Acceptance of Envy

I wrote this about two years ago, when I still didn’t know how to write. Despite this, I think it is just about ridiculous enough to allow one final showing:

[size=200]The acceptance of religion/the acceptance of envy - un gratte-ciel d’idées.

D[/size]igby ran out into the rain, wept for Jesus, sliced his neck, ran for five seconds, then fell off a cliff. The low-pitched “clomp” of Digby’s body against the rocks gave all the impressions of the bone-shattering immediacy of death. The waves silted individual fragments of his defunct body, as if to bury the memory of his life with instant, democratic precision.
“Digby is dead” they cried in the village of Westknighton, “Digby is dead”. The children danced and clapped, the adults folded arms, the angels sung for joy, whilst the killers fled to Clapham. All praises for the stretch of purity, the decadent touch of good, the community in unity and common chastisement, as a united community should. And as the rains did fade, and the battle is truly won, Westknighton citizens rest in the warmth of their worship for God’s son.
Meanwhile, as the prejudices of Digby’s mind died down, and he enjoyed the standard pre-death LSD entertainment - flying, flashback, tunnel - Digby realised that he was now in the real world, and that the dream had ended. He then realised that he hadn’t really realised anything at all. And there, the ideological magma-chamber that was Digby Bennet-Smythe’s mind, was no more, and the people of Westknighton could finally claim their victory.
Westknighton, an insular village on the Kent coastline, had only been a principality for fourteen years, and that was only because it was acceptable in the ultra-federal climate it gained its independence in. Yet in this short time, it not only developed a localised brand of nationalism, but managed to become totally self-sufficient in edible and spiritual resources. A remarkable achievement which aspires to give Catholicism and Communism the type of practical credibility never known before. The accomplishment of producing such a superb model of society left many onlookers in veneration of Westknighton. For Digby Bennet-Smythe, this veneration was translated to envy, the sin which had all but been eradicated from human global relations. Hundreds of years of war, politics and reshuffling saw the worldwide community settle on the truth that it was in fact envy that was the source of all poverty, inefficiency and inequality. Envy had been isolated. Digby simply couldn’t bare this feeling. He feared for his life, which led to him spending his time in Clapham Common scratching the artificial trees with his piece of bark. This fear and deep-seated envy resulted in truly unusual behaviour. Firstly, he would go to Church, remove page 258 from each New Testament, cut up the paper, go to the public lavatory under the bypass and install this paper into the toilet-paper box. He would perform another similar act as well, except using the Old Testament, page 1 and a centre for primary education. Secondly, as a man laboriously unemployed, he would answer to his name at the pecuniare centre “I am he”, as the askers carrying torches, lanterns and weapons drew back and fell to the ground. He’d confuse them further by saying with saliva, “Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?”. Yet this was a common exercise of verbal sans-sucette in comparison to his cathartic and sometimes paradoxical mutterings - ‘I have given me excess passion. I must die now or change now or change them and live loose, live now make love now and take juice and die how?’ or ‘Of what wish can I live by and forsake my blessed belief, for this belief is apartfulness and together gives me grief. I have no child waiting, nor volts to make me contract, since I declare this void of joy omnipresent and matter of fact . . .’ He evidently felt ostracised, yet was too conservative to make the brave trip 4000 miles east to the land of Pretensia where all culture was confined to the constant pursuit of algorithmic speculation. Instead, his strong revulsion of envy, rampant misanthropy and revolutionary instincts led to a compulsion to extinguish the flames, make peace with the world, and snuff out the envy within . Confront your envy. Irrigate your envy. Dispose of thy envy, and thy envy shall be thereof disposed.
Confronting one’s envy takes guts and desire. He journeyed along the path towards Westknighton in his envious wooden cart, and his envious plastic case, and arrived at Westknighton Square at an envious 2 o’clock. He enviously repeated to himself, ‘confront your envy Digby, confront your envy’. At this point two peaceful perfect monks walked past in mute wearing longdark cloaks, and baldpatch heads, thinking nunchained thoughts and woodbunk beds. His envy of gothic Catholicist pride was already partly cured as one of the monks had embarrassing red titian hair sprouting, over his collar. Yet he was kicked back to square one on sight of a newlywed couple pouring holy water over the roof of their detached house, blessing its bricks, exalting Jesus for the sacrifice he made, without which the wedding couldn’t have taken place. As a child, Digby had instinctively rejected religion, yet he let this instinct engross him like Marx to a socialist, Nietzsche to a Nazi, or smoke to a kitchen. Digby was irrational. He starred at the happy and secure young couple. They didn’t notice him. He starred