The other pen made promises, but could never be trusted, always running out of ink before we reached the last page.
“It’s not you,” I said, “it’s me.” Then I headed for the drugstore.
There, I ran into an old pen I hadn’t seen in a while. We’d spent some time together long ago, nothing serious, just a few laughs in an old notebook I used to own, but still, I felt bad for having let it slip from my fingertips and having fallen out of touch.
“Look,” I said, “you have to understand, things were weird for me back then. I was experimenting with graph paper and I had a three Moleskine a week habit.”
The pen just dangled there against the pegboard.
“Things are better now,” I said, “I’ve stopped ripping out the pages, a lot of my stuff is coherent. I got a cat.”
I reached out, touched the plastic. No resistance. The pen settled into my palm and followed me back home.
We started slow, a little underlining, a few phrases. The ink felt smooth against the paper as it made its way along the margins.
Next week, if all goes well, we’ll go downtown and search for a whole new notebook, one we can agree on. Maybe something college ruled, maybe no lines at all.
I don’t know. We’ll see. We’re beginning a whole new chapter.
Love this one too! Excellent prose.
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