Far away in the Himalayas there was a man who never stopped telling stories, it said in the National Geographic. To most of its readers, this was nothing more than a vaguely interesting article, but to John? It was a lifeline. His novel had stalled, which was not a good thing because the email he’d received from his publisher earlier that morning had contained not one but three exclamation points next to the word “deadline”. Things were getting serious, so John booked a trip.
The bottom of the mountain didn’t look that intimidating. At least, not until you looked up and realised the vast expanse of white in front of you wasn’t the horizon, but actually where the damn thing started. John craned his neck back to get a glimpse of its peak, but failed. It was simply impossible to see the whole monolithic wonder at once. The locals had told him the journey to the top wasn’t as bad as it looked, which was just as well because it looked to John as if he’d certainly die. “Not certainly. But probably,” they told him. Still, he’d made it this far.
Halfway up the second leg of his ascent, John saw a hut in the snow. It was easy to spot in the violent field of ice due to its brown wood roof. John was in dire straits, but even he had the presence of mind to know a snowless roof meant there was a much-needed fire inside. As he approached the hut, he heard the low, undulating murmur of a man’s voice, softly muted by the walls. He swiped the condensation from the window with his mitten and saw a man inside, cross legged and shirtless, wearing a blindfold. The man would not stop speaking, but when John peered in through the glass, he could see no audience.
John shook the icicles from his beard and sat opposite the man, putting down his pack. He listened, rapt, as the man told a long-forgotten story from John’s childhood, a story of dragons and princesses. It was like he was living the scenes again for the first time, just like when his father sat by his side at bedtime back home. Tears welled in his eyes. It was beautiful.
The man finished his story and lowered his blind gaze from the ceiling to face John head on. Somehow, John knew underneath that blindfold was a stern look of steel. The man began to talk. He began to tell a different story, a familiar story. Familiar to John because it was *his* story, the one he’d slaved at for years. His perfect, elegant idea he couldn’t quite make a reality.
He watched, mouth agape, as the blind man told the tale with such beauty, such finesse, it was like he had plucked the spirit of the idea itself from the ether and formed it into the work of art it deserved to be. The man expanded on descriptions, fixed plot holes and paraphrased and altered parts of the story that had troubled John for years. The man said the perfect words in the perfect order at the perfect time to tell the perfect story.
John bristled; who was this man to steal his idea? Who was this stranger with the audacity to do what he could not? How dare he? John took his ice pick into a clenched fist and hacked at the man’s skull. Blood sprayed in fat globules from the pick and hung from the ceiling. The man’s blindfold fell off. John stamped out the fire and left the hut to finish his final ascent.
One year later, John released a bestselling novel to great critical acclaim. The press wouldn’t stop asking him how he did it. John’s answer was simple; he found inspiration at the top of a mountain.