Vocabulary Insanity

Chapter 3 - Brotherly Corruption

Vocabulary:

censure (n.): a strong or vehement expression of disapproval

craven (adj.): cowardly; contemptibly timid; lacking courage or resolution

errant (adj.): deviating from the regular or proper course

callous (adj.): 1. made hard; hardened 2. insensitive; indifferent; unsympathetic

supercilious (adj.): haughtily disdainful or contemptuous, as a person or facial expression

antipathy (n.): a natural, basic, or habitual repugnance; aversion

pejorative (adj.): having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force

Story: Brotherly Corruption

         Slinking through the corners like a snake. That was how he described Timothy. Untrustworthy. Unnoticed. Foul. A craven little rodent, cowering in the corners. But denoting him a rat would be an insult to rats.

          But to Timothy, Jax was hardly a better man. He could charm people well enough, when he wanted something from them. But he had seen the supercilious sneer, the antipathy towards those in need. Jax looked down on him for being a thief. He despised Jax for being a tyrant.

          But it did not matter. Jax was a judge, but his rulings were pejorative at most. He had little power. He could not rid the world of the vermin he despised so. Timothy knew this, and so he kept to his shadows, continuing his errant dealings with less than respectable folks. He let the rest of the world worry about the dangers of a hateful man.

          Then Jax was elected mayor. The poor could not vote, and his hatred of them was shared by much of the upper class. They were thieves, he said. Liars and beggars. They were a disease in their streets that needed to be cured. Throw them out, he cried. Rid our lives of the ones who do nothing. No longer were his censures pointless and insignificant. He had power now, power he intended to use. And he threw the full weight of that power against men like Timothy.

          But the poor did not fall. They removed themselves from the streets, so quietly that the uproarious rich did not realize they were gone. They abandoned their jobs, pooled their savings for homes in new towns, new cities. One fortunate family found shelter in the home of a middle-class farmer, far out in the fields. It was a difficult time, but the poor had one attribute Jax had not attributed them: they were resilient.

          The factories stopped running, products were no longer manufactured, the power failed. The rich, without people to work in their factories or homes, fell into squalor and hardship. They had not grown up with poverty, and they were not calloused like the poor had been. They could not survive. The city fell into ruin. The rich began to revolt. Jax lost all power.

          Jax stood at his window, staring down at the angry faces that stared at him, when Timothy appeared at his office door.

          "Come to gloat," he asked, fury deepening the angry fire in his eyes.

          Timothy simply looked down, sadness etched into the lines of his face.

          "In thievery, I have more honor than you have in government," he sighed. "Goodbye brother."

          Jax swung around, vaulting a glass of scotch at the wall where his brother stood. But Timothy was too adept at disappearing, and so he was gone before his brother had even turned. Jax let out a bloodcurdling scream of outrage, as Timothy traveled far away, forever mourning the loss of his brother to power.