My Grandfather’s Pen
Grandfather’s favourite pen—it’s quite an antique piece which was better suited in a museum than in my hands, but I was holding it anyway. I was alone at home and my parents along with my grandfather had gone out to do ‘something’ important. They had asked me to go along with them, but since such ‘things of importance’ and boredom go hand in hand, I had decided to stay back and not go with them. What else other than some official work could they be going to do, right?
Coming back to the pen, I was seeking it solely because I had been told repeatedly not to do so. It was kept safely on the highest shelf in the house, but I was innovative in my ways too. I used both a chair and a stool, placed them one on top of the other, climbed up and I had safely taken the pen from its place. I could also put it back in the same way, but I had to do something with it first.
And so I was holding the pen. It was an old fountain pen, and it had only a little ink inside of it, as I judged by giving it a shake. Grandfather writes with this pen sometimes, so it was not unusual. I tried writing with it, but I had only made some ink blotches so far. But again, it was very beautiful with intricate carvings of geometric shapes on it. In my attempts to write with it, I had used up all the ink in it, and so I hurried off to grandfather’s room since I knew he kept ink bottles there specifically for this pen. His desk has a few drawers in which he keeps all sorts of things. I opened one and I found an ink bottle with its seal broken from earlier too, much to my advantage.
I placed the ink bottle on the desk and prepared a fresh new page to experiment on. But before I could begin, there were two things left to do—the first one was to actually figure out how to refill the pen with ink without damaging it, and the second one was to close the drawer as it was.
I chose the latter one to do first. However, instead of closing the drawer the normal way, I pushed it hard to slam it shut on an impulse. This careless action caused the ink bottle to topple over and fall from the desk. In an instant, reflex kicked in and I thrust the precious pen away to save the ink bottle instead. I did manage to save the ink bottle from crashing into the ground. A delay of just a few moments would have been too late. I placed the ink bottle on the desk again. A drop of sweat trickled down my cheek, and my heartbeat began to relax. I gave out a sigh of relief. But then it struck my mind, “Where did the pen go?”
I remembered that I had thrust the pen away in order to catch the falling ink bottle. But where could it land? It was not on the desk. A search around the desk proved futile. But one side of the desk was pressed very close to the wall. So, I squatted down and pressed my head against the wall and examined the small gap between the desk and the wall with one eye. My fears came true. The pen was there out of all places.
