Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry
B.S. Johnson
 Christie Malry, being a "simple man", above all longs for sex and money. In order to understand how money works, he takes a job in a London bank. This leads him to enrol in a bookkeeping course, where he learns the double-entry system. Bored by his bank job, he quits and starts work at Tapper's, a sweet factory. One day, he has the idea to apply the double-entry system to his life. Every aggravation Malry suffers from society—such as being forced to walk along a particular stretch of pavement due to a building's placement—is revenged by a recompense—in this case, "[scratching] an unsightly line about a yard long into the blackened portland stone facing of the office block" (23–4). Having established this system, and growing progressively angry at society, Malry graduates from minor acts of personal revenge (mostly vandalism) to large-scale terrorism: bombing hoaxes, an actual bombing, and poisoning West London's drinking water. Shortly before he manages to bomb the House of Commons, he dies of cancer. Christie compares himself to "Guy Fawkes, with the difference that he was caught" and strictly follows a code of twelve principles. The first principle, "I am a cell of one" (89), forbids him from discussing his actions with anyone else, not even with his few friends or with the Shrike, his beloved girlfriend.