God Killed David Brown

David Brown

 On the hottest day of summer, mugginess permeating the air, David Brown was murdered. People only grieved out of politeness as no one cared for him. David Brown was an objectively boring man with a boring name. He had no friends and lacked the ability to make any. He was an outcast in the small town of Cornwall, so news of his death spread like wildfire. Cornwall got its name from the wall of corn surrounding the little town. People would see the sign welcoming them into the town and the corn wall; they would immediately understand the connection. But, no one even visited such a town, making such an obvious name pointless. David Brown was the first outsider any townsman had ever heard of, and the fact that he never really talked to anyone only further accentuated his alienation. Despite his completely dull nature, people would fear him. Kids often associated him with the "Boogie Man of Cornwall" and would dare each other to walk up to his perfect, clean house on the outskirts of the town. You couldn't blame them because the parents would tell scary stories to their children that "David the Boogie Man will eat you up if you don't listen." He stayed alienated and alone. Ironically, people flooded his house when they found his corpse. His body was found three weeks after death and miraculously was still in mint condition. It smelled almost rosy with a hint of lavender. He was also in a rested position with a small smile on his face. His death was also the first time the townspeople got a good look at him. They realized his handsome features: brown, wavy hair, lean musculature, jutted chin, and sharp, mesmerizing, black eyes. He was simply too handsome for someone with such a dull name. So, for the first time, he was popular and the subject of most discussions. Eventually, they started questioning his death. The local doctor examined the body but couldn’t find the cause. The examination confused the townspeople, but they all concluded the same thing, murder. The doctor wasn’t quite so rash but didn’t deny it either. After all, David’s death was either some undiscovered method to kill or divine intervention, and God wouldn’t care about a boring man in a small, boring town. The stench of suspicion immediately surfaced. Who killed David Brown? The boring and handsome man with a boring name. The townspeople began to look at and speak to their friends and family with an almost ulterior motive. “Did you kill him,” was the only thought they had. It plagued everyone’s mind, and questions ran rampant throughout the town. Anyone could have killed him, and everyone was a suspect. After a week of such hysteria, blatant accusations arose. There was complete agitation amongst the townspeople, and frequent yelling engulfed the homes, shops, and streets. People began to stop doing their job just to argue. Oh, how they loved to bicker. An unnatural death led to people relaying their want for more interesting lives. They all subconsciously knew they didn’t really care who killed David Brown; whether he was murdered or not was irrelevant. They just craved change. They wanted something new. Perhaps that’s why they alienated him to such an extent. They wanted an “antagonist” of the town. Now that he was dead, he became the poor victim who didn’t deserve such an awful ending. The townspeople had to create a new “villain.” They had to unearth the “murderer,” but who? Who to persecute and sacrifice? No one thought themselves worthy of such actions, so they looked at others. “He or she killed David Brown.” “I’m innocent!” “How dare you accuse me of such a horrid action!?” So, who really killed David Brown? Did it matter to them? Of course, it did (in their own twisted way). As the quarrels ensued, so did the economic collapse of the town. Everyone would rather point fingers than go to work. Such complacency led to crops unharvested, registers unmanned, and people littering the streets like bugs. 

