The Cult of Wensday

By Jayde Ver Elst

The Cult of Wensday proves that one man’s obsession with a single word, can spell doom - in the most literal sense – upon the very foundations of English itself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781304270153

Jayde Ver Elst

Jayde Ver Elst is a young South African writer and humorist who got his start with the self-published The Cult of Wensday (and yes, that's spelled correctly, in Jayde's own fashion). His work is best described as completely off the wall and whimsical with a tongue planted ever-so-firmly in its cheek, but also explores heartwarming relationships between richly colorful characters. His first mass-market release is the upcoming Usu.

Book preview

D:\Artwork\Projects\The Cult Of Wensday\Wensday\Logo.jpg

Jayde Ver Elst

THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION.

ANY RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PERSONS IS PURELY INTENTIONAL AND SUBJECT TO ANGRY LETTERS. LETTERS A-G IN PARTICULAR, THE REST ARE A BIT SHIT.

Chapter One

'Bugger bugger balls.'

This phrase was appearing out of Henry's mouth slightly more than he would have liked in one afternoon. Granted, his current disposition of being slowly submerged into a large tank of mayonnaise was partially to blame, but perhaps the sharks that had somehow adapted to that environment played a marginally larger role in the level of bladder control he presently possessed.

‘Ahu!’ echoed from above as a rounded gentleman with a stove for a hat (and a French accent for a disability) quite promptly spat into the tank. ‘You will find these accommodations to your liking yes? Do you see how I said yes before you answered? That is because I am answering for yo’ lauded our villain with a clearly evil slurring undertone until Henry responded ‘Well it IS nicer than what the other guys did in reception’. ‘WHAT?! WHAT DID THEY DO IN RECEPTION!?’ ‘They gave me some tea and biscuits and didn’t even bother to poison them, wouldn’t you know.’ ‘THEY WH- I-I….I….This…..This is worse than tank of mayonnaise sharks?’ ‘Oh yeah way way worse, this is usually my weekend thing’

At that moment, when Henry’s tricky wordywording was mere miles from saving him, a supervisor, unsurprisingly wearing a visor that beamed with the ethereal brilliance of a thousand tanned bottoms, entered the fray.

This particularly literal brand of Supervisor, thus verbally vomited ‘Not so fast Mr Glume! You shalln’t trick my associate so easily, as I for one know that even that astronautical suit you huddle inside cannot protect you from mayonnaise’s somewhat acidic pH level!!’

He was unfortunately correct on that front. Whilst Henry had chosen to spend the last 10 years of his life inside a suit he stole from a museum, choosing to spend any of those 10 years surrounded by any sort of condiment was certainly not in his initial calculations and, given his somewhat unpredictable constitution, chances of escape by brute force were looking slimmer than most 3rd world diets.

Granted, he did feel awfully silly about stepping into the large metal cage a few minutes ago, and maybe, just maybe, he’d brought this all upon himself. Marching headlong into the OUP (Oxford University Press) and demanding to get a word changed was not something a sane man would do, which is probably why Henry had now opted for the unusual plan of unholstering an overly large, threatening and somewhat adorned knife to, rather promptly, stab himself in the cock.

‘You’ll what?!’

‘I’ll do it you know. I’ll stab myself right in the cock and then you’ll have a right big mess to deal with won’t you?’

‘Oh god fine fine let him go, we can’t have cock all over the walls and god knows it wouldn’t be good for the shark’s strict mayonnaise diet’

Minutes later, our protagonist found himself facing a very familiar sidewalk and shaking his fists in futility at the CLOSED sign that barred any ethical man from re-entering. Defeat. He had tasted it before, many many times before, and a few times before that, and before that still, and then before even the first bit he had this thing where throughout puberty he would vomit every time he said a vowel and that…well, that was a bit worse but…..but we were on the topic of tastes and you, dear reader, don’t have the best in literature at least.

Henry’s bloated form slumped into Holywell Cemetery as per routine. He slightly tugged on Margaret Thatcher’s grave stone as per routine. He descended the secret staircase into the main corridor and past the completely aesthetic photon beam alarm system (re: paper cups with light bulbs inside powered by an intricate system of mangos) as per of course……routine.

Routine, like most hymens, must break however. And while having a docking station with automatic tear/urine balancing mechanisms built into his personal chambers may sound like it exists for the sake of routine, I can assure you it was simply pre-cautionary. A precaution his currently flooding spacesuit was rather grateful for.

He was not a man easily moved to tears. He’d move to Manchester, London, even Tahiti but he thought the idea of moving to a place named after crying simply silly. But this case was special, this was important, this was the most meaningful life goal he’d had since he decided to renovate Margaret Thatcher’s grave into a secret hideout one night after isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk finally delivered the goods.

You see, Henry Glume was a very particular man. He was particular, and he was (arguably) also a man. With these two terribly odd traits combined he had come to find fault, error, even a grievous crime with but one word in the English language.

Wednesday.

Now go ahead. Read it aloud. Read it. Do it again. Now whilst looking in the mirror.

You sound like a bloody tosser, don’t you?

Henry tried and tried to pronounce it without sounding like a tosser.

He tried three thousand times.

‘It….It just isn’t possible!’ he finally declared one Sunday. As a side note, Sundays are the best days for making bad decisions. For good decisions, well any reader who’s gotten this far doesn’t have to be afraid of making those I’m sure.

The word needed to be made right. It needed to be made Wensday.

But how?! How could one man, one simple man in