The pens of a writer, the poor utensils of a quiet trade that are yet tools scratched down to parched nibs of metal. This old-fashioned scribe persists in filling pads and margins with notes and lists and whole essays inked and carved into the paper by the work of a flowing wrist. On trains and take-out restaurant counters, standing up and sitting down, in the final moments before the last lamp burst, the writer clutches his little notebooks and fills them with tracts of human thought. The regal fountain pen, steel-nibbed and bleeding black paint onto the page; the opulent felt tip, gliding over pulp like a rower’s craft on still river water; the working-class ball point, its tiny bit of brass tirelessly treading through thousands of loops and dashes and dots and strikethroughs and underlines.
And I have exhausted them all. The pliant, sweeping edge of the fountain pen, once the source of all ink stains, is condemned to be but a shiny, oily glint on the writer’s desk. The second-in-command, a fat pen with silky ink and rubbery grip in the fingers, writes in faint gray lines as if transmitting the dying words of an ancient ghost. Saddest is the ball point, the would-be hero that faded too quickly to receive the glories of Valhalla. He was conveyed to the black river Styx in the belly of a waste basket, endowed for his terrible silent and eternal rest.
As my own quartermaster general, I strip the life-blood from my fallen pens’ fellow, a foundling blue pen without grace or gravitas, to write an order for additional troops and troop supplies. The fountain will see further action, once nursed back to health with an injection of rich black blood. His fat cousin may even be called upon again; if not, some brother may be summoned. A rear regiment of ball points awaits orders that, God willing, shall never come.
In six weeks, I have driven three pens to beyond the brink. Such is my life as a writer.
No comments:
Post a Comment