Skip to main content

The pen hadn’t been worth stealing

     The pen hadn’t been worth keeping, it was just a regular ballpoint pen with chew marks all over it from years of chewy thinking between note-taking. Yet here he was, looking under his desk and in his bag for the billionth time for the only pen he owned. Or, as it seemed to be getting clearer and clearer to him as the minutes ticked by, the only pen he used to own. 


He groaned and dug in his bag until he found a mechanical pencil. This would have to do. As he put pencil to paper, he heard a soft, almost bell-like giggle over his left shoulder. He looked, only to find the person behind him asleep, and behind her, a window, where a small puff from a dandelion flew by outside in the wind.


He shook his head, shrugging it off, and went back to his test- half marked in pen, half in pencil.


After the day was over and he was home, he dumped his bag onto the floor and rifled through the contents. Where was his pen? He had dropped it halfway through the test and had believed it had fallen into his bag, but that was becoming increasingly clear that wasn’t the case. 


The pen was gone to the void. 


That night, his dreams were plagued by bell-like giggles, falling dandelion fluff, missing pens, and fairies dancing in pools of pen ink. When he woke, he couldn’t remember any of it but could remember that it was weird. 


That day, as he searched his bag for his mechanical pencil, he came across his pen; still chewed, still just an ordinary, blue, ballpoint pen, but now, it had a few flecks of…glitter? Where did the glitter come from?


He shrugged. Oh well, his little sister probably found it and returned it to his bag - she was always covered in glitter, after all.


He turned his attention to the front of the room, absent-mindedly chewing on the pen as class dragged on, the bell-like giggling returning for a second, if that, before disappearing until he lost the next small thing.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This wasn't an ordinary murder

      As the police officer uncovered the body, she knew this was no ordinary murder. The way the body looked drawn up and dry like it'd been weeks since the date of death, despite the body being only a day old told her it had to be some sicko at the least, but more likely, some supernatural entity had killed this young man.     She recovered the body, deciding that forensics could handle the body, and she could give her two cents if asked. She wasn't a detective, after all.     However, she could still investigate the murder. That was her job as a police officer, after all.      She wrote her report, then went back to the station. At the station, she started her research. She looked up anything she could think of that could have done this to the victim.     She researched all manner of cannibalistic monsters. She was there for so long, the shift change happened around her, catching her off guard

She's not afraid of anything

       The four kids huddled around the small flame of the candle, hoping their bodies would be enough to shield the tiny flame from the massive winds.      "So." One of them, a small boy with mousey brown hair and eyes to match, started. "We know that all of us see the monster differently."     "Yes." The kid next to him, a smaller girl with wide, blue eyes and blonde pigtails agreed. "I've never seen a snake so big!"     "Right." A second boy with curly, ginger hair and blue eyes responded. "And I saw a big, big dog."     "The first boy spoke again to bring up, "I saw my doctor with a needle bigger than his arm."     The ginger boy looked at the last child, a girl with short, brown hair and green eyes. "What did you see, Adeline," he asked her.     She looked up from where she had been playing with a bug, trying to get it to crawl onto a stick she'd found nearby. "Oh, I-I haven't see...

He wanted to tell him how much he loved him, but...

  The way the light of the setting sun washed over his face as he animatedly explained the plot of this new book in his favorite series made John look radiant, Thomas would go so far as to say divine, even, and when the light breeze blew John’s shaggy, chestnut brown hair out of his face, revealing his adorable freckles, Thomas almost felt his heart explode. Thomas wanted to tell John he loved him, but the thought of John being quiet, even just long enough to listen, didn’t seem worth it. So, Thomas just admired the man next to him on the pier, falling more and more in love with every syllable John spoke. “Boys!” The two men looked behind them to Susan, pushing the baby stroller past the pier. “It’s getting late, the twins are asleep, let’s go home!” John smiled at Thomas, who smiled back. They nodded to each other, and walked off the pier, hand in hand, back to their girlfriend.  During the short walk, Thomas squeezed John’s hand, trying to transfer all of his affection for J...