Sweating Bullets

A picture of Billy, "the filthy flamingo"

In Chapter 2, Vonnegut begins telling his "failure" of a story about Billy Pilgrim. Somewhere at about the midpoint, Pilgrim escapes a near-death situation in which he and the "Three Musketeers" are shot at by a marksman from across the street.
Vonnegut, being the great writer that he is, describes the situation on page 33 as, "The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo (Billy), who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear."
That is a superb example of the excellent diction of Vonnegut. First of all, he refers to Billy again as "the filthy flamingo" as a way for the reader to recall back to a few sentences prior. If he hasn't already hooked the reader's attention with his word choice of "filthy flamingo" (which he probably has), he is about to with his use of "the lethal bee buzzed past his ear." This amazing diction by Vonnegut reels in the reader to perfection. Hook, line, and sinker.
When I read "the lethal bee buzzed past his ear", I immediately had an image come to my head of a bullet whizzing just past his head while Billy's eyes instantly become approximately 7.829473% larger than their usual size. I then could hear a bee's distinct buzzing noise to culminate in an image of epic proportions. (I also had a sudden craving for Honey Nut Cheerios.) I had a picture in my head of what was going on along with a lingering "bzzzzzzz" in my ear. Vonnegut has produced an image appealing to the reader's senses of both sight and sound (and maybe a little to taste) at the same time with just one little choice of words.
If Vonnegut was a typical writer, he might have just said, "Billy narrowly escaped a bullet flying past his head." Yeah, but Vonnegut is no typical writer. His diction is clearly something worth noting and has been present throughout Chapters 1 and 2. Vonnegut's word choice is one-of-a-kind, much like a filthy flamingo. (I couldn't even find a picture on a Google search of "filthy flamingo")
Now that my blog is done, I am going to go feast on a divine bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, and maybe a Three Musketeers bar while I'm at it. So it goes.