An icy fog spreads across the windowpane expeditiously, blurring the crystal glass with a frigid breath I have been holding in for a long time. Wiping the glass clean, I gaze out across the flawless, snow covered wonderland, searching for a sign of imperfection. Turning my head ever so slightly, I still see nothing. The hill is now leveled with the ground, the snow so deep it could drown someone. Turning to the right, though, a six-inch wonder rests atop the frosty surface.
The metal tip glistening under the twinkle of the stars, its polished surface reflects enough light to make the whole ground appear ablaze in a royal blue. All for that pen, I would dress in my winter garments and trudge through the bottomless snow. All this just to pick up that pen.
To others, a pen is just an ordinary object used for a child’s drawing, or to write an essay. To me, a pen is much more. A pen is the heart, the representation of the very essence of the writer inside me. A pen is the object I pick up when I see something worth remembering, something I need to write about. A pen is a splash of ink on paper when the cartridge breaks. A pen is the tool used by Mark Twain himself. I’ve used a pen, just like a real writer. That is my first step to realizing my dream as a writer of eminence. To fill the colossal shoes of the greats who went before me.
I stare at the pen, making eye contact with the inanimate object. Though the pen does not breathe, and the pen cannot think, the pen and I still manage to have an ineffable connection. There is a romance to that pen. It is the only disruption in a midnight snowfall. A perfected icy wonderland, with solely one inadequacy. Although it is a flaw in the immaculate, powdery floor, it is flawless in itself. It was meant to be there, meant to be seen through my window. Meant to be picked up. Meant to be used. Meant to be my gateway to recognition for my collections.
In the morning I will dig in that exact spot, adjacent to the driveway. I will find that pen, and write about it. Write about what it can write for me. What it does for me. What its brothers and sisters have done for me. Where they have gotten me. The words they have taught me. What on Earth would I do, without a pen?