DANGER MOUSE:
SECURE OUR SOULS
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
As the bright dawn rose from the pitch black night, DM pressed his head against the window of his Mayfair headquarters and listened with his large round ears for the song of the first waking bird.
He wondered if he could steal that song and get away with it.
He wondered how cross the Colonel would be if he found out about that, what kind of reputation the world's greatest secret agent would have if the world and the agency had found he had, rather than be inspired to compose a merry melody of his own, he would face a barrage of bad press for stealing from someone's soul.
All living creatures had a soul, and their songs sprang from it.
Would DM be moved so much that he would take the song from that individual, credit it as his own soul to bear, and risk his reputation?
Or would the world consider it business as usual for him?
After all, he'd made a direct steal before when writing a detailed mission report for the agency.
It was a routine task, a few nuggets of information on the situation and how it was resolved, followed by a small anecdote, with some flowery language attached; complimenting the herculean efforts of the various agents and staff involved in ensuring the mission was pulled off without much fuss.
In this particular instance, DM had been struck with a lousy case of writer's impairment, and he found himself struggling to cap off the final paragraph with something that made his otherwise routine mission sound more romantic than it was.
So he watched a video interview with a renowned writer on YouTube, Jay Mouse, and found his inspiration that way through a speech Jay had given about the differences between trying to write and just writing. He had mentioned something about likening it to trying to dance and just dancing.
DM thought it was an inspired masterstroke, a heartfelt analogy, one that can only come from the mind of a being with a wide range of life experience. Jay Mouse had blazed a trail with these words and they inspired DM to write these words down and give that conclusive paragraph some spice.
He sent it away to be printed and processed, to be filed in the archives that the next generation of Agents could step forward and read it.
DM just prayed that one of those new agents didn't turn out to be a comic book fan.
For you see, DM had done more research on Jay Mouse's work and discovered he had a seven year run on The Sillier Spider-Mouse for Marble Comics, and in one of those stories, the much renowned "Fins Past", there was a whole sequence where an aspiring actress had been told by a talent scout that there was a difference between trying to act and letting the acting come naturally to her, and likened it to two things.
Trying to dance, and just dancing.
DM realised that he had made a direct steal wholesale from someone he thought had been smart enough to contain this life lesson to just a lecture, so that if the time ever came where DM's essay would be discovered by the public, and if he were fortunate enough to still be around, he could point to the words of this great writer and credit them for inspiring him.
DM had been tempted to contact Jay directly, to apologise in advance for fear he would ever see it, or to maybe joke about it, hoping he'd see the funnier side of things, but he dared not try both out of fear for his reputation.
As his head pressed hard against the glass of the window, and his ears picked up on a most harmonious song sung by a pure soul, he realised how secure the bird must have felt when bearing his soul to the world.
DM realised, more than ever, how important it was to secure our souls.