Don’t touch the pen

I closed the door to my room and put the pen on my desk.

My dad had received this Cross pen in nineteen sixty four when he graduated college with a double bachelors in marketing and economics. He didn’t work in that field for long because he had a unique ability where he understood how people and money worked.

I touched the pen with my finger, feeling it call to me, wanting to take a little sip of my soul. It had drained my dad, taking the best ideas, the deepest passions, and the most articulate pleas out of him. Only mom and I saw it, and she was too timid to ask him to stop. He was too good and his skills were high in demand which is why I think she liked the lifestyle of a new Cadillac and a big yard with an orchard.

My dad had another set of pens, gold plated, rarely used except to sign special documents. A Senator or President or someone high and mighty gave those to him. But they didn’t have the same magic as this brown pen with brass highlights. The pocket clip had the Cross symbol on it embedded in the brass with scars running the length.

He never let that pen out of his sight and if someone ever asked to borrow a pen he’d give him the gold one, keeping the dull, worn, brown one to himself.

I never told him that I borrowed it once, when I was in fifth grade, to write a short story for a contest. Maybe I was naive, or maybe it’s because I was young and didn’t know how to fully use the pen’s power, but the story I wrote seemed to come from somewhere else. The descriptions were bold, the imagery evoking, and the character poignant. I won first place and was invited to a writer's conference, admission fully paid.

Maybe he knew, because he hid that pen from me for the rest of my life. Now it was sitting on my desk, yearning for my touch, beckoning to my dormant creative ideas to come out and play.

I yanked my hand back, the apprehension growing. I’d seen enough scary movies to know how this ended. I wasn’t going to be that idiot who got killed in the first twenty minutes of a horror movie. I slid open the middle drawer to my desk and used my wallet to push it in, quickly pushing the drawer shut.

Okay, out of sight, out of mind. I didn’t need that kind of drama in my life or the mad scrambling through a thesaurus to find needed words. I had a life to live, bills to pay, and a family that needed to get chores done and I was the hired muscle.

I stood up and left the room, clicking the light off and closing the door. You weren’t going to catch me writing any kind of prose. I knew what it did to a person, the changes it brought to your mind, the immense draw upon your emotions. I couldn’t do that again, after what had happened.

I busied myself with completing my job of going through my dads boxes in the garage and selecting anything that had value. He had two dozen apple boxes which were holding newspaper clippings, magazines, and even some film reels—all of it containing something he wrote. I’d tried to get through it a week before, but was unprepared to the sheer amount of it.

Press releases detailing what his candidate would do for the working class people, promises to rework taxes, and some of the most patriotic stuff I’d ever read. He could appeal to everyone, regardless of their political beliefs, bringing them all to common ground and showing them how to work together.

But then I found a news article about a home being shot up in the middle of the night—my home. Someone didn’t like how fast my dad was coming to power, all because of this pen.

The light in the kitchen clicked off as the last of my kids was taken to bed. How long had I been sifting through the boxes in the living room? The couch was covered with stacks of stories, each chair now turned into a mini library of magazines, articles, and other materials.

I chose one at random and started reading. “I don’t think there’s a single person in this room who likes taxes. Except for those Senators who love to create new taxes so they can use the money for a business who’s brother runs a car dealership. And our Senators love to drive new cars, don’t they…”

I laughed. He had a unique style, very little flourish, but straight forward and appealing to the human condition.

I froze. How did I end up back at my desk, with my hand on the drawer? What power had called me here? Why did I want to take out the pen and use it, like an alcoholic trying to stay sober on the fourth day?

My palms are sweating, my mouth is dry. I can hear my father’s voice. He’s looking for his pen.

I remembered that I had a fancy blank notebook, for drawing, sitting on my shelf. I had a handful of them and I used them for doodling.

I retrieved the notebook from bookshelf and thumbed through it’s blank pages in reverse. Seeing the white nakedness typically would cause a little streak of panic in me as I’d struggle to come up with something to write. It wasn’t like drawing where I could easily doodle and sketch. But this time, the first page stopped under my finger and stayed there, the sound of rustled pages going mute.

I’m in the drawer. Take me out. It’s going to be easy.

