Day 212 – Fern Tree – Short Story

“Plagiarism Wesley, is a disgusting thing, irreparable, and no one, no gifted, skilled person should lower themselves to such a vile thing,” he says, his brow furrows, as his mouth twists with anger. “So, tell me why I shouldn’t take what you did personally?”

Wesley looks up at him, as tears running down his face, soaking into the cloth that’s tied tightly around his face, across his mouth, and mixes with the blood that’s soaked into it’s fibers, then runs down his neck in a mixture, pale red.

“What, you have nothing to say? No yelling? No screaming? Just, sobbing? I expected more from someone like you, gutter trash always seem to have something more to say. Denialmaybe, obscenities even, but you, you have none of these, yet, you still stole my work and called it your own, did you not?” He says, gently running the knifes blade across both sides of Wesley’s face, he flinches with it’s touch and the man smiles. “I just want to know why, tell me why and maybe, I might let you walk out of here in one piece,” he says, Wesley shakes uncontrollably, sobbing hysterically, mumbling something muffled by the cloth, the man grabs him by the hair and thrusts the blade against his throat. “DON’T!” He yells, “TELL ME WHY OR I’LL SLICE YOUR THROAT FROM EAR TO EAR AND WATCH YOU BLEED OUT LIKE A PIG!” Wesley freezes in place, holding back the tears, coughing under the suffocating grasp of the cloth, trying to draw a clean breath through his mucus filled nose, until finally, the man rips the cloth from his face, and Wesley draws back desperately, taking in several lung fulls of air.

“I-I-I’M, I’M SO SORRY, P-P-PLEASE, PLEASE, P-P-PLEASE DON’T K-K-KILL ME, PLEASE!” Wesley yells.

“Then tell me, why?” The man asks again.

“O-O-Okay, I-I-I, I’ll tell you everything and you’ll l-l-let me live?”

“Tell me first, and then, I’ll make my decision, don’t tell me, and I’ll kill you, that I can promise.”

“I-I-I, I never meant to steal your work, but I came across your blog, and I, I feel in love with everything you wrote, every story, every poem, every word. S-So I printed some of my favourites out and kept them in my books, to help remind me every now and then what I someday wanted to be. W-When I-I-I, I handed in my last piece they were accidentally in the folder and by the time I realised what had happened it was too late, the professor had sent them into a publisher and, and I couldn’t tell him they weren’t mine because I was offered a two book deal with a publisher, there was nothing I could do, I swear, I tried, I really did, but, but…”

The man sits down across from Wesley, and smiles, “You really like my stories?” He says.

END