FICTION | HUMOR | CONTEST
Desktop Dialogues: The Pencil and His Pursuit of Something More
The tale of a stapler, his two unlikely calligraphic companions, and the journey destined to define a generation
“Do you ever think that there’s something more?”
“Damn it. Here goes Gerald again with the needless philosophizing. If you don’t s — ”
“Hold on, Rodney, let him speak,” a third voice emerged from across the desk. He had a square, toothy smile atop a long stiff body.
Rodney turned, surprised. “If I wanted a stapler’s advice, I would have asked for it, is all,” responded the number 2 Ticonderoga tetchily.
“Spend your days pounded face forward into a pile of sheets and then come talking to me about pain,” spat back the stapler, a resolute look across his smooth, metallic face.
“I’ve been shoved into a pencil sharpener more times than I can c — ”
“Let the little guy speak.”
As the mechanical pencil turned his focus toward the animate desktop accoutrements beside him, reinvigorated by the kindly stapler’s intervention, he stepped onto a soapbox and began to speak. In truth, the soapbox was more of a tissue box, but for wooden, table-bound scribble squires only mere inches tall, the effect was no less dramatic.
The passionately pensive pencil started to wax wearily prosaic. “Something more than… this menial existence… confined to desktops and forever slaves to the capricious desires of children at play. Nay… there must be a life beyond this classroom, beyond this forsaken school.”
Gerald closed his jaundiced, yellow eyelids and allowed emotion to guide him. “I believe there is a world beyond all this depraved and cyclical mundanity — that there is a profound freedom beyond these multiplication tables… these… these… atrocious spelling lessons. And if I get shuffled between the hands of one more sneezing, thieving third grader — ”
As he froze, he felt a tiny, consoling hand upon his shoulder. He opened his eyes, looked to his left, and saw the Ticonderoga now at his side. The two writing implements engaged in an embrace that was equal parts loving and perplexing.
“I — I have these thoughts, too,” admitted the taller, beefier — and all around more handsome — pencil at his side. The two were then ambushed by the colossal, cold, metallic vice grip of the reconcilliatory staple repository who’d crept up caringly behind them. The three remained there interlocked for the better part of the afternoon, sentient creatures now adamant on escaping a crushing fate imposed by their puerile aggressors.
This piece was written in response to a contest for Hope, Healing and Humour writers, courtesy of Liberty Forrest, Author and Witchy.
As a kid, my father always told me that a story could be written about a pencil if you put your mind to it. I used to think the idea was silly, but for the past few years it’s continually simmered on the back burner. When I read this prompt, I knew I’d likely never find a better opportunity to finally tell that story about those yellow, No. 2 old friends that I never seem to use anymore. So a huge thank you to Liberty for this one!
Now here’s an article from my good friend and co-owner of our new publication, Alec Zarenkiewicz:
