LESLEY CORINA

 

 Parker

 

published in CERN ZOO NEMONYMOUS NINE 2009 - Published by Des Lewis

 

My eyesight isn't what it used to be. I think 10 years consistently using a computer has made them weak and the lenses hard. So I don't see too well. I also get headaches when I look at the screen for long periods. So I've stopped. And with that single action I thought that my world would end. But it didn't.

     I took to a pen again. My father had left me this in his will. It's a silver Parker with a genuine gold nib. Its lines are sleek, feminine and yet cigar shaped. More phallic than womanly you could argue. The edges are tapered and while not soft, they curve and allow your fingers to trace the etched lines along the case. Up and down, round and along until after a series of twists and turns, you come back to where you started from.

     And that's what happened to me. I'm back where I started - with a pen in hand trying to write prose. Well, I did start with a pencil at school, but that wasn't really writing. My first essay was written with a pen after it had been thrust into a stained and chipped inkwell that was such a part of the desks of my youth. The pen scratched and left blobs of ink all along the page. Blobs that I would then smudge with my sleve making the appearance of my juvenile prose so much worse that it actually was. And now as I transcribe a few lines the ink flows smoothly, evenly, the result of precision engineering that my nib and I could only dream of all thoes years ago.

     Even the ink has improved. Instead of that dark sinister black, I've got the choice of a range of blues and blue-blacks that dry on the page to a regal commanding hue. No more spldges when I rest the pen. No matter how I angle my lettering or bash the pen on the paper the line remains constant. No matter what pressure. No matter how carelessley I run my arm across the page. The ink dries on contact and stays only where I place it.

     I write for a morning and then a day. When night falls I am in my stride and the ink in my pen is still not half consumed. I fill page and page after page and my prose flows as the ink rolls over the pristine paper leaving the words I dictate and nothing else. No other hint to pass comment on the writing process. No splodges to make my words link where I didn't want them to. This is all too easy. Easy on the mind. Easy on the digets, in fact writing's a pleasure for the fingers. Easy on the electricity bill. And especially easy on the eyes.

     I continue to pen my prose, filling page after page after page and only then do I need to stop to refill. It's simplicity itself. The only complication is which ink shall I chose. Do I continue, as I am, with blue-black? Or shall I reflect the contrast in my prose with a change of colour. Perhaps I can emphasise it using the ever so much more imposing black-blue ink that I've yet to try? No, the true beauty is the consistency, so as the story is still unfolding, I will continue with my original choice.

     First I remove the top from my pot of liquid-language. Taking care not to knock it over and spill the precious contents. I rest the golden tip on the surface of the dark mysterious liquid. A liquid that brings words to life. I know this because as I peer into the bottle I can see every story that I've yet to write swimming blissfully in the lustrous viscous heaven just waiting for me to release them.

     It is now that I notice that the tip is barely touching the top of the ink and that from my angle the surface tension doesn't even look broken. I slide my index finger along the silver casing as I feel for the lever. Using the tip of my nail and the gentlest of pressure I raise the lever as the pen sucks the words into its thirsty body through the shining nib. When the angle of the lever tells me that it's full, I gently lower it back to its resting position. I remove the pen from the ink pot. I dab the nib on a corner of my blotting paper and then lay it to rest while I secure the magic fluid. Job done, I return to my writing.

     Without the disruption of the flickering computer screne I write and write and write until I'm all written out. And as I finish my prose I notice for the first time that my right hand is moist with sweat from holding the pen. This is not something that I remember from my school days. Did my hand sweat when I was younger? Is that why my essays were always so splodgy?

     But now, as I notice the damp pen in my damp palm I think back to a time long since forgotten. The ghosts of memories stir. Ghostly reminders reflected in my Parker as very wet ghosts dance around my fingers.