Saya Sebatang Pen, 18 Years Later
Tags: Pen, Short Story, Malaysia, Nostalgia, Short Fiction

*The 18 Years Later series consists of the writer reimagining Malaysian childhood essays as an adult and bringing them to life in various short stories.

Photo by Nicolas Thomas on Unsplash

I never liked boxes. It is dark, covers my beauty, and always smelled funny. And yet, here I am, about to be sealed in a box. I don’t have much to offer anymore, but what I do have is the truth. Frankly, I don’t care if you believe me, I just need to get this off my chest before they close this lid.

It began with a click, that’s when I first saw light. Two individuals with full protective suits and goggles were ogling at me, what a weird way to wake up. They felt me from top till bottom, checking the gold-plated carvings on my cap and barrel for defects. It was not a comfortable experience.

To my left and right, there were others coming to life. *Click* Another one started breathing. Creepy, but liberating at the same time. The surrounding area was illuminated by annoyingly bright lights. Not the most welcoming occasion, but I suppose my elegance demands no less.

When the inspection was done, we were placed in special packaging and shipped out. That was when I discovered my hatred for boxes. It felt like a cage, but I am no animal. The bumpy ride at the back of the lorry didn’t help. Don’t these people know that they’re ferrying luxurious goods? I could be the one that crafts the next insightful poem or draw the next groundbreaking art. The least these commoners could do was invest in better transportation. Sheesh.

I breathed a sigh of relief when they finally uncovered the lid in the shop. I was displayed in an elegant looking glass container. The view was spectacular, I saw many more of the others; Different types, colours, shells, and even sizes. Most gave me an envious stare for I got the prime spot. They should be jealous, not everyone was created for greatness.

Only the posh entered the store, most were businessmen, artists, and noblemen. Although once in a while, you do get the “I have rich parents hipster-looking kind.” You wouldn’t want to end up in their pretentious hands. Fortunately, most back off after looking at my price tag.

One fine afternoon, this average-looking guy visited the shop. Fair, side-parting hair, square-framed glasses, jeans, and a Polo t-shirt. Textbook nerd material. He took one look at me and made the purchase. No writing test, no grip test, nothing. Didn’t even flinch at the bill. I always imagined my owner to be someone sophisticated, not this… plain fella. Well, at least he’s rich, or so I thought.

Within minutes, I was in that dumb box again. I remember bumping around because he was brisk walking like there was something urgent to attend to. “Am I going to sign a multi-million dollar contract? Or perhaps write a piece that makes people question their existence? It must be something big if he’s rushing right?” I thought to myself.

The movement stopped and I saw a bright light coming through the slit of the opening box. I was excited but immediately disappointed. Instead of a refined corner office with a view, I was greeted by a rather aged wooden-themed room.

It wasn’t dirty by any means, just old with watermarks all over the ceiling. This probably explains the slight flickering of his room lights. If it was any consolation, this room had a quaint feeling to it. Located beside me was a fancy leather-wrapped book on the table.

My owner immediately started writing on that book. I distinctly remember being irritated at the uneven surface of the paper. There was a spot in the center of the page where I would sink unusually deep into the paper, so much so that I punctured a few holes on the same sheet. There was something under the previous pages that wasn’t quite the same size as the paper. The least the buffoon could’ve done was to remove that thing there before writing.

Before my temper flared, something else caught my attention. At the corner of my eyes, I could see a lifeless shell of a regular pen, laying in a puddle of its own ink. The body has been dismantled and the ink tube was a mess. If I am being honest, it scared me at the time, but my ego shrugged it off as a common malfunction that led to frustration. What do you expect from a low-quality product?

Back on the book page, the words flowed from his hands like clockwork. Every single stroke tingled with excitement like a child who’s just experienced his first crush. Apparently, he had just gone on a date with a girl called Sam and he was planning a second outing soon. Ambitious much?

From the looks of it, this geek just bought a fountain pen to write a bloody diary. And here I thought there would be something promising in this book. “I hope she is the one, It’s been a while since I felt this way.” he wrote. That was the last sentence before he shut the book. I could already feel the cringe cliché setting in.

Meticulous, that was the first thing I noticed about him when he started clearing the lifeless pen vessel. No ink stain was visible after he was done. He even rubbed the surface of the table with his fingers for good measure.

Days go by and his routine-based life bore me further. Wake up, morning coffee, shower, go to work, return home, sleep; Rinse and repeat. One could easily tell if there was something different happening for the day. He always came back, took a bath, picked another set of clothes, and went out again.

There was even a pattern for date nights. He would take one final look at his outfit on the full body length mirror. “Red goes well with everything.” This same phrase was uttered repeatedly while he adjusts his unusually red necktie. He should be excluded from that list of “everything” because red was definitely not his colour.

Through every entry, I slowly pieced together who Sam was. She was an engineer, brown eyes, wavy brunette hair, fair skin, and weirdly, has a soft spot for introverted guys. Sounded too good to be true if you ask me. After all, it was written by a love-struck nerd.

