SHORT STORY MONDAY
The following is a piece of flash fiction written in a rather unconventional manner. All of the sentences from this story have been borrowed from other works of fiction created by other authors. It was sort of a word game. For continuity sake I did add a few sentence fragments and used the name Harry Gold in all the places where needed. I think it interesting how a sentence, placed in a new context connotes new meanings through the unexpected juxtapositions. See if you can tell where the original ends and the newly created addendum begins.
"The rule of 'nothing unessential' is the first condition of great art."
--Andre Gide
After dinner Harry Gold reads us the last two chapters of his La Nuit. The next to last especially seems excellent to us, and Gold reads it very well. Being rich is an occupation in itself, particularly for people who arrive at it via parachute in middle life.
We go out for a walk -- William Williams, Gold and myself. Never has it seemed such a long way to the top of this hill. The road with its tossing broken stones stretches on forever into the distance like a life of agony. It is hot as a furnace on the street and we sweat profusely.
I bring up the question of ownership. "Who owns language? Can a man own words? Sentences? The turn of a phrase?"
Gold's face becomes agitated, defiant. "It's mine now. No matter what they say, it's mine."
It occurs to me that Williams doesn't like this reply, but there are no others to turn to and we are forced to accept it. Gold feels guilty because his work is heavy with borrowing. Ideas, phrases, sentences, even whole paragraphs have been shamelessly appropriated, pilfered without attribution, plagiarized.
Harry adds, in a low voice, "The will of man is unconquerable. Even God cannot conquer it."
I can not bear to see him like this. To myself I think, Why do you do these things? In human affairs every solution only serves to sharpen the problem, to show us more clearly what we are up against. I consider how sages of the future will describe this historic day.
For a while we walk without speaking, the heat pressing down on us like a heavy hand. The hill seems steeper than before, as if it has grown suspicious of our intentions. Williams kicks at a loose stone and sends it rattling down the slope. The sound echoes faintly, like a small confession that no one intends to pursue.
Gold wipes his forehead with a handkerchief that was once white but now bears the stains of long arguments and careless pockets. He walks with a strange determination, as if pursued by invisible editors demanding an explanation.
At last he stops and looks out over the valley. The town lies below us, quiet and indifferent, its roofs glowing in the late afternoon sun.
“You speak of ownership,” he says, almost gently now. “But language is a river. We drink from it, we carry it away in cups, and still it flows.”
Williams nods slowly, though whether in agreement or exhaustion I cannot say.
I begin to suspect that Gold’s crime, if crime it is, lies less in the borrowing than in the boldness of admitting it. Most men prefer their thefts to remain hidden beneath respectable silence.
The wind picks up briefly, stirring the dust along the road. For a moment the heat lifts and we breathe more easily.
Gold laughs then—a short, unexpected laugh.
“Perhaps originality,” he says, “is merely the art of remembering badly.”
We continue our climb.
Somewhere beyond the crest of the hill a dog barks, and the sound travels toward us as though the evening itself were calling us onward.
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Illustration: ChatGPT
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