09 April 2012

The Pencil

I have this pencil.

It has a slender black body, once shiny but my fingers have long since worn off the finish. It had a pink clip on it, which I accidentally broke at Bible study during prayer and the broken piece clattered quite loudly onto the floor at my feet.
It has a matching pink finger grip, which heats up and and begins to slide down over the point if I use it long enough and then I have to push it back up on the body every once in a while so I can keep control of the thing.

The eraser is flat and unusable, formerly white but stained with graphite grey and a bit yellowed from its travels. The bit of plastic that holds what's left of the eraser in place is cracked in two places and there's a small dent in it too.

It takes 0.7mm lead refills and I have probably half a dozen of those little plastic containers with spare leads strewn about my room and across various bags because I'm paranoid about running out of lead at any moment (even though at almost any given moment I also have half a dozen pens on my person). It's been with me on countless forays into town for errands, it's put many pages of math behind it, it's been a part of many, many letters to my childhood friend, it's been on several youth camping trips, it's been to Vancouver with me, to the labyrinth where we played broom hockey in the pouring rain, to the beach where I watched the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen in my entire life (still kicking myself for not bringing the camera), to the little church where we made lunch and mixed gallons and gallons of juice for the kids to keep hydrated in forty-degree weather. Come to think of it, it probably came to Kelowna with me to visit my great-uncle and great-aunt when I was eleven.

I've had it for probably about nine years now.

But lately it has been showing signs of being discontent with writing choreography and jotting down email addresses of other artists I happen to meet and is making attempts at escaping.

No less than three times today it has been sitting on my desk, beside my computer -- its usual place -- and I've accidentally bumped it and it's fallen off.

No less than three times today I've had to get on my hands and knees and crawl about on the floor to find it, only to find it several feet away from where it would have fallen. (It's worth noting that my floor is carpeted.)

In fact, the last time I ended up nearly tearing my room apart looking for the stupid thing before I finally found it hiding deep within the recesses of my messenger bag -- way over at the other end of the desk.

It's now directly in the middle of the desk, right in my sightline as I touch-type this.

And so help me it is not. going. anywhere.

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