The Past Pen
When I bought the pen, I had no idea how miserably it would fail me.
It must have been a completely unremarkable day, the day I bought the pen of disappointment. On my list of errands buying a new pen may have been the highlight of the shopping trip. Few things have ever given me the same satisfaction as acquiring new stationery. Or it may have been the result of whim, or impulse, if the pen happened to be on special that day.
Even through the pleasure of the moment, I would have considered the pen ordinary. I had no expectation of particular joy in using it, other than the short-term convenience of four colours in one casing, the convenience of flicking from one colour to the next to differentiate heading from subheading from notes and from quotes. A colour for each purpose, and a purpose for each colour.
The pen may have sat on my bookshelf for a year or more before I finally used it. Such an innocuous item, the promised companion of future learning, of future thought.
I had no reason to imagine an alternate future, of frustration and interruption, of frantic scribbling every few moments until the hint of ink would appear on the page.
A new subject, a new notebook, a new textbook, and a new pen.
The pen of failure has produced as many pages of invisible scribble in two hours as it has produced pages of legible notes.
There will be a rebellion, a mutiny, a coup.
The pen is dead to me. Long live the pen!
It must have been a completely unremarkable day, the day I bought the pen of disappointment. On my list of errands buying a new pen may have been the highlight of the shopping trip. Few things have ever given me the same satisfaction as acquiring new stationery. Or it may have been the result of whim, or impulse, if the pen happened to be on special that day.
Even through the pleasure of the moment, I would have considered the pen ordinary. I had no expectation of particular joy in using it, other than the short-term convenience of four colours in one casing, the convenience of flicking from one colour to the next to differentiate heading from subheading from notes and from quotes. A colour for each purpose, and a purpose for each colour.
The pen may have sat on my bookshelf for a year or more before I finally used it. Such an innocuous item, the promised companion of future learning, of future thought.
I had no reason to imagine an alternate future, of frustration and interruption, of frantic scribbling every few moments until the hint of ink would appear on the page.
A new subject, a new notebook, a new textbook, and a new pen.
The pen of failure has produced as many pages of invisible scribble in two hours as it has produced pages of legible notes.
There will be a rebellion, a mutiny, a coup.
The pen is dead to me. Long live the pen!
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