New Pen
By Paul Ewen.
I was finding it difficult to make contact with writers like me, so I started hanging around the pen section of my local stationery shop.
It was difficult to know which customers were genuinely talented wordsmiths, so I questioned them all, holding my flat pressed hands towards them, as if preparing to dive down their trousers. Success, I knew, would only come about with perseverance, and with all the setbacks and brush-offs, I held my ground, lurking keenly around the pen display for long days on end.
Attached to the shelving where the pens were displayed was a small strip of paper that was covered in squiggly lines of varying colours. It was a test surface for pen customers to utilise, and while waiting for fellow comrades to engage with, I carefully unfastened this strip, turned it over and reaffixed it. Now presented with a fresh clean space, I decided to test one of the pens. Rather than simply doing a short, jerking, squiggly line however, I decided to test the pen properly. So I began writing a story.
The story was about a man who brushes his eyes with his toothbrush and as a result he is able to see through women’s clothing. I wrote in very tiny neat letters in order to fit the entire story on the back of the strip of test paper. It was a very good story.
The pen, I thought, worked ok, and the ink was black, as indicated by the colour of the cap. Also, the ball inside the nib seemed to roll smoothly. But it was quite expensive, so I decided to pay a visit to other stationery shops in order to compare prices and extend my net in the search for fellow writers. At each establishment I tested the pens by turning over the paper strips provided and writing a new story.
Some of the stories I wrote were quite rude, some used swear words, and others said not very nice things about people that I don’t like. All of the pens worked well, and by a process of elimination I managed to find the most reasonably priced instrument to suit my requirements.
After a short period of time had passed, someone borrowed this pen of mine without returning it, so I had to go back to the stationery shop for a new one. I was surprised to notice that there were now a lot of CCTV cameras set up near the pen shelves and racks. And there seemed to be more stationery staff milling around and they were scrunching their hands.
Based on my previous experience, I was in the enviable position of knowing exactly which pen I wanted. However, there was always the possibility that the ball in the nib of the particular pen I chose would be jammed. The test surface was covered in the usual squiggly lines, scribbled in various colours of ink. I carefully pulled the strip off and reaffixed it with its gleaming underside revealed. Then I began writing a new story entitled “Fuck the Police”.
As I stood there, slightly hunched over to write, a member of staff approached me.
“Excuse me, sir, what are you doing?”
I stopped writing for a minute and looked up at the young man. He was furiously scrunching his hands.
“I’m testing out this pen” I replied.
He stepped further forward and peered closely at my unfinished story.
“That says “fuck the police” he said.
I shrugged and bent back down to continue writing.
But the young salesman leaned around me and began to unfix the strip of paper. Before I could stop him, he’d reapplied it to the shelf, revealing the squiggly marks again.
I remained silent as he took the pen out of my hand and added a little black squiggle to the others on the strip.
“You do it like that, ok? Now I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Ewen is the author of London Pub Reviews. He is a New Zealander, currently residing in South London.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Tuesday, March 9th, 2010.
