I’m finally holding it in my hand. Its weight is comforting, the way its slender shape rests between my fingers is like that missing part of my hand is finally back and I am whole again. It’s cold at first, but slowly gets warmer. I tick it and look in awe at that tiny millimeter of carbon that comes out of it. I hold it to the paper and move my hand, moving it along with me. I’m in heaven!
It’s been two days since I lost my old pencil, an old rotring that belonged to my brother and moved on to me afterwards. The pencil is almost fifteen years old and I lost it! It brought back such bad memories; losing my first rotring pencil back in fourth grade. Pencils coming and pencils going, yet I’ve always been loyal to rotring; my comfort pencil. Then some idiot in Germany (or maybe China) decided to make it thicker and turned the slender end of it into this short fat stub! IDIOT! At that point, I gave up on rotring and pencils. It was a moment of innocence lost, like when we know that dolls don’t really understand us and puppets aren’t really alive.. Rotring wasn't a comfort pencil anymore.
I spent years living on the memories of my old pencils, their tips turned rusty from too much use but it’s only given them this “better with age” feel, like white hair on a handsome man. Then one day, I don’t know where or when, I still don’t understand it, I found myself with my staedtler pencil! It was a little heavier than the rotring, but in a mature, Giorgio Armani sort of way. Thin slender tip and a groove at the end align the ticker perfectly with the rest of the pencil. It was a match made in heaven, me and my pencil. I loved the way it made my hand flow when I write; it made me want to write in better handwriting just because I was holding it. I was in love with that pencil, and then, I lost it.
It was a difficult time for me, to lose my pencil with all the things that were going on in my life. I needed it, how could I possibly live without it?!! I was sad, and I could only go back to the shadow of a rotring I once owned to keep me company. Thank God pencils aren’t liquor or else I would have been an alcoholic moving to cheap wine after 13 year old scotch (I watch a lot of movies). The rotring was good company, but something was missing. It was missing for so long until I couldn’t even tell it was gone anymore.
One hot weird day, I went to work and couldn’t find my pencil, the rotring. Even the rotring was lost, the only thing that kept me company. I had meetings and analysis and I needed a pencil and couldn’t find any. I spent two days writing in pen. I felt disgusted! Messy and blue, non erasable, squeaky on the paper, blotches here and there, and the words I was writing weren’t making sense anymore. The sun wasn’t shining, the wind wasn’t blowing, music wasn’t playing, my pencil wasn’t there, for God’s sake! They were two of the hardest days of my life.
You may wonder why I didn’t buy a staedtler earlier. I’ve tried, so so hard. I searched far and wide and all I could find were either bad imitations or new ugly looking rotring pencils. Stationeries were dark and lonely when they didn’t have a pencil for me. I had almost given up. But as I was driving today, my car took me to that old stationery where we used to buy school supplies. It was where I got my first rotring, 6.5 LE at the time. My dad bought it for me and I still remember the day. I went inside and asked the shop keeper “do you have a staedtler pencil?” I didn’t expect a pleasing answer. He looked at me with sorry eyes and answered “only 0.5 mm.” Be still my beating heart! He showed it to me, they had only five and I picked the dark blue with my eyes closed, bought it in 2 minutes, and here I am, reunited with my staedtler pencil. I couldn’t wait to get home and write again, to hold it again. As soon as I got in the house I told my mother, “I got a new pencil” and her answer was, “why didn’t you take one of your father’s pencils, they’re in his closet!” Curiosity got the best of me, I searched for all my father’s pencils and couldn’t find any of the day to day use ones, only ones in expensive sets that I don’t dare use. I opened the closet, unzipped the bag, got the pencils out and looked at them. Four Cross pencils, silver and gold plated, hidden away in this closet for 15 years, and I had to go two days without pencil!
Tongue tied and dazzled, I had only one thought: Why didn’t God make men more like pencils so I could marry a Cross instead of fall in love with a Staedtler!
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