Despite my initial skepticism, I slowly became invested in their love story. I didn’t have much going for me so, “why not?” I figured. An underdog that wins the heart of a beautiful damsel, even the hardest heart has a soft spot for that. Things were tolerable until that same irritating sink spot took me out of the zone. I wanted to scream at my owner.

Eventually, Sam started coming over. To my surprise, she wasn’t far off from how he’d described her. He would always put me and the diary away in the table drawer whenever she drops by. Keeping the diary made sense because there were some rather ‘inappropriately spicy bits” about Sam. But why me? If anything, I could’ve been a conversation point for them!

Nonetheless, the unfavourable situation added a sense of mystery to my mundane life. When sight is taken out of the equation, one only has sound and imagination to picture what was happening outside the drawer. Safe to say I’ve heard plenty of ‘noise’ between the two that we shall not dwell into.

Keep your judgment, even I need entertainment sometimes. In short, they were getting close. On a side note, the ‘noise’ also revealed my owner’s name; Bob. What a fitting name for an uninteresting person… Bob.

Soon, I noticed a change in Bob’s writings. “I think she’s the one” started becoming “she’s the one.” His confidence grew with every consecutive entry. “I am sure of it, I am gonna do it tomorrow!.” That was the last line before “It” happened.

The next day, I could see him dressing up in a new suit. But something was missing; Ah yes, the fugly red tie! Thank God he got rid of it. I would’ve said “no” without a second thought if anyone proposed to me while wearing that. He took a peek in his coat pocket, I couldn’t see what it was, but a good guess would be the ring that he’s about to surprise Sam with.

When the doorbell rang, Bob left the room in a hurry. “Wait, he didn’t keep me and the diary in the drawer today.” I curiously said to myself. He was probably too excited to remember. I hate to admit it, but I was thrilled as well.

Not many of my kind live to see the ending of their stories. Most inevitably malfunction and get disposed of before the “happily ever after” or in this case “the dull ever after.”

At my desk. I could hear laughter, cutleries, and romantic music coming from the hall. Soon, the couple made their way to the bedroom, Sam was leading while Bob followed closely. Sam noticed the diary laying on the table, she extended her hands to grab it. I recall thinking “Oh my, things are about to heat up if you don’t do something… Bob.”

At the same time, Bob’s hand went into his pocket to grab something. My anticipation of the moment caused everything to slow down. I can still picture Sam’s curious face and Bob’s silly grin, seemingly frozen in time. From his coat pocket, out came the red tie that was missing. “Why the tie? Where’s the ring? More importantly, the diary Bob!” I was screaming internally.

What happened next may sound unrealistic, but you have to trust me. As Sam was still suspended in time, Bob wrapped the red tie around her neck. It wasn’t clear what was happening until he forcefully pulled both ends of the tie like a deadly garrote wire. The moment of bliss shattered and everything returned to normal speed.

“Red goes well with everything! Red goes well with everything!” Bob repeated the phrase in an almost fearful and unsure voice.

Sam’s confusion immediately turned to panic. A violent scuffle ensued in the room. Furniture got knocked over, wall photos fell down and veins started appearing on both their foreheads. The lights flickered violently, creating a frightening still montage of Sam struggling to fight Bob off.

Following her survival instinct, Sam managed headbutt Bob’s nose with the back of her skull. In reaction, he shoved Sam onto the table where I was placed. The impact knocked something out of the diary.

The thing I saw next… I’ll never forget. What came out of the diary were pictures of Bob with multiple different girls, but it wasn’t just any regular picture… all the girl’s faces had been sawed out carelessly with a dull pen knife, leaving a ghostly hole in the area. Suddenly, the uneven surface on the paper made sense. All along, I’ve been punching holes through the hollow spaces, the spaces where the girls’ heads used to be on the pictures.

Sam, equally freaked out by the images, managed to turn her back and face him. There was something about her looking Bob right in the eyes that changed him. He stood there, stunned as she pleaded for him to stop while she anxiously untangled the tie around her neck. The old lights finally tapped out and things went dark, with only the moonlight just barely illuminating the room.

I could make out Bob’s outline in the shadows, he seemed… different, no longer afraid, no longer unsure. He was still as a statue, but his laboured breathing was changing to sound like a low growl. His eyes… his evil white eyes stretched to the side of his ears, piercing the darkness and staring directly at Sam.

In my peripheral vision, I could see Sam’s hand slowly reaching for me. Thinking back, I was perhaps her best shot at defending herself from Bob or whatever that creature was. She was only a few fingertips away when an ominous-looking hand slammed her forearm onto the table, stopping it in its tracks.

That was when I saw “it”, although it was still Bob in person, but its eyes were someone or even something else. It grabbed me with a bone-crushing grip. The terror I felt prevented me from processing my thoughts, I was helpless.

With one sure and swift movement, It stabbed me right into Sam’s right eye, rupturing her pupil. I felt my body go through a slab of wet meat, it was a feeling that will haunt me to my grave. Sam screamed in pain as blood spattered everywhere.

But it… it didn’t stop there. It pulled me out and stabbed Sam again, and again, and again… that thing didn’t stop until her screams slowly faded