Might Over Matter

I've always been a little bit of a pen fanatic. The feeling of ink gliding across a smooth surface to produce something I created gives me a buzz unlike any other. My cigarettes and drink can't compare to the natural high I've honed from putting pen to paper. After careful consideration and minutes-to-years of testing and teasing, a pen has found it's way into my arsenal for good. The Bic Atlantis. It is a sleek extra finger used solely for spreading my mind across space. I doubt it will ever fail me.

Having found such a phenomenal pen put me into a ridiculous and unfounded predicament. I became bored with regular paper. Actual weeks were spent learning how to and then subsequently producing my own paper from trees I cut down in a section of woods I probably wasn't supposed to be in behind my grandmother's apartment complex. They all turned out small and brownish and barely resembled paper at all. More closely related to coffee filters, I'd say. So I wrote on these for a while and I was loving it. I felt a sort of bliss that is felt by people who pretend to accomplish things. It was pure joy in a simple form.

As I have grown accustomed to doing, I became complacent with my created paper. It, too, began to feel like just paper to me. I was writing a massive story and throwing it out every day. The pen was the pinnacle but the medium was unsettling. Where once stood a man, stood an indecisive shambling mess of a struggling writer. Though I did not struggle with content, but channel. Never requiring inspiration for my stories, I was festering in my home, languishing in my inability to innovate. In a fervor I grabbed my coat and stormed out into the winter storm and walked in no direction in particular. After a few blocks my feet forgot about inertia and allowed the slick ice hidden under the soft snow to up end me. Twisting unnaturally in the air, and without proper attire, I landed hard on my side, and scraped a good bit of my naive skin off my right palm. Knelt in the snow like a clown, I gripped my ribs and my head at the same time and noticed a little droplet of my warm blood interrupt the peaceful colorlessness the snow was enjoying. I let it drip in different spots, drawing circles and squares and altogether unheard of shapes. Probably heard of, but not by me, or people who don't frequently think about shapes. I signed my name at the bottom with my DNA and then I sat still for a while and counted my breaths. Gathering myself up, I rushed home and washed up, forgoing speech and thought and writing for clean up and sleep. Dreams rushed to me of a group of painters with easels in a field of colorful wheat. The field was on a rock suspended above a whirling yellow pool. It was all pleasant and still, yet moving just the same. My hibernation ended.

Seasons were allowed to change as they normally do before I finally had a solid replacement for everyday normal paper. Mid-spring would be my incredible new debut! Walking aimlessly, my hands resting in my pockets, I wandered the city in a white t-shirt and jeans; no destination but with immeasurable purpose. Something caught my eye as if a movie camera were focused on it. Part of a discarded church flyer, bent in half and bearing shoe marks, entirely un-literally spoke to me. I snatched it up without hesitation and sat down on the nearest curb. The honking horn of the car pulled me out of my trance momentarily to realize that I had stumbled into the middle of a busy intersection to grab my treasure. Whatever, I was busy. So my butt rest painfully on the concrete sidewalk as I set to work. I filled up as much empty space on that flyer as I could. Before you knew it, an entire six paragraphs of one chapter were plastered upon this discarded relic. This wandering library. Not wanting to burden the public with my trepidation, I immediately released it for publication. I kept all the proceeds and eliminated all middlemen. As the wind picked up I tossed the flyer back into the air and walked away. Simultaneously, litter had gained worth and I had gained stardom. In anticipation of my meteoric rise I asked the closest person if they had heard of Hamilton Byrnes. The answer fell on deaf ears as I had scittered off to write paragraphs seven through nine on the margin of a grocery store receipt. I left it stuck to a branch of a tree sprouted mid-sidewalk. I was finally doing my part. I was finally doing my pen justice.