daryl used to describe anything he, Cody, did that was bad or dorky.”
"The Falls"
“The Falls” opens with a sentence that situates the mindset of its protagonist with a long sentence densely packed with metaphor as a way of creeping in the psyche of a mind that is patently neurotic. Getting the reader immediately the mind of Morse is particularly important since most of the story takes place there.
“Morse found it nerve-racking to cross the St. Jude grounds just as the school was being dismissed, because he felt that if he smiled at the uniformed Catholic children they might think he was a wacko or pervert and if he didn't smile they might think he was an old grouch made bitter by the world, which surely, he felt, by certain yardsticks, he was.”
