VERBAL VILLAIN

Plagiarism at its best.

“Done!” cried Malcolm Finch in exasperation as he typed the last letter of the last word in his essay, e, for life. He had just completed his midterm essay for the program he was taking on Environmental & Life Sciences at Okan Academy. He felt very pleased with himself as he had stayed up almost half the night completing the essay and now all he had to do was edit it, which he didn’t think would take him too long. Given the fact that he had been writing this essay from two in the afternoon to three in the morning, he was awfully tired so decided to get himself a glass of water before he began this brutal exercise of keeping his eyes awake and focused as he scanned the essay for mistakes. Instead of taking one glass, he took two, but still was feeling tired, so decided to have a shower hoping that it would wake him up. He was 23 in his second year of university and was thankful that he had a room all to himself. This way he wasn’t bothering anyone by working till 3 a.m. and having a shower after. Malcolm loved his privacy.

            After stripping off his clothes, he stepped into the warm soothing spray. He rejoiced in the single strings of water that hit his body, a webbing of water on top of him. He stayed in the shower’s replenishing downpour for about half an hour as he caressed his hair and scalp with shampoo and conditioner. Soon, he took the black towel off the shower curtain and dried himself. Once he was in clean and freshly ironed clothes, he sat back down at the computer; the dreaded screen that soon, if he stared long enough, would eventually turn him blind. He pushed his burgundy glasses up the bridge of this nose, ruffled his short black hair, and began the long strenuous process of editing.

            At 5 a.m., it was all complete and he sat back in his chair exhausted as if he had just swum over a hundred miles. He had read it over twice and was now indeed satisfied with the results. He was more relieved though that is was over. He clicked the print tool and waited for the beautiful silver printer beside him to engrave his words on paper. That’s when they crashed. His eyes, they soon snapped shut and his body fell lower in the comfortable green swivel chair. All was heard were soft and light breaths from the nasal passage, and the sound of the silver box conducting its business.

            At 7 a.m., he woke up, startled, but alert. He had no recollection on how he had ended up here, on the floor. His chair had been turned over and he could see ten gleaming pages sitting in the mouth of the printer. Somehow he must have pushed himself over in the early hours of sunrise. He stood up and put his chair back into place. He took the pages out of the printer and stapled them together with his bright purple stapler. He turned off the computer and printer, and put the finished essay into his navy blue backpack. He then sat on the couch, deciding to read his American History textbook because he soon had to write up an essay on the Lewis and Clark Expedition for his program Studies in American History. He not read much of it, and once he began reading about the Expedition that began in 1804, he had fallen asleep again.

            It was 8:30 when he woke up for a second time. The textbook sat open on his chest. He immediately sprung from the couch as if he had been sitting on a scorching hot iron. His Environmental & Life Sciences class started in half an hour and he had to give the paper to Professor Tot exactly at 9 a.m. It normally took him half an hour to get to the Science building where the program was located. He threw on his bag, kicked on his pure white Nike sneakers, and ran out the door quickly locking it behind him. The moment he was down the full three flights of stairs and out the door, it began to rain. Yet, the sun was still shining but because of the torrent of rain, it had become a dreary sunny day. He ran, ran through mud, grass, and gravel. He was amazed at how fast he was going, like a cheetah chasing its prey. He reached the Science building at exactly 8:50. Once inside, he ran the three minutes through the hall until he arrived in the doorway of the classroom. Mr Tot was standing at his desk, his grey hair nicely combed back in a gleaming grey suit that almost matched the colour of his hair. It was exactly 8:58 when Malcolm approached his desk. The 23-year-old now really felt as if he had swum a hundred miles. He was drenched. His shoes were more brown than white and he was worried that the paper wasn’t even paper anymore but could be more closely related to a much damaged piece of cloth. He noticed a pile of papers sitting on the professor’s desk and it intimidated him. How long were they? Had they written better convincing arguments than he? What mark would he get? He was worrying so much that, once feeling he had crafted a very well structured and convincing essay, he felt he was handing Professor Tot a pile of garbage. Professor Tot stood patiently as he watched Malcolm drop his backpack on the floor and unzip it. Thankfully, his paper was still intact and no one could even guess that it had been raining before. Malcolm handed the dry stapled ten pages to him and the Professor nodded and said,

            “Thank you, Mr. Finch.”

            Malcolm nodded solemnly. He felt his essay belonged in a graveyard with the dead.

            Unliving, he felt now that the paper had no life, no substance. He was thinking so negatively he had forgotten about all the hard work he had put into it.

            He left, wondering what Professor Tot would think of the dreaded piece of writing he had concocted.

 

About a month later, he found his answer. The paper was handed back to him with a slew of lines marked through it as if they were trying to scratch the very words written on the page out of existence. There was a big large 0 circled at the top. Malcolm was shocked, what had he done wrong? He had spent hours on that paper, the feeling of knowing that he might as well have just handed Professor Tot blank pages was traumatising. He read the words in neat handwriting that were just under the large haunting 0,

These words are not your own

How could that be? That was impossible. He couldn’t have plagiarised. There was no way. As soon as he got home he searched his sources, convinced that Professor Tot had made a mistake. He soon found the reason why Mr. Tot’s words had been written on the first page. It was the first source he had cited on his Reference List, it was an essay he had read regarding his topic on the internet. His essay was literally that essay. He must have typed up the entire thing word for word without even thinking. The essay he had read was exactly ten pages. How could he have been so stupid? The reason he had taken so long with the essay was because he had written everything the same, he did not even copy and paste, though, Professor Tot obviously assumed he did. Why had he stayed up so late? He knew your brain could not be active for that long. What had he done? What had he done? Professor Tot’s words seemed to have now been singed into his brain.