harder. They continued to pour and pray, oblivious to the stress being placed on two optic nerves. ‘JUDAS’ coughed Digby. They looked down on Digby, as if he was Zarathustra. ‘Can we help’, asked man, concerned and gentle. Digby, envious of their social conscience and innocence, shrunk. He shrunk and shrunk, further and further, until all that was left was his body. An awkward and immaterial silence passed. Then suddenly, God herself passed into Digby’s brain. He propped up and looked straight ahead, like Kaspar Hausser, or a Clapham phonebox. Strange machine-like noises started emanating from his stomach, rather like an old-fashioned photocopier. His mouth reflexed open, the noises growing in volume. Digby’s mouth then widened, stretched and went blue. The young couple embraced in fear of apocalypse. The blue of his now metre-wide lips went grey, like steel, as he started bellowing out the sound of a photocopier warming up. A small crowd gathered to witness the extraordinary scenes. Priest Stanley shepherded the growing crowd of Westknighton people towards the Church across the square, in fear of Digby and a possible explosion. Digby, his mouth now one metre wide, rectangular, rimmed with cast-iron steel, started to convulse systematically, as if possessed. His eyeballs rotated revealing a white sclera of biblical fantasy. ‘devil’, muttered the crowd in tandem. The noises grew, the rattling grew, photocopier, photocopier, steam, machine, photocopier, shaking and Stop. The crowd drew a collective breath. Digby leaned back a degree, and spurted out paper. Paper, paper, paper from his photocopier mouth. Paper on the bins, paper on lampposts, paper on the floor, paper even in Priest Stanley’s hand. ‘It’s a leaflet !’, he exclaimed. ‘What does it say ? What does it say?’ said the crowd. ’ It says, it says “I am Digby, the Lord of truth. I compel you to stop practising your religion. Jesus is my brother, and I am envious of him. I am also envious of the people of Westknighton, and the utopia you have created. I am guilty on two counts of envy.” Gosh !'. 'Twice envious ! ', ejaculated the crowd. 'Gosh ! '. In the meantime, Digby had fled, with a trail of leaflets behind him. The children prepared their torches, lanterns and weapons, and ran in pursuit of their man, followed by adults, newlyweds, priests, monks and nuns. The trail of papers took an unusual path, through the town. First, around the square to the back of the church. Then, turning round to the avenue which led under the bypass. It then continued beyond the village common towards the primary school beside the cliff, where it stopped. The crowd, which now included the whole population of Westknighton, asked themselves, ‘Where is he? Where is Digby ? Where is the guilty man of envious nature?’. The Authorities had arrived at the scene, where it was not only night-time, but raining due to overwhelming popular demand. Two men from the Authorities approached Digby, whose convulsions had stopped (though his mouth was still shaped like a giant letter-box). They talked at him in private then walked towards their carts as Priest Stanley handed them the money. Digby, stood by the cliff, back towards the sea, looking at the crowd of Westknighton people with fear. This fear of death, of being pushed, of being singled-out, of being isolated was now greater than his fear of envy. He had been cured. Yet the crowd did not know. They continued to close in on him, starring, in disgust, in the spirit of war. Digby could not tell them to stop. His mouth was no longer of the talking variety. He knew he would be killed. He knew this was the end. The development of his mind, wasted. He moved carefully towards one of the children on the front line. The entire army of Westknighton people flinched, drawing their weapons. Digby nervously snatched a knife from the child, as the guns, the stares, the fury, all pointed towards him. The mind was decisive, and the knife was sharp, , , [size=75]the mind was decisive, and the knife was sharp, , ,[/size] [size=59]the mind was decisive, and the knife was sharp, hold your nose, we’re going in.[/size]

Were you being sarcastic when you said that your wrote this two years ago when you didn’t really know how to write? It’s very well written if you ask me, aside from the grammar mistake here and there, your actual handle on words, spelling, and getting your meaning across is just fine if you ask me. I was actually impressed. I read the first 10-15 sentences and skimmed through the rest cause it’s late where I am and I need sleep. I will try to say more later - from what I read the story sounds interesting.

thanks magius. my ‘not knowing how to write’ is of course a relative statement. it’s not so much ‘incorrect’ grammar, more ‘creative’ grammar. i was reading a lot of joyce and dada poetry at the time and was trying to satirise the modernist contempt for conformity. some readers who didn’t fully grasp this fact came up with the most obscure esoteric reasons for all the events and ideas, trying to equate Envy with all sorts of symbolic psychological traits for causing all chaos and unity in the real world.

haven’t really read it properly but i must say just from reading bits here and there that i really like this style, and you write brilliantly. I can’t believe you are only 19 (therefore only 17 when you wrote it). you are in possesion of an extremely capable, precocious, enormous brain! use it well! :slight_smile: