The Guilt in Me

- Moshajjar Hussain -

‘All the trees were turning yellow, leaves falling from high,

I couldn’t even say goodbye.

Up there, the sky was turning grey,

Without even telling me she went away.’

This is what was written on piece of old yellowing paper in front of me. I don’t understand what it means but I am quite sure that it is sad. It relates with me I think.

It has been scribbled with some cheap ball-point pen, the handwriting is bad but the words are beautiful. Anyways, let's get back to the topic.

Right now I am in a big box. That’s right, a big box.

There are some other used up pens in here, one big car; some of the paint is scraped off and the front tires are missing. I think I could fit inside it. Its controller must be somewhere here too.

Now let me deal with something very important right now.

My name is Parker, Parker 75.

I am not a person.                                                                                              

I am a pen.

No, pen is not any type of animal if that’s what you are thinking.

 I am talking about the pen, the kind you write with.

 Now you are thinking that is crazy, it is not possible.

But it’s true I am a real pen.The kind you write with.

See now it was not that bad right? Now imagine if I dropped this in the middle of the long story I am going to tell you now, won’t you get distracted?You better get over it quick right now.

My owner was a teen named Michelle. She is somewhere around 15-years-old. If you are wondering, I am 2 years old.

I will become 3 this December. But I don’t know if I will survive until then, after what happened to Pierre...   

Where was I? Yes I am inside a cardboard box which is going to be donated to a primary-school. At least I will live, not die at the hands of …

Where was I again? Sorry I keep on getting distracted.

 So I am going to be donated to a primary school. I hope I am refilled and can write again, that too with respect.

But I am not sure that I will get respect from ten year olds.

There are thousands like me out there. We are all part of one species. Our maker made us and named us all after himself.

His name was not Parker 75, it was George Safford Parker. In 1888, he formed the Parker Pen Company in Janesville, Wisconsin in the United States.

My name is Parker 75 because my type was first made on the 75^th anniversary of The Parker Pen Company. My type was made by Kenneth Parker, the son of the original maker.

Now enough about me, let’s start from the beginning.

I was born somewhere, made by someone, destined to be a one-of-a-kind pen.

I was first made out of molten iron, which was shaped into a rough cylinder. Next the band of gold was fixed on to me and my golden nose was attached to my cap, the Parker symbol and the word ‘Parker’ were engraved on the top of my cap and nose. Then I was cooled in water.

If this was done to you then you would cry out in pain, so you should be grateful that you were not born as a pen.

My inner body was separately made of plastic and at last fitted inside me.

Then I was put in a box. It was cozy in there, very cozy. I fell asleep peacefully.

Yeah, pens sleep.

 And I woke up when someone started shaking my box.

My internal clock told me that I had slept for a very long time.

Yeah, pens have internal clocks.

My box was opened and my metal body was exposed to the brilliant morning sun. It felt very good, that not-too-hot and not-too-cold feeling. When I opened my eyes I saw myself for the very first time.

I saw two reflections of mine in two circular and black mirrors; I was looking really good and shiny.

I have to admit, I am beautiful (not bragging, well maybe a little bit).

Then I realized that these two mirrors were the eyes of a 14-year-old girl.

 She was looking at me so intensely I thought that she was going to break me.

But then she smiled and spoke to someone not visible to me, “I am going to buy this one.”

She opened her bag and gave a green-colored-paper to the guy.

Then he opened a door, took me to a table and kept me there. I saw him count the green stuff, smile and return it to the girl, saying “On the house kid.”

After that he handed me to the girl with my box. I later came to know that the green stuff was called money.

She then again took me out of my box and then she put me in her pocket.

If you are thinking that how do I know all this about humans, I don’t, or rather I didn’t, this girl happened to be a writer. When she started using me, from her writings I began to understand, about the world I was in.

I  came to know that her name was Michelle.

She took me to her home. As soon as she entered the house a female voice asked, “Honey, where were you?”

Michelle answered, “Had gone to the stationary shop mom.”

All of this felt so new to me, although I could see nothing I could hear the voices.

She went up to her room and kept me in a bright red box which had a label saying ‘THE BEST OF THE BEST’ and I heard her say, “That’s the first, now I need another.”

I did not know what she was talking about as I was too busy being proud of the fact that I was chosen as one of the best pens.

From the next day she started writing with me.

She was quite a strange but amusing person, she wrote in her notebooks the way the seasons changed on the earth: vivid, detailed and amazing.

Someday she would write about monsters kidnapping princesses, someday she would write about how poor men became rich, sometimes it was about how ordinary people gained superpowers and saved their friends from a variety of horrifying monsters and on most days it was her getting rich and buying all of the fashion malls in the world. 

I liked writing her stories. They were interesting, although she sometimes wrote for hours and hours, she felt just fine, but I felt exhausted.

Anyway, I am avoiding the point; the point is that I want to tell you something, something which has been gnawing me with guilt. I feel that the only way to release my guilt is by telling about it to someone else.

Let’s start from a few moments before I met him.

I was enjoying the attention Michelle was giving me; she used to wipe me with a wet cloth every week. And if someone dirtied me by mistake she would get all mad.

Life was going as good as it could get for a pen.

Two years passed like this with me living in pen paradise. But there was one problem: I had no friends.

In the bright red box in which she kept me there was nobody else, just me.

So when I was not in use or not sleeping then it would get quite boring. I would just lie around and think about the latest story Michelle had written, but after all that, it would get incredibly boring.

Soon it started to get extremely boring as I would get used less often, because Michelle had started to consider drawing as more of her hobby now instead of writing.

Since then I have been getting bored in this big red box.

Then one day, my wishes for a friend were answered.

