The Spark of Creativity (Someone Else's)

'Your writing voice is the deepest possible reflection of who you are. The job of your voice is not to seduce or flatter or make well-shaped sentences. In your voice, your readers should be able to hear the contents of your mind, your heart, your soul.' – Meg Rosof

Damascus had a spark of creativity but felt ill-equipped to bring it fully to fruition. He figured a little googling wouldn't hurt anyone. Just for ideas, you understand, not wholesale thievery. His idea was dark in tone and content, so the horror pages he browsed. "If I just could find a starting point, then I could take something off in my own direction." He found the most peculiar story, a shocking tale of the dire consequences that come from ignoring clear warnings.

As he read through the opening paragraph, he was taken by the fluidity of the words and eloquence of the quiet, restrained horror as it slowly, almost achingly slowly opened up and swallowed the main character piece by piece.

Hardly a protagonist, the fellow had happened across a hallowed book with a fine layer of dust coating it and was taken by its contents that he decided to cherry-pick from it for the tale he was working on.

The deadline was looming, and as it was such an old book, he didn't think it would make much difference.

As he took line after line, barely paraphrasing it, he was meticulous and consumed by the task.

"As the writer read the source material, he was entranced by its eloquence and sought to take advantage of it. The more he took, the more he lusted after what he was producing. The finest gothic tale about a man who in taking liberties with borrowing from another's hard work, began to waste away, as if it were payment for what he took. First, he became aware of his pinkies tearing at the ends from his hands, as blood dripped from the hole and space left by the missing digits. Although shocked to say the least, he simply got a bowl of ice and put the digits in there for safe keeping. His manuscript was important."

As Damascus sat down at his desk again, though, and continued copying the hallowed text, he felt something loose in his mouth and the metallic-taste of blood around his tongue. He spat onto the desk and a gloop of blood splattered along with two, no, three of his teeth. Healthy they were, but no longer in his mouth. Moving his tongue from left to right and up and down, more teeth started to fall.

Unsure what he could really do about his teeth falling out right now, he continued with his manuscript.

"The writer did not stop to even think about what was happening to his body, as he continued to repossess another's hard labour and spark of creativity as his own. His skin was flaking from the flesh underneath, exposing bones in the less muscular parts of his frame and scattering like confetti around his desk and the floor."

As he copied, almost word for word, he felt a sharp pain as he tried to press down on his foot, only to hear a crack. A terrifying crack. Like a nut being cracked, but a bone-sized, bone-shaped, bone-like nut being cracked. Reaching down in agony, he pulled off his sock as gently as he could and felt a cold shiver work its way down his spine as he saw his big toes lying lifeless and cleanly cut from his foot, both the hole that was left and the appendages bleeding onto the floor beneath his desk.

Turning to his writing and the hallowed book, he continued copying almost word for word what was written before him.

"As each digit fell from his hands and his feet, the writer continued in vain, trying to reproduce the maddening tale in the hallowed book. Using his mouth, his chin…anything. One by one his limbs disconnected from his body, messily, leaving trails of blood as they dropped unceremoniously to the floor before his internal organs started to give up the fight. Breathing was hard with all that was happening to his body, but breathing with just one lung and then no lungs functioning was impossible.

The plagiarist felt the life drain from him gradually and was discovered days later because of the smell emanating from his apartment. His body had already decomposed significantly, and flies had laid maggots in his remains."

*

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Author's Notes: Not subtle at all. But...who cares? I may have been a bit angry when I wrote this about people stealing other people's work.

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