Pens ~ A Narrative

  I have an abundance of pens. Every color, every shape, pens and pencils in every imaginable size, used and not yet used… My entire office is filled with them. What a weird thing to collect, some might think. Why wouldn’t you collect something with value, something like fine vases, paintings or even expensive cups? But my beloved pens are  just like any other collection in the world. My pens are something special to me, and every single one has a story.

  The yellow one with small flowers on it, I got for my birthday five years ago. My daughter gave it to me, saying she knew that I loved pens “almost as much as you love me and mommy”. Yellow is her favorite color, and thus I keep it in the pen stand on my desk, at a spot where I can see it no matter where in the room I am.

In the bottom drawer, there is an old lead pencil, only a centimetre long, rolling around without a case. It was the first pen I bought when I started college, and the only one I used during the first three weeks.

  I don’t think I have ever thrown a pen away.

  I got the blue one on my desk during the first date I went on with my wife. She picked it up from the ground, where it had rested between a small twig and a piece of chewed gum, astonished that someone would throw such a fine object away so carelessly. She smiled as she gave it to me, and it has been with me ever since.

  The problem with collecting pens however, is that they’re ordinary. When someone dies and leaves a collection of art, no one questions whether they should be kept or not, same goes for a collector’s edition of fine cutlery.  But pens are ordinary. When I die, who will keep my collection? My ordinary pens, representing parts of an extraordinary life… Only a few will understand the value of a pen.

  A pen is a very ordinary object, when held in the hand of any one person. But give a pen to a person harboring an idea, and watch the world change around you. An invention, a drawing, a book or a poem, the first draft to an excellent movie… Everything is lost without a pen. Without a way to express them, thoughts remain inside us, and even though it is said that you can’t kill an idea, you can certainly kill the person harboring it.

  When it is my time to go, and none of the ideas left in my head will ever be put to paper, who will take on my collection? For pens are, after all,  such ordinary objects. Aren’t they?

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

It was an old mirror, victorian with silver edges, curls adding up to something that made the silhuett of the ocean. He knew at once, it was the one. She would love it, the perfect gift for the perfect woman. He brought it to the cashier and asked about it.

”It's from like.. the 20's or something, used to hang in Crawford Manor. Nice piece, just the right amount of creepy.” the cashier said, smiling toward Dominic.

”I actually find it beautiful.” Dominic replied, smiling at the young woman.”Did you know, back in the day people used to say that mirrors were powerful enough to trap a soul, once it had been released from it's body?”
”You mean when the person was dead, the soul went into the mirror?”
”Yes. They even went far enough that they covered every reflecting surface in their homes to make sure the people they loved made it to heaven.” Dominic said as the cashier wrapped paper around the mirror and put it in a bag with the thrift store's name on it, Out With the Old.

”People do have a tendency to take the occult to strange levels.” the cashier smiled as he payed for the mirror.

”Have a nice day sir!” she shouted as the door to the stor swung shut between him and her, and Dominic felt a smile on his lips. Few things could brighten his day as much as friendly people. He knew that it was part of her job to treat customers well and be kind to them, but he could also tell it was in her character. He had what some called ”people skills”. Personally, he preferred to say that he had the ability to read people.

He walked down the street in a leasury pace; at his age, there was no longer a place to hurry to. He had come to the point where he realised that time was something fluent and bendy, and that every man himself decided when he was late and when he wasn't. Also, he had no power over time, and no matter how much the younger men he met when taking his walks, rushed down the street to get from place to pace... Dominic never decided to speed up.

Amelia waited for him when he got home. She was the perfect definition of a grandmother; she wore an apron with a pattern of red squares, her hair was thin and grey even though it was long, black and thick the day she first had met Dominic. A smell of freshly baked cookies surrounded her wherever she went. Unfortunately, Amelia never had the chance to becoma a grandmother; she and Dominic had been unable to concieve. Instead, they became the friendly, elderly couple that everyone felt free to send their kids to if they needed a babysitter.

”Dominic!” she smiled toward him, and every time she smiled, the years melted away before Dominics eyes. Amelia would always be 17 to him, she would never change. As long as her eyes sparkled with laughter and joy, she was always just a darkhaired teenage beauty with her whole life ahead of her.

”I brought you something.” Dominic knew his wife loved surprises, and she had been talking about getting a mirror for the hallway for such a long time..

”It's perfect.” Amelia breathed as he showed her.”It will fit perectly above the dresser.” Dominic got a hammer and a nail, and soon the couple were standing in front of their new purchase, admiring the skillful craft around the edges of it.

”The frame is a masterpiece.” Amelia smiled and kissed her husband's cheek. None of them noticed the small silhuett of a woman in the corner of the mirror, slightly grey, frozen solid, like she had been painted there.