I slowly started pacing around in the small space, my thumb holding the place in the notebook, inspiration starting to peck at my brain like a bird trying to break open a walnut. I used to have so many ideas bouncing around in my head all the time. I grew up with my head in the clouds...or at least my teachers always accusing me of that. I once had a drawer that was jammed full of notebooks of my doodling and random thoughts, which sometimes turned into a few pages of creativity breaking out and forming cohesive stories.

That was then, this is now, and now I have responsibilities. I have laundry that needs to be started, two bills to pay, and my budget to balance. Not to mention cleaning up from dinner. Writing wasn’t a ten minute endeavor. It was reaching into the gray fleshy matter and pulling from the cloud of thoughts a string of unified words and not just a monkey banging on a typewriter.

But I could feel the ideas rustling, blowing on the coals that had long been sleeping, warming my heart to the idea of trying to be an author, again. If I did it right, I could find time—

What am I doing? Why am I considering this? I know the cost, I’ve been here before hundreds and hundreds of times, wielding other pens, pencils, and even my laptop as I struggled to mold words into sentences which created imagery in someone else’s mind. That pen would siphon my energy, bleeding my mind dry of it’s essence, trading my life to give the story a life of it’s own.

I felt the summoning again, plucking at my ego and ID, trying to rouse my intrinsic yearnings to compose.

Pick it up, alleviate the craving, let the words come out of you.

“No!” I nearly shouted at the pen laying in the now open drawer.

“Dad, you okay?” my daughter called.

“Sorry, just disagreeing with someone’s social media post,” I replied.

“I know you,” I whispered at it. “Using you costs me dearly, and I will not pay that price.”

There was no way I was going to satisfy this itch, this...this obsession. Once you start, it never, ever goes away. You disappear into the worlds that you create with it’s abilities. It’s more powerful than a genie in a lamp, more capable than magic wand, and more omnipotent than a dragon. It creates them by giving the characters details, emotions, wants and needs. Exacting a horrible toll on the writer as it extracts their life-force to create these worlds which others will live in.

“You think I don’t know what you did to my father?” I hissed.

I glared at the pen, letting my hatred overwhelm the visceral urges to just grab the pen and write something.

“Dad, it’s bedtime. Are you coming?” my daughter called out.

“I’ll be there in a moment. Why don’t you pick out a few books,” I said.

You can write a book for your family. I know you have many stories inside of you wanting to get out. She’ll love this first one that’s trying to get out and she’ll love all the stores you’re going to write, and so will everyone else.

“Stop.”

It you let me guide you, there’s no end to the stories we could create. Let me be your paint brush on the blank canvas, and we’ll create new worlds where we’re all going to be safe, there’s no taxes to pay, no leaves to rake, no job you have to go to five days a week.

“I know you’re lying,” I stated. “My father never wrote about dragons or created new worlds to explore. He wrote speeches and sales pitches and negotiations. None of it is the same.”

It was his world. He was differnt, which is why I helped him. Just pick me up and let me show you.

“How dare you,” I snarled. “My family is in there waiting for me, and you want to pull me away from them just like my father? You want me to miss the most important years of their lives.”

I stood up, pulling my hands to myself. I hadn’t realized how dangerously close I had gotten to touching it—to giving in.

We can make their world better.

“Lies,” I said as I left the room.

I read my kids five long books that night, normally it was only three. We laughed and giggled until their eyes grew heavy and they were all asleep.

I got ready for bed, doing everything I could to avoid going past that door. I even contemplated sleeping on the couch.

I’m still here.

My feet took me back to the room, my mind ready to finish the debate, my hand hovering near the doorknob. It had tried to manipulate my emotions and feed my arrogance. I couldn’t write and only had a handful of awards and recognitions. Nothing published. No contract.

This is as much a part of you as your love for your family, and your life on this Earth. You were given this talent and you should use it, at the very least for you, because your soul calls to me to free it from your suppression.

I took a deep breath and cleared my mind of all the emotions so I could think about this for a moment. I did enjoy writing, even if I never share it with anyone.

The pen was right and I couldn’t avoid this. I shouldn’t neglect this talent and keep it hidden. I could already feel three different stories forming, like a form of synesthesia as the words created emotions, images, and people. It was a gift I shouldn’t shy away from.

I opened the door and walked in.

“You have half an hour. I have work in the morning.”

Of course.

I slid the drawer open, and grabbed the pen, feeling the rush of power and barely registering the strain it put on me. I hadn’t put my notebook away.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I was smiling as I filled page after page.