The Capitalist Killer

I heard about the shooting on the news; 24 dead, 25 including the killer.

“Fuck,” I thought, “what makes people do that?”

The Capitalist Killer he was nicknamed. He walked into the trading floor of city exchange and opened fire.

There was no mention of my book at that point, even though the story was rolled out on 24 hour news and it was the only thing being talked about.

The first I knew about it was the next morning. I’d gotten up early to work on a short story for a literary magazine that occasionally threw me scant offerings of work. It was already a week late and I was told that if they didn’t receive it by Friday then they’d ask David Mitchell to submit a story instead. I didn’t even dare ask which David Mitchell.

So when there was a ring on my doorbell at 7.59 a.m. the next morning I was actually up and dressed, with serious coffee on the brew. I opened the door to two police officers.

“Sorry to disturb you so early Mr Oblong,” the first officer said, brandishing ID, “we wanted to catch you before you went to work.”

“Too late I said,” pointing to my computer, “I’ve already started. Come in, what’s this about?”

He asked if I was the author of the Problem Island Stories and I said yes I was, but that isn’t a crime is it?

He didn’t laugh.

He just said “Your book was found on the body of Tony Grimmond.”

I didn’t recognise the name, “Who’s Tony Grimmond?”

The copper didn’t believe me, asked where I’d been for the past 24 hours and how had I failed to hear of the shooting.

He was being unfair. They’d only released the name of the killer late the previous night and though I’d seen hours and hours of news footage about the shootings I had never once heard his name mentioned. I only knew him as the Capitalist Killer.

“The Capitalist Killer,” he said, “the man who killed two dozen innocent bankers yesterday morning. He was found with a copy of your book in his coat pocket.” He paused to look at me harshly. “You are the author of The Problem Island Stories?”

“Yes,” I confessed, “I had no idea people like him were my fans. It just goes to show.”

“Yes it does doesn’t it,” he interrupted, “it shows exactly the type of person your work influences. In my mind the papers are being hasty blaming this Tony Grimmond for his crimes, I’m going to look a little bit further into it. I suspect he is merely an innocent victim, a front man.”

I didn’t understand exactly. “You mean there’s a far-right terror group behind him.”

“I mean you,” he said, prodding me with his finger just in case I was confused by his use of the word ‘you’. It was your book he was reading, he had it with him when he died. It was your manifesto he was delivering.”

I laughed. “You haven’t read my book then. It’s not any sort of manifesto, it certainly doesn’t advocate killing innocent people.”

“Oh really!” he said, taking out a copy of my Problem Island Stories. “What about in the story ‘The War Problem’? You advocate an illegal war, with illicitly purchased arms.”

Typical copper, I thought, no sense of humour. “It’s just a joke I said. The island they’re at war with doesn’t even have anyone living on it, just a goat. It’s hardly advocating mass bloodshed. Not a shot is fired in anger.”

“But at the end of the story they keep the gun is retained and would be used on any of their future ‘enemies’. And if that’s not enough, there’s another story of yours, ‘Operation March Hare’.”

“Nobody’s killed in that,” I said.

“No, but the police are literally portrayed as clowns and as moral-free agent provocateurs.”

“It’s based on a true story”, I said. There really was a police under-cover officer who posed as a clown.

“That just makes it more repugnant. Fiction shouldn’t reflect sordid fact. It should allude to an ideal world. Writing satire about real-life police corruption just encourages people like Tony Grimmond to go mad with guns.”

I was arrested. The officer cited the Coalition’s new Police Act, which allows people to be arrested under legislation that hasn’t been passed yet that would “Genuinely benefit society,” in my case a Provocative Writing Act.

My case couldn’t come to trial until the Provocative Writing Bill had passed through parliament, which would take at least a year. As I wasn’t officially arrested, merely detained pending legislation, I had no rights to appeal, to a lawyer, not even to decent accommodation. I shared a police station cell with whatever drunks, druggies and drop-outs happened to be passing by that day.

I was also subjected to ‘education’, a programme included under the Bill to rehabilitate malicious writers. For ten hours every day I was given a series of lectures about the harm caused by malicious, anti-social writing. The main example in every lecture was the case of Tony Grimmond, an innocent man who had been led astray by a malicious, dangerous book. My book.

Eventually I began to understand. The damage that I had caused with my malicious anti-authority satire, depicting the police as amoral, calculating fools, the government as one dimensionally evil. I have even deigned to criticise the great Rupert Murdoch, a man who had brought reason and wealth to a nation plagued by unions, rights and public services.

I thought I was doing no harm, writing nothing more than jokes, and jokes don’t kill. But I was wrong. My jokes were based on anger, malice and hatred and my writing was simply poisonous bile, the jokes dangerous barbs, capturing fragile minds, corrupting, polluting.

I pay a daily penance, where I am given access to a priest and allowed to renounce writing. We take turns to discuss the evil inherent in every word I have afflicted onto the page. I realise now that my writing had no merit, no worth, its sole appeal was in mocking all that was good in society: the strong, the powerful, the rich, people I am not fit to kiss the feet of.

They let me leave my cell one night to light a pyre of my own books. The media were there taking pictures. They burned brightly, so many malicious words, in a bile of smoke.

I hear rumours that they’re going to use the Provocative Writing Act to lock up all fiction writers, just in case. I think it’s the right decision. I gave the police such names and addresses as I had. I started with the people on the writing site I used to use; abctales.com. OldPesky, he was the first I grassed on, he’s a renowned trouble maker, almost proud of it. Then one by one I shopped the rest of them. There were mass arrests in York, where an abctales event was being held, with three of the writers shot trying to escape.

Here in my cell I am allowed to write; the truth this time. About the government, the police, the media, the bankers. It’s refreshing to celebrate the joy of how wonderful all of these figures are. The celebrate the good news, the small businesses saved by bank loans, the villains captured by the police and media working together, the government watching over us all, allowing not one single bad deed or thought to occur.