The Pen

The clouds moved gradually, almost grudgingly in clatters and crowd. Each stuck religiously to his own lane, moving in silent unison like six pm traffic. A rocking chair a few miles down gravity’s smirk mimicked the clouds’ every movement and slight of hand. They seemed an old music band, moving to the same beat, reluctantly following the same fate.  An elderly woman sat on a rocking chair quietly sipping her late afternoon tea. She watched the sun transition from a coruscating yellow, a hard crimson and finally to a dull circumference that seemed to dissipate gradually lumen by lumen onto the canvas of the sky. She sat and admired the audacity of the sun to seduce the sky to scarlet, unknowingly conspiring to its disappearance. She gazed at the sky awaiting the stars to appear, but they selfishly resided only in her pupils. They showed in the way her eyes twinkled with the nostalgia of her youth. In the way her wrinkles folded in the labyrinths of her truth. She let her mind take a walk in the past, intentionally bumping into a younger, brighter version of herself amidst the noon of her twenties.

Oh, how her dear mind wandered too long!

She awakened from her daze to find it was already dark outside. Unenthusiastic legs lifted her; their weakness explicitly paraded in the way she clambered to the door.

The living room was the embodiment of a cozy, sociopathic homicide crime scene. The floor tiles were a long-lost pattern of mosaic and dingy hidden under layers of the sticky glue of grue. The couch had the appearance of an introvert’s only friend – tired and incredibly overused beyond warranty. The woman continued her labored steps till she reached the kitchen. The closest wooden chair patiently awaited her descent, ready and vacant like a playboy on his thirtieth birthday. Surely, she sat down and let out a soft sigh as all the ‘crunchy and hurtables’ of her body settled. Who would have guessed her body would be just as much of a burden as her mind had been? Maybe hers had never been metamorphosis, but merely an escape from the breeding ground of one parasite to another.

Her little recess was short lived. She stood up to make herself a cup of coffee. She loved moving around her small kitchen though it was the embodiment of a beggar in dire need of a makeover.

A cup from the top drawer that would crack her back in its pursuit, two sugars cubes plopped into it, a teabag, the insignia of the kettle and voila! The simplest recipe for peace was made.  She poured the boiling water into the cup, humming away, forgetting she had initially stood up to make coffee. She grabbed a slice of cake from the fridge onto a plate, still humming and slowly made her way to her desk at the corner of the living room. It was the sole part of the house that looked like it was from this century. The desk faced a window overlooking the field. On the window seal were an array of notebooks in more colours than a pride parade. A toddler of a bucket on the far left was the star of the show. It had pens, pencils, crayons, a mini palette and anything else that could possibly populate a piece of paper.

She sipped her tea every two seconds and some change, excited to spend some quality time with her old friend. It was time to unload. Here, in the quiet of home, her corner to lend-a-brood. Oh, her body may have been frail, her voice croaky and often than not fail, but her old friend was the opposite.  They were joined by the hip, read each other with eyes closed like Braille. The protagonist and the storyteller. The forensic and the print. The idea, the canvas and the pen. The old lady sipped the last of her coffee, placed her notepad before her and finally plucked the pen out of her little bucket. It was time.

 The stars were imperfectly aligned, all her cards were on the table and her mind had a million miles worth of mileage to give the notepad a run for its money. The pen snapped to life and began to speak,

“Hi. I identify as brutally honest; my pronouns are ask/me”

Or don’t. Either way she tells.