Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds. Or A Modest Proposal. At all.
A/N: I am extremely excited with this new piece, but I must warn you right now: It is not going to be happy. At all, though I wouldn't know why you came to a Criminal Minds fic looking for happiness in the first place...Simply, no. For the weak-hearted and the compassionate, there is a reason this fic is rated M. It's certainly not for smut. Keep this in mind, and with future chapters, read cautiously, dear readers.
Chapter 1: Stressor
In a dark, crudely lit room, a victim thrashed about, fighting to break free from her captor. The understanding of an imminent death is clear, though she still squirmed and caused her oppressor much trouble, to his surprise. None of them had ever fought this hard for a few more seconds of life.
He wrinkled his forehead and scrunched his eyebrows together, disgruntled by her defiance, but soon, he quickly gained control, and quickly, he pinned her down, holding her tightly once more. He could see the petrified expression frozen on her face and heard her piercing screeches and frenzied, yet weakened attempts to break free.
Quickly, he grabbed his large, thick knife and swiftly brought it down upon her neck before she had a chance to escape...
THUD.
The hen's head rolled off with a spurt of pooling blood, and John Collins exhaled, letting a sigh of relief fall from his lips. Finally, he had beaten that stubborn hen. She just didn't want to die…. It was natural, of course, but this hen had caused him more trouble than the game and animals.
As the carcass contorted with post mortem spasms, John dropped the bloodied knife in the sink, and finally, when the dead, decapitated hen finished convulsing, he hung her up on one of his many hooks for her to bleed out before washing his hands.
Pushing aside a screen door, he then walked to the front of his shop where his customer sat, waiting.
"So, did you finally get her, John?" he smiled. "I heard quite a bit of screeching in there."
John nodded grimly. "…In the end, yes…But she did put up quite a fight. I haven't seen such a feisty hen like her in a long time, Neil." He raised his hands, dotted with peck marks and scratches.
Neil winced. "Ah, sorry about that, John. I've been hunting whatever I could find, you know. My little lass Shelly, well…she's growing and she's got quite a mouth on her [1] all the time…And the wife's eating me head off at home for it [2]." He smiled apologetically. "That was the only chicken I could catch, and well, we've got to eat somehow."
John nodded understandingly. This little town of Kensdale was going through quite a hard time. People were starving, business was slow, and the general mood of the town remained dismally dreary and gloomy. The only thing that kept the town a bit cheerful and hopeful were its children. Oh, those children! Everyone enjoyed watching the small little children prance around, grinning and laughing at everything, as it was one of the few things left that could bring a smile to their weary faces. Simply, the town lived for the children. Everything all these struggling parents and weary teachers did were for those children, and it took a heavy toll on the adults in the town.
"Well, then. I'll be back in a few to pick it up, yeah?" Neil said, shaking John from his thoughts.
"Alright. I'll have its feathers out and prepared, then." John acknowledged, waving his hand.
Neil smiled gratefully and walked out, pulling his worn coat closer to him to try and combat the biting cold of fall.
John sighed. It just wasn't fair that all these people were so...poor. No one was better off than anybody, and everyone suffered in equal terms. If there was only a way to fix this…Somehow, there had to be a way. John's head throbbed painfully, only a reminder of the limited days he had left, and he wondered how long he could last before he was gone.
Attempting to disregard the pain and blurry vision but failing anyways, John moved to retrieve the dead hen and dunked it into a pot of boiling water to loosen the feathers. After a few moments, John brought the pot outside to the front of his little butchery where he transferred the chicken to a smaller bowl. He waited for a few customers to trickle in while rapidly plucking the feathers off the heated chicken.
After all the feathers had been taken off, the body that remained was scrawny and ultimately, tiny. There was no way Neil and his whole family could eat well.
Sighing, he began to wrap up the chicken for Neil and put it aside. Suddenly, the front door opened, and Mrs. O'Callaghan rushed in while dragging her two noisy children inside with her.
"Not now, Anne!" she exasperatedly said. "Be nice to Tommy, okay? Mummy has to go buy dinner."
Her daughter pouted, still bothering her brother. Ah…kids will be kids. But, at the mention of dinner, little Tommy's eyes lit up and ignored his sister.
"Mummy!" he cried. "Can we have some roast tonight?"
Mrs. O'Callaghan sighed sorrowfully. "We'll see, Tommy. We'll see…" She then turned to John who quietly observed the scene with his jaw clenched tightly.
"Hello, John." She said. "I suppose…do you have any cheap cuts of beef today? My little ones are quickly getting tired of soup and potatoes…and my husband wants something a bit more substantial." She smiled sadly, clutching a worn purse.
John's lip twitched. This town needed help…he thought. "Unfortunately, no cheap beef today…" he apologetically said. Mrs. O'Callaghan nodded sadly, already expecting this answer. "Oh, but I think I have some relatively cheap bits of pork if you'd still like some." John added, gesturing some slabs of pink meat.
Mrs. O'Callaghan clasped her hands together. "Thank You! Oh, my husband will be so pleased! For the last few days, well…we've been eating less and less. It's more important for the children to eat, you know…Thank You!"
John winced. "I'm…sorry."
"Oh, it's alright. It's just the burden of being a parent, you know. My children are more important than these old bones, John…Someday, it'll be alright, but for now, yes. My children come before me, and my husband feels the same." Mrs. O'Callaghan proudly said, ignoring the rumbling in her stomach.
John said nothing, but wrapped up her package, took her money, and watched her leave. Some parents just would do anything for their children. John couldn't remember a time when his own father ever sacrificed anything for him.