”Mirror, mirror of them all, who's the farest of them all?” Amelia joked, and Dominic laughed when answering in a deep voice.

”You, my dear, is farest of them all.”

The painted woman in the glass flinched.

”I once was lost, but now, I'm found. Was blind, but now I see...” the hymn was one of the dearest ones to Amelia, and she sang it while taking the cookies out of the oven. Dominic had gone to one of the neighbour's, Patrick and Stacy's, to have a late night drink with Patrick. Amelia was baking for the Church's bake sale.

The reflection in mirror shifted, Amelia could have sworn it. She could barely see it from the kitchen, in the corner of her eye, but she saw it. There was a beam of light roaming through her new mirror. But Amelia was a rational woman, and she just shook it off like a duck shakes water from her feathers. She happily went about baking, not noticing the dark shadow that slipped out of her new mirror, down to the floor into a puddle of pure darkness. It floated, just about an inch over the floor.

Amelia, unknowingly sang without hesitation, not knowing that in the seconds that followed a figure took shape in their hallway. It had a hoarse voice, like it hadn't spoken in decades. It looked like a woman, but the cold that came from her, glowing around her like the faint glow of an old lightbulb. And it spoke, chanted, the same verse over and over and over, whispering...

”Bloody Mary bloody Mary, coarsing blood, bloody Mary bloody Mary, none understood, bloody Mary bloody Mary, up to no good.” she giggled, and transformed from a woman into a blackhaired woman in to a little girl with even darker hair, a white top and a pair of blue pants. After the change she let Amelia notice her.

”Are you lost, sweetheart?” Amelia asked.”Are you the daughter of the new family on the other side of the road?”
”I know what you did, Amelia.” the girl said.”I know about the camaro and the little girl in red.”

”What are you talking about?” Amelia stuttered.

”The girl in red, long gone, dead.” the girl mumbled.”And you are about to become just the same.”

”No.. It was an accident!”
”You're a killer, Amelia.”

”No! She came out of nowhere, it was a mistake!”

”Murder, bloody Murder!”

And the girl changed again, for the last time. Her nails grew longer, her mouth wider and her teeth grew pointy and greenish. Amelia stumbled backwards, hitting her lower back against the dishwasher.

”The family never got to say their goodbyes.. Now I'm here to take your eyes.”

They say when bloody Mary starts scratching, she doesn't stop until she claws right through your skull, into your brain and out the back of your head. That was exactly how Dominic found his wife. The wounds were still fresh, her skull pooring blood onto the floor.

There were two holes in her head, clawed with almost surgical skill; two cylindric empty spaces right where her eyes used to be.

Eternal Love

I have always been able to hear them, see them, witness their existance like few others can. Ghosts, I mean. I never tell anyone else. I tried, once, in second grade. That resulted in me having to go to a therapist for almost a year.I woke up at dusk after my first night in the house my father assisted me in buying a few weeks ago. The darkness was still filling my room, and I could barely see. But I was able hear. I ran my fingers across the walls, when following the noises. Cooing, fluttering of small wings. I recognized the noises immeaditly. Pigeons. More than a few. Coming inside the walls of my new home.

Suddenly, the noises from the pigeons disappeared. The silence seemed odd. I wondered so how pigeons had gotten inside the walls of our house.

My father was already awake, sitting in the kitchen when I came down the stairs. He greated me with a cup of warm coffee. I decided to tell him about the pigeons; after all, I had gotten my gift of witnessing the dead ones in limbo.

”Dad. I heard pigeons this morning.” I said. He looked at me in confusion.”From inside the walls.”
”Oh dear Lord. We should never had chosen to buy an old house.” he muttered.

”Just be happy that it's just pigeons. There could have been a dead army, a woman who murdered her whole family.” I smiled.

”Yes. You do remember grandma's house?” dad grunted.”Half a platon of dead soldiers from the civil war.”

”It could have been a lot worse. But do you happen to know if there are any original drawings of the house left here?” I asked.

”Yes, probably in the livingroom in the drawer in the bookshelf.” he said.”Just tell me if you need anything else.”

”Actually, I think you can go home, back to mom again.” I answered.”I bet she misses you.”

”Are you sure you will be alright then?”

”Of course, dad. I'm an adult now. Sooner or later, you are going to have to let go anyway.” I laughed softly and kissed him on the cheek.”Besides, all that's left to do, is unpack.”

”If you say so.” he smiles, and I watch him exit the house after grabbing his coat and his baseball cap from the single nail in the wall in my hallway. After hearing the slight roar of his old Honda Civic, I enter the livingroom, immeaditly aiming for the bookshelf.

