Dystrophy

It started with a weakening of the fingers. He hardly noticed it at first, always putting it down to a cramp from extended periods of writing. But the cramp never went away, and soon he could feel the trembling in his fingers when he pushed himself too much. He tried to ignore it as he continued to write, his mind running ahead of him at a hundred words per minute but his hands trailing along at an average of sixty words. Still he pushed himself, grimacing in annoyance as his writing speed continued to slow. He felt awful for the words that were lost in limbo, which faded away and were forgotten by the time his hands reached them.

Then his arms grew stiff, and he had to stop every half an hour to rest and stretch. He grumbled at this one; every time he had to limber up was time lost, words lost, inspiration running away. Reluctantly, he agreed to type out his stories on the computer, though half his enjoyment was sucked away by the unfamiliar clickety-click of the keys, instead of the scratchety-scritching of his fountain pen. The bright screen hurt his eyes, no matter how dim the technician tried to make the screen.

As time progressed, it was head that grew heavy with thoughts that wouldn't form properly, leaving words. Sentences that do not. Lapses in paragraphs. Sometimes. Work out no sense. Finally. Gave up.

---

Dystrophy
a disorder in which an organ or tissue of the body wastes away/

defective nutrition/

any condition of abnormal development, often denoting the degeneration of muscles.