Jimmy

One day, one man realized the gravity of David’s death. He understood that the death was a catalyst, breaking open the dam of hysteria and suspicion. This man’s name was Jimmy. He didn’t know whether or not he had a last name. If he had, he had forgotten it. He was the resident hobo of the community and got most of his nutrients from the handouts of others and the trashcans scattered throughout the town. He was also old, wrinkles galore all over his face. He had very slanted eyes, chapped lips, and a long, white beard, extending to his chest. Jimmy was so used to experiencing the generosity of the townspeople, that the constant quarrels deeply upset him. After weeks of hearing their bickering, he finally decided to try to stop it. So, he first went to the scene of the crime, David’s home. When Jimmy arrived at the home, he noticed an array of beautiful and colorful flowers surrounding a glass coffin. People nearby suspiciously gazed in his direction making him feel quite uneasy. Peering into the coffin, he noticed the very clean corpse of David Brown. His corpse was kept in pristine condition, just like how it was when first discovered. The cleanliness and perfections of it sent a shiver down Jimmy’s spine. As weird as it is to say, David Brown’s corpse was the perfect corpse. No cuts, holes, unnatural bleeding, or rotting parts. The pinnacle of corpses. Jimmy reminisced about the only funeral that he was invited to. It was when Jimmy was still only in the age of mid-life crisis. A particularly nice man, he couldn’t recall the name, would always give him food every day for dinner. Jimmy was even invited to the man’s Thanksgiving meal. Clearly, he had a good impression of him. Apparently, the man died from a heart attack. That was the first time Jimmy ever really mourned someone. It was a strange feeling, to understate it, but it ended up being one of the few things Jimmy ever remembered. The man’s wife actually invited Jimmy to the funeral. The ironic thing was that she usually complained to the man about Jimmy. “He’s just a homeless nuisance, plaguing the streets,” she would say with brutally cold indifference. “I think she actually died recently,” Jimmy suddenly said aloud. He had been hovering over the coffin for some time now, making spectators raise their eyebrows as if wanting to talk to him. Alas, their expressive faces only led to whisper yelling to anyone who would hear. The sudden mass of whisperings brought Jimmy to realization. He only stood for a brief period longer before he took off in a stride-like walk, bashfully looking at his dirtied feet. When he was out of sight, he thoughtfully sat down in a stance, not unlike the famous sculpture, The Thinker. After a few seconds, Jimmy felt baffled. “How the hell?” he quietly said, “I suppose I’ll have to simply yell at them, and rely on the little benevolence within them.” So after a short period of deliberating, he decided to do the thing he was best at, begging. Jimmy stole a megaphone and a big wooden box from the local hardware store (which was easy considering no one was working). He placed the box in the middle of the town, raised the megaphone to his mouth, and yelled in his rough, static-like voice, “Everybody listen!” It took a few tries to convince people to stop verbally assaulting each other. He then continued, “David wasn’t murdered! Stop!” The now-gathering crowd scoffed in indifference. They couldn’t believe the stupidity of the homeless guy. “No wonder he’s homeless,” they would say in an almost superior air about them. Jimmy raged, tears starting to stream down his face, “I… I thought you were kind.” He dropped to his knees in a whimper. He could not believe how horrible everyone was. The crowd began to chuckle which soon flourished into full-blown laughter, mocking him. A stone was suddenly flung from the crowd, smacking Jimmy in the forehead; blood started trickling from the wound. A murmuring resounded throughout the crowd as the air was plagued with a sick silence. Then, another stone was thrown, then another, and then another. Jimmy was being stoned by the crowd which caused the most joy they felt in weeks. This painful event made them feel so blissful and serene. This public “execution” was gratifying. The whimpering of Jimmy blooded and dirty caused happiness. The townspeople seemed to agree for the first time in weeks that Jimmy was a joke. They seemed to come to a natural consensus, and they continued to throw stones as if saying, “It was Jimmy!” Jimmy, too stricken with grief and despair to move, fell on his side and accepted his fate. 

David Brown Was Killed By God, Jimmy Was Killed By His Own

 The crowd dispersed with a long unseen unity, chuckling to themselves and others about the day’s finish. Jimmy’s corpse was left to the flies. The next day, people discovered the corpse to be unrecognizable. It was covered in flies and Jimmy, as a whole, was rotting, puss seeping out with the slightest provocation. The awful pungent smell polluted the area of death, making queasy people vomit. They eventually braved the journey to get rid of the body. It was dragged away to an empty field just outside town accompanied by a multitude of sounds of disgust. All the townspeople took the rest of the day to catch up and forget the previous hysteria. The next morning, everything was forgotten. People started working again, the former quarrels became a nightmare, and parents would tell their kids new scary stories. They would say, “If you don’t listen, the disgusting maggot-man, Jimmy will arise from the grave and take you with him!”