I’m an explainer, not a storyteller. Every now and again I get what I think might be a good story idea but there’s nothing I can do with it. In the last couple of weeks just such a story has been squirming around my think-y parts, so let me explain it to you, and someone can take it from there.
It’s an anti-hero story because, in this upside-down society in which we live, an anti-hero story is better aligned with our everyday experience. I like religious stories, so I initially imagined a bishop worthy of Dante’s special place in hell. But bishops have become silly folk that no one takes seriously. Yes, there’s Bishop Barron, but hardly anyone takes him seriously because of his episcopal office, people listen because he’s a YouTube influencer.
After all, religion ain’t what it used to be. Popular religious figures don’t live in Vatican City, Constantinople, or Wheaton, they live in Silicon Valley, Wall Street, or Austin. Their temples are mostly mansions, either in the shadow of some majestic mountain range or along a sandy ocean beach. So my “bishop” can’t be a church bishop, he or she must be an internet-savvy power broker and/or influencer … a bishop both worthy of Dante and worthy of this modern age.
This secular bishop of my imagination embodies a special sort of evil. He or she … Actually, my secular bishop is a “he” because the women of my imagination are far more subtle, and all the more dangerous—or righteous—for the subtlety. So he embodies a special sort of evil that allows him to rise above the fray while manipulating his acolytes and religious devotees to do all sorts of mischief. My secular bishop assumes he’s a good man (with a few favorite flaws) who appears wildly successful but who leaves chaos and destruction in his wake.
The other major character in my story is a law. (I must confess this is not an entirely original idea. It’s similar to the movie Minority Report, but without all the science fiction.) I imagine world-improving legislators creating a law that makes keeping embarrassing secrets illegal. It’s the internet age, after all, and no one has the right to their secrets. The crime is not in the unsavory or embarrassing activity, it’s the measures one takes to keep the unsavory activity far from public view.
At this point, I suspect you can see where my short story is going. Our secular-bishop-golden-boy has secrets and covers them up. The court system accuses him of the terrible crime of keeping one’s unsavory private life private, even if it requires unsavory means. The trial is a spectacle, with the bishop’s acolytes and devotees wailing and gnashing their teeth while the bishop’s detractors talk about the glory of law and order while remaining curiously silent about this law that has made keeping one’s private parts private. (One would think that many of these folks proclaiming “law and order” from the mountaintops might not want to draw any attention whatsoever to their private lives.)
Of course, our secular bishop must be found guilty. The themes of martyrdom and righteous rage are far too compelling not to include in the story.
It’s at this point that I get stuck in the plot. I have created a story of a very bad person being tripped up by a very bad law. The whole thing stinks of injustice and there’s no good way forward. One possibility is that the appellate courts will see the right of it and overturn the conviction. But then we’re just back where we started with more chaos and destruction in the bishop’s wake. Another possibility is that the secular bishop goes to prison as a martyr while his acolytes and devotees burn society down. But real life apocalyptic endings are never as bad as we imagine them. Apocalyptic book endings always sound naive and a bit stupid.
Maybe the best way to end the story is to not end the story. Like the “song that never ends,” the most truthful part of this story is the downward cycle that never ends. But no … on second thought, this is a terrible way to end a story. When evil triumphs over evil, and we leave it there, cynicism has moved into the realm of despair. I don’t want this story to be one of hopeless despair.
No! Corruption … all corruption … must be swatted down! We must be as ready to condemn the false righteousness of the secular bishop as we are to condemn the overreach of the law! The one does not excuse the other. I think the corrupt bishop must be set free if the only way topple him is through corruption. It’s too big a travesty to allow such a self-deluded embodiment of evil to become a martyr. Such a story really does undermine the fabric of true morality.
Somewhere in this story there should be a righteous legislator, a wise and cunning judge, a repentant acolyte. If there are going to be any martyrs in this story, it’s the righteous, the wise, or the repentant that must be toppled for society’s crimes. That, I suspect, is the only possible path to true justice, and thus the only way forward for this story. After all, that’s the deeply true story that weaves its way through history. But that true story is a terribly difficult story to tell well. It’s not a story that just anyone can weave. The weaver must indeed be inspired.
The more I think about it, maybe this is a terrible story idea.
Just Another Jim 