Dad's directions turned out to be true. There were original drawings of the house, placed inside an envelope. I could feel the paper's age between my fingers, and I suddenly felt the spirits of every single person who had touched these drawings. A young boy, an older man, an angry woman, a joyful grandmother showing it to her grandchildren, perhaps telling stories about the old house to them.

I studied them for a long time. The only difference I noticed, exepct the neccessary renovations that had been made right before the house was sold, was that one of the balconys had been taken down. Why, I couldn't imagine. Maybe there had been new laws for architecture, and suddenly the balcony was no longer deemed safe enough.

I sighed. These drawings gave me no new information. I decided to make an omelette and study the matter mentally instead. Why would I be hearing pigeons? And, a more important question: where did they come from? The thought struck me, that they might actually be inside the wall. I had recently read an article about a woman who found a dead pig inside her wall. But that had been a mistake, the pig had ran away and gotten stuck inside a small crawl space, which was later on filled with cement. Then I realised that no builders would be stupid enough not to notice when at least twenty pigeons flew into a house half built. Still, the thought of having a house built from dead birds, was very unsettling.

I ate my omelette, still wondering, and went about my day. I started unpacking, which was the most pressing matter in my life at the moment. I decided to start with unpacking my clothes and my technology. My computer was placed on my desk, together with my phone and a few other things, and my clothes was promptly placed on hangers and hung in my closet in my upstairs bedroom.

When placing my last shirt against the wall, I heard them again. The pigeons had returned.

I placed my hand agains the wall, closed my eyes and listened. I listened with more than just my ears. My grandmother had often described it as listening with your body and soul, the thing she and I did when looking for lost souls. I heard the flutter of wings, the soft cooing of sleepy pigeons, and suddenly there was something more. Something, that was not a bird. Something much, much bigger than a bird. I turned around, and stopped looking for the birds. I had found something else to concentrate on.

I did not have to open my eyes to know she was there. Looking at me with confusion in her eyes. Not understanding how I was able to acknowledge her prescence, something so many others had failed with, and I wondered if she had attempted to contact others, still living.

When I opened my eyes, I noticed her beauty. Her dark eyes, fixated on me. Her dark hair, hanging loose over her back, her mouth slighly open in surprise, her collarbones, barely visible beneath pale skin. The darkness around her eyes let me know that she had suffered before her death, but not physically.

”Are you here to bring him home?” she whispered, her pale, thin arms reaching for me.”He is coming home soon.” Her voice cracked and she burst into tears. I stood still, patiently waiting. Her story was important, everything she was able to tell me, vital.

”He is coming home soon.” she repeated, suddenly calm once more. This was the problem with ghosts. Very few had the ability to use the same brain capacity they had possessed when they had been alive, which resulted in them often repeating the same things over and over again, stuck in patterns, sometimes for hundreds of years.

”Who is coming home soon?” I tried.”Who are you?”

She was clearly able to recognize my existance in the room, focusing her dark brown eyes directly on me, almost staring. She knew who I was, I'm sure of it.

”Dead.” she said.”They all died, and I never helped. They're dead.”

And with that, she was gone. I sighed. Sometimes, being able to see other things than mere people can, was a burden. The repetitive patterns, the very small amounts of information I was ever able to extract from the people whom I was supposed to help. What I did, was very hard. And the things I had to experience while doing it, was often times even harder.

I grunted, going down the stairs, and into the livingroom. The following items I wanted to unpack, were my books. I owned hundreds of books, because when I was younger, I had heard that in orde to be a good writer, you needed to read a lot. Thus, I read all the great works of every author I could find: Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, Robin Hood... Every piece of classic litterature you can imagine, and hundreds of more. Alltogether, I doubted that the number of books I had read was below a thousand.

I picked up my own work first. I always kept a hard copy of every single one of my books, so that I could read them, and see how I could perfect my own storytelling. Being a successful author at the age of twentyone, had it's benefits: a lot more years to come when I could write even more. Books named Dead Man at Dusk, Murderous Mistress, The Mollaway Hound and a whole lot more was stacked into my shelves, all bearing my own name. I wrote both novels and collections of short stories.

As soon as The Mollaway Hound had been put in place, I heard a roaring, and another drawer in my bookshelf flew open. Out flew pieces of paper, someone impatient for me to see something I had yet not noticed. Probably the woman upstairs.

When looking at the papers, I noticed a womans handwriting, signed Eleanor LaBelle. French, I though. Why am I not surprised? French women are always so dramatic.

I picked up a total of ten papers, and soon noticed they were all letters, every single one adressed to a man named James. What a generic name for an englishman, I thought to myself when starting to read the first letter.

12.12.1862

Oh, James, how I miss you. I do hope that you will return soon, and bring me back with you, to this wonderful place called America. Here at home, they say all dreams come true, and that finding gold is as easy as finding a child in a lower class family.

