by E. E. King
Monty Flitly had a dream. Not just an ordinary dream, a spectacular one, filled with drama, tension, rich with images and texture… even a love interest. In fact, it was not a dream; it was a story, a masterpiece! Completely crafted, exposition, rising action, conflict, resolution, and climax. This was providential, because Monty was a writer of short tales; he preferred to call it short fiction, as he imagined his work endowed with gravitas, though it was not particularly grave.
He began to write. The words flowed, dictated by an inner voice. There were no pauses to search for the right word. There was no consulting a thesaurus. In fact, there was not even a need for spell-check, a minor miracle, although a rather minor one, as spelling was not Monty’s forte.
He sent it out posthaste (or more accurately internet haste) which was unusual too. Normally Monty was a Hamletian procrastinator. It was immediately accented in both the Yale Review and the New Yorker, the first exception to their policy of never printing the same story. It was published in the Best Short Stories of the Year. An entire episode of Selected Shorts was devoted to it. Jeremy Irons, James Early Jones, Maya Angelo and Steven Hawkins did public readings.
Then 75 year old Irma Lacely, a Detroit house wife made a declaration. It was her story. She had written it over 40 years ago. And, she had the documentation to prove it. The story was produced, painstakingly penned, ink stained, barely legible due partly to the numerous revisions, though mostly because of ink stains. Experts were called to identify the paper and ink. The pen it had been written with was extinct, recalled due to complaints about ink stains and backfiring.
The company had been forced to make reparations and went bankrupt. A dream, it had been a dream! Monty could not prove it; after all no one had been in his head that night to bear witness. But he had never been to Detroit. Irma had never sent it out. But there it was in black and white, or rather in ink stains and yellowed paper, word for bloody word.
Irma became an acclaimed author. Monty was discredited. He moved to Montana and became a heroin addict, haunted by dreams of stories made whole. Brilliant tales, whole and magical. Unfortunately, he could no longer write them down, due to a stroke brought on by stress that paralyzed his arms and speech. He was still understandable, but no one would record his words. No one wanted to associate themselves with a plagiarist.
Coincidently, Irma suffered a stroke too. It did not disable her, but left her weak. A sudden out burst of almost deafening applause and flashing of lights at her first appearance on the Claiborne Copple Show caused her a heart attract. She died spectacularly on camera. The Copple show’s ratings went through the roof… maybe even the almost non-existent ozone layer. Nightly’s show was renewed for 11 seasons… And so, in fairytale style, justice prevailed and everything ended happily in this the best of all possible worlds.
The End.