It had been 6 months since Michelle bought me, and one fine day I was sleeping in my box and I was woken up by the sounds of Michelle screaming, “FINALLY I GOT YOU, I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR MONTHS.”

I saw her jumping up and down with something in her hand.

Then her mother shouted, “MICHELLE, come down here in an instant.”

The smile was wiped off Michelle’s face and she quickly started looking here and there.

She took the big red box in which I was present and shoved something inside it and zipped it up and ran down yelling, “YES MOM.”

I looked at what she had shoved inside and I could not believe what I saw!

Lying three centimeters away from me was one of the biggest legends in the pen world: the Pierre Cardin.

The Pierre Cardin was a masterpiece of a pen; they were first created by Mr. Cardin although they were made much after the Parker they were very famous.

I was still in awe when Pierre finally came to his senses and stared at me for I few seconds. I could not muster the courage to say anything so I too kept on staring.

He finally stuttered, “You are Parker, right?”

I slowly said, “Yes, I am Parker, Parker 75.”

He gasped and said, “You are the Parker, the legendary Parker.”

At this point I stared at him for a full ten seconds andgiggled (I know that is idiotic), “I am not the legend, you are, I mean just look at you.”

He looked awesome; he did not have a cap, he was a ball point pen. At the tail end of his jet-black body he had his golden handle with the Pierre Cardin symbol engraved on it.

At his waist was the band of gold with the word ‘Pierre Cardin’ engraved on them boldly. He looked even better than me.

He smiled and said, “Well, you don’t look that bad yourself.”

If you were to compare us in human fashion then I would be somewhat like a gym rat who goes to gym every day and is bulked up on the muscle, extremely strong but quite slow.

Pierre was like Bruce Lee, strong, but also lean and quick. I was like Dwayne Johnson.

We immediately struck of as friends after the initial awkwardness of thinking of each other as legends.

I was surprised to know that he was curious about my life. I had never told anybody my story because no one asked, so it was a little difficult.

I used to tell him about how long I had been here and how my life of paradise became purgatory.  He used to listen patiently.

He told me about the different owners he had.

He told me that his first owner, a guy named Dr. Crawford was a doctor. Pierre said that he was one of the worst owners he ever had. Dr. Crawford used to write with him in a very bad handwriting and quite too fast. When he was given to a new owner (Dr. Crawford’s son) Pierre was delighted. 

Stories like these just seemed to flow out of him like the ink from his tip.

A week passed by and we did not even realize it in our newfound friendship.

Then one day just as we were talking about in how many days did Pierre’s ink finished up (which is 4 months for your information) we heard Michelle run up the stairs and come inside her room, close the door and fall on her bed.

She was out of breath.

I think that an average human should not get out of breath so soon, that girl needed to exercise.

Then after a few seconds she got up and came to the big red box in which we were present. She took one look at us, took me out, and threw me out of the window.

Can you believe it! She threw me, the pen which wrote so many of her stories, out of her window, and she did not even hesitate.

I was so angry at her. Why would she do this?

 When my anger subsided I looked around. I had never been out of Michelle’s room before, let alone the house.

The garden in which I had landed was the first thing I had seen outside of Michelle’s room, it not too big, just about five meters wide and eight meters long.

Suddenly I saw someone enter the house; it was a girl, not Michelle’s mom, but someone of Michelle’s age. She was wearing black T-shirt and jeans.

I wondered who she was but quickly forgot about it as I began to enjoy the afternoon sunlight. For the second time in my life I felt the not-too-cold and not-too-hot feeling. I even forgot about being angry at Michelle for some time.

I was too busy enjoying the sun that I only faintly noticed the shouts and screams from Michelle’s room.

LATER

I can’t believe it.

I fell asleep.

That’s not the part I can’t believe.

I woke up when someone stepped on me. 

I got covered with dirt and some sticky pink thing at my waist. It was so disgusting.

I got a look of the person who had stepped on me and saw that it was the same girl who had entered the front door earlier, the girl with the black T-shirt and jeans.

Just then out of nowhere Michelle came and picked me up saying, “Who got this bubble gum on this.” Finally she came to my rescue. I wondered what she was doing all of this time.

I noticed that she was crying. This was the first time I had seen a person crying. It was a strange sight.Tears were flowing down her cheeks in a line.

She took me inside and cleaned me up and finally wiped me using a nylon cloth (felt perfect).

She took me back to her room, where I saw a pool of ink spread on the floor. I barely even had the time to think about it before she did something she had not done in a long time.

She wrote with me. I was truly happy.

She started writing slowly and I came to know that she was writing a letter to a girl named Mary.

What she wrote horrified me. I had never felt like this in my entire life. Like something inside me snapped, and I could not move.

I felt so bad that I stopped working right at the end of the letter.

 My vision blurred as Michelle shook me to get me to work; finally she realized that I was not working.

Without thinking she threw me in a box. It was the box I am in right now.

The last sound I heard was her sobbing.

I don’t want to tell you what she wrote but I have to do it. I promised myself.

“Dear Mary

I am so sorry. I did not mean to do what I did. I am sorry I broke the pen. It was just that I was so angry. I even admit that I was angry for the wrong reason. I could not get the courage to talk to you so I am writing this to you. I admit that I stole the pen, but I did it on an idiotic whim, I was not even thinking. Do you know why? I had been looking for the Pierre Cardin for months! I had kept on dreaming to buy it but had not been able to get the money. When I saw it lying on your desk and I could not resist the lust. I just threw all of my manners out of the window I know what I did was wrong. I first stole your pen and when you found out you came to me to take it back and I got angry and I broke it. Mary I am so sorry. You can give me whatever punishment you want but please just forgi . . .