By Chung Yu Kwok
I babysit a little monster in my basement. It’s green, with shaggy fur, a bit like grass but paler (if grass were more of a jaundiced, sickly colour, maybe.) It’s about the size of a football - shaped like it too. Pencil legs protrude beneath its bulging belly. Somewhere inside all that green, two beady eyes blink at you, once, twice, and its needle teeth gleam with an odd mix of hunger and saliva. It doesn’t have a tongue - thankfully - but somehow that doesn’t stop it from talking.
When I first met Envy, I thought I needed to call the exterminator again. Perhaps he hadn’t done a thorough job of clearing out the rats from last autumn. But the exterminator was on holiday, so I used a broom instead, poking that grotesque creature with the wiry bristles. It shrieked. I screamed. It pounded on my toes with stubby little fists, so I sent it flying with one well-placed kick. And then that thing started crying.
“I’m hungry,” it wailed, stomping its feet like a child. “Let me out!”
It didn’t need to tell me twice. I opened the window, picked up the creature by its leg, and tossed it outside.
I live in a neighbourhood that could surely be featured on the set of a dystopian teen movie. Every house is identical, even in spirit; and every Saturday morning, seven minutes past nine, a crew of dog-walkers strolls past my home with their army of greyhounds and chihuahuas. The time of this unfortunate incident was six minutes past nine, and in less than a minute the creature was back at the window, slamming its head against the glass so hard that the entire house rattled. “Let me in!”
What a mistake that was.
Envy is not human, as one might have guessed. I don't even think that thing knew what it was, just that it was not one of us. “I shall conquer your world!” it declared in its nasal, prepubescent voice, standing on my dining table. “What is the name of this pathetic little world of yours?”
“This is Berkshire,” I said.
“Alright, then, I shall conquer Berkshire.” The creature hopped off the table and strode towards me, gripping my ankles. “You will be my first subject! Bow, subject!”
Months of harbouring Envy in my home has taught me much about its miniscule, low-functioning mind. Envy can only desire what it sees - and in that single minute that it roamed around the neighbourhood, it saw several other creatures of its own build and size, dragging along their individual servants, commanding them with every turn and twist of the leash. I suppose it thinks I am its servant, and I don’t have the heart to tell it otherwise. I have also learned, with time, that appeasing Envy’s demands is much easier than ignoring them. It doesn’t always kick and scream. Sometimes it bites, too.
I keep Envy in the basement, away from all windows and televisions. As soon as it sees something out of its reach, it craves it with a burning intensity. Once, it really did burst into flames, rolling around until I promised I would stop by the shops that afternoon to buy the toilet paper it saw the neighbour carrying home. Such demands only kept it satisfied for so long - that first time it basked in its new status as my owner for a week, barking at me and devouring the legs of my furniture despite my protests. But a week shrunk into days, and days dissolved into hours until I would find myself woken at night by an ungodly trembling, and shouts of “I want more!”
One day my dear aunt Cecilia - God rest her soul - stopped by to say hello. Envy saw her bag first, or rather the gold clasps and the brand name. “I want one,” it said, tugging my leg. “I want that one!”
“I’ll get it tomorrow,” I lied. Envy often demanded things out of my price range. I could only hope it would forget over time.
“I want that one! That one!”
“No!” I said.
It jumped up and down, punching the ground with its little fists. “It’s not fair!” it screamed. “I want that bag!”
“You have a bag!” I cried. A plastic bag from Sainsbury’s, but a bag nonetheless.
“But SHE has that bag! I want that one!”
“What a curious little creature!” exclaimed my aunt, and she made the very grave mistake of leaning down to peer at Envy. Her sunglasses and earrings and fur coat all seemed to glow at once. Envy’s teeth gave their answering gleam.
In short, Envy ate my aunt.
It does that a lot.
Envy is tiring to take care of. In the same way that dogs learn to open doors, it has evolved. I’m roused from my slumber by that thing’s incessant gnawing on my toes, or some other extremity. The creature is insatiable; and when I am unable to feed it, it feeds on me. Perhaps my job would not be so difficult, were Envy’s demands not so specific. It wants only what someone else already has - or, better yet, it wants no one to have it at all. Envy misses the sun, and I am sure any day now it will find some way to take that from us, too. The moral of this story? Always call the exterminator, even if they’re on holiday. You never know when a pest might grow into one shaggy-haired, carnivorous monster.