A well-wrought simile from Garrison Keillor

In a New Yorker piece, Garrison Keillor (pictured) described a number of Manhattanites trying to jump over a large puddle:

One tall man in a brown coat didn’t notice the water and stepped off the curb into fast-flowing Hydrant Creek and made a painful hop, like a wounded heron: a brown heron with a limp wing attached to a briefcase bulging as if full of dead fish.

Now that’s a simile.

The Takeaway: When you’re creating a figure of speech, strive to go beyond the obvious.

See disclaimer.

Thanks to Constance Hale and Daphne Gray-Grant for pointing out this passage.