Is it as wonderful as you pictured? Are the hills as green, the earth as giving as you hoped? For your sake, I hope that the sun sings you awake every morning, and the moon guards you every night. I hope that our good Lord is with you every step of your way, and that you will find everything you dreamed of finding.

Yours forever, Eleanor

14.3.1863

Word has been brought to me that the civil war has now fully errupted. Oh, if I only knew you were well. It is so hard to sleep, when the man you love is fighting for his beliefs in a country far away. How I wish our paths will cross again soon. I am still wearing your ring, it still...

The rest of the letter had been destroyed by age. I looked in the pile for a more recent letter, and within a minute of searching, I found the youngest one, with the date 5.6.1866.

I am still waiting for you. My heart aches, my lung find it hard to breathe when you are not here. My heart still beats, my body is still young, but every day you are away, my soul becomes that of an old woman: whittering away into nothingness. Oh, how I wish I would hear from you. Every night, I dream of your appearance on the grass. Every day I wait in the pigeon loft, waiting for your letters...

”Pigeon loft.” I noticed, muttering.”I don't have a...”

A thought struck me, with such intense force, that I stumbled towards the coffe table, ignoring the fact that I hit my knee against the open drawer in my bookshelf. I grabbed the drawings of the house, and gasped when I noticed what I had missed before.

Beside the now a days missing balcony, was a small room drawn, so small that I had not noticed it the first time I looked over the drawings. Pigeon lofts were rarely built into the house, but it happened. I swallowed hard. Maybe she was... Maybe Eleanor was still waiting there. Waiting for her James to come home from America. To bring her with him, to the place where all their dreams would come true.

I ran upstairs, holding the drawings of the house in one hand, finding my way through the hallway. Approximately fifteen feet after the door leading to my bedroom, I stopped. When I concentrated, I was able to see a slight indentation in the wall, in the exact shape of a square. This must have been the door, I thought to myself. I wonder if the workers had the time to check if the pigeon loft was empty. Probably not. I knew for a fact that the first owners of the house had died off, and that it had been empty for several years. When it was time to sell it again in 1920, who was to say everything had been checked?

I remembered placing an old hatchet in one of the many storages in the basement, and went and got it promptly. My hands trembled slightly when I lifted it, and started striking towards the door, exitement and small particles of the walls of my home filling my lungs. I feared for what I would find inside. I feared that I would find nothing at all. There was nothing that would scare me as much as finding nothing. Finding out that I had imagined the whole thing. The only thing that had kept me feeling sane over the years had been the solid evidence I found for my ghosts' existence. As odd as it would have sounded if I had told anyone about it: I was wishing for a skeleton.

The door caved in surprisingly easily. As soon as the dust settled, I stepped inside, and the first thing I noticed was the window. Shining light into the old balcony door, and I realised how funny it was. I had seen the door from the outside, but never given it a second thought why it was there. Strange, the things we never pay attention to.

I noticed the pigeons second. The explanations to the sounds. One by one, they had died off, left inside small cages. And soon enough, I also noticed that Eleanor had been keeping them company all these years. Just like I had believed, I found her body on a chair in the corned of the room. What was left of it anyway. I sighed, and for a short moment, I admired the dress she had died wearing. Red, with the smallest purple flowers imaginable. I smiled, and I knew just what to do to make Eleanor move on from limbo. But first, I had to clean out the dead pigeons.

She was buried the same evening I found her. In the protection of the darkness, I settled her body into the ground into a grave I dug with my own hands. A smile lingered over my lips when I felt her presence, so much stronger than before, and for the first time in around a hundred years, the soul of Eleanor LaBelle was free. When I turned around, her appearance had changed. Her dress was now perfectly clean, her eyes had no longer dark rings beneath them, and her lips formed a beautiful, bright smile.

”I am ever so grateful.” she said. I smiled towards her and nodded.

”Thank you for this favor. I hope the home of my family will be just as good of a home to you as it was to me.” Eleanor smiled.”Thanks to you, I will be able to re-unite with my James.”
Her eyes wandered to a point in the dark forest, and she smiled as she faded into the night, clearly seeing something I was not able to. Maybe the soul of her dead fiancé had finally come for her.

It hit me. All these years, he had been waiting as well. In a place without her, not knowing if she was well, or if he would ever see her again, just like she had been waiting for him, he had been waiting for her. Waiting for a lover who might never show up. Now, I could only hope they had been re-united. United in a place to which I did not know, but I hoped it would be just as beautiful as their love for eachother.

I smiled softly towards the dark forest, and sighed as I turned around and walked back into my house. When inside, I locked the door, I sat down at my computer and started writing another one of my bestselling collections of short stories.

I have always been able to hear them, see them, witness their existance...