The day passed by bitterly, as John witnessed more and more people rushing in for cheap meat and mostly anything to eat, claiming that their poor children were starving. He could see their tired eyes and their overwhelming thinness. They, too, were most likely starving themselves so that their children could it a bit more.
It was just….so selfless…
John's heart broke for these people. He hated seeing all these people of Ireland suffer. There had to be some way to help all these people, but what was the root of this poverty? Yes, tourism was low, but still…there had to be something else…
After many more hours of mechanical work while thinking of Neil…and Mrs. O'Callaghan and countless other customers, John's mind clicked.
John finally figured out the root of the Irish people's problems.
It was the children.
They were the ones that had been dragging down this whole town. Parents starved for them. Their issues plagued the whole town. The town took care of their every need. And, the town was poor enough already. They couldn't focus their attention on just the children…
It was the children…
With this consuming thought in his mind, John began to lock up the butchery and head home, still thinking of what to do…
When he got home after a long, distressing day at work, John picked up his mail on the dining table and carried them to his room where he opened them and read everything.
Bill….Bill…Bill….Coupons….What's this?
John lifted up a red letter and tore it open.
Dear Mr. Collins,
We understand that your poor health has affected your ability to pay child support for Seamus, your stepson, but skipping five payments is unacceptable. Here are the five bills you must pay before the end of the month or you will be summoned to court…
The letter rambled on and on about legal procedures, but John paid no attention to them.
Oh, God….Moira was making him pay again…
John used to be married…happily, too, to Moira. She had a son, Seamus, from a previous marriage, but John had tolerated him. Seamus was a bright kid, and John had seen some vast potential in him in becoming a doctor. He pushed him to forget about rugby, Seamus' favorite sport, and study hard. As a result, stepfather and stepson clashed incessantly. Years went by, and Moira finally divorced him, claiming him to be too oppressive towards Seamus and never home, as he worked long hours at his butchery…
Crumpling up the letter and the stack of checks, he tossed them in a corner. He growled, remembering how Moira left him…After all he had done for them! How many times had he saved them from starvation? How many times had he provided a meager income for them? How many times?
Too many.
And now, his wife divorced him and his stepson, whom he helped raise from a considerably young age, defied him daily, playing his childish sport rugby instead of studying medicine like he told him to...
He was only looking out for them. And, look where that got him. Stuck indebted to pay child support to a silly boy who was not even his own son.
Oh, yes. Children did bring this town down, and something had to do something about it.
Someone needed to do something about the children.
But, John let all thoughts regarding the accursed child support flee his mind as he became subject to another fit of headaches and blurry vision. John clutched his head and dizzily spun around the room, knocking into his bookshelf, causing several books to fall. After falling to the floor and blinking rapidly until his blurry vision ceased, he pulled himself upwards after a considerable amount of time passed, and stared at the fallen books.
Perhaps…. Perhaps a bit of reading will help.
John loved reading, and although he originally wished to become a doctor, he still loved literature all the same. It was truly magical…Simple black and white words on a page had the ability to transport the reader to a different world and escape reality for a bit. John smiled despite the previously dark thoughts that had occupied his mind.
He needed a bit of escaping right now…or really anything to forget his suffering and the town's plight for a little while…
Reaching for a book from the pile on the floor, a beaten and tattered book caught John's eye. Picking it up, he wryly smiled when he read the title.
European Literature Honors:
Reader
Oh, yes…John had taken a lovely course while he was still in university, and he remembered all the interesting and compelling literature he had read. Now, cracking open the book, he ran his fingers down the notes scrawled in the margins and the bold words before his eyes.
Ah yes…Nietzsche…Voltaire….Oh, and who was this?
Jonathan Swift.
Jonathan Swift….Jonathan Swift…John felt ashamed that he couldn't remember who he was…
John flipped to the page in the book where Swift's essay was located.
A Modest Proposal
A Modest Proposal…About what? How come he could not remember anything about this work? Oh…It must be his damned head again….It throbbed painfully to remind John once more of his condition.
But, okay. He might as well just read it once more…for old times sake.
Glancing over at the first introductory sentence, his heart began to speed up…No way…This had to be a coincidence…How could it be this relevant to his town's current situation? No way….John read it again in disbelief, but there it was…
"For preventing the children of poor people in Ireland from being a burden to their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public."
Oh my….Could this show him how to help the people of Kensdale? If this was only the first sentence, what propositions to bettering the poor lay ahead? John eagerly read the first page and stopped to let it all sink in, forgetting his old notes scrawled over the margins pointing out the satire.
Yes….
Yes.
Why had he not remembered this brilliant essay before? Whatever God out there had reminded him of this gift. This work could show him how to save his poor town. This work would guide him, as he would attempt to save the town.
If only he had remembered this sooner! Then, perhaps he could have taken action sooner…
But, yes.
Somebody had to save all these poor people from this crippling poverty.
And, John thought himself the perfect person.
What did he have to lose? Nothing. He had no future, his dreams of becoming of a doctor were crushed long ago, his ex-wife and stepson isolated themselves from him, and most importantly, he had an unremovable brain tumor. So…It was time for him to do some good in this world.
Praising the brilliance of Swift's work once more, John, inspired by what he had just read, began to think and plot exactly how he could pull this off. Oh, yes…Something would be done…for the suffering parents, the whole town, and for glorious Ireland itself.
A/N: (again... :) Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is a brilliant essay that incorporates heavy use of satire to highlight the distressing economic issues of Ireland's poor in his time, and I all urge you to read it.
[1]- "She's got quite a mouth on her" = She's quite hungry.
[2]-"...Eating me head off." = Essentially, it's to verbally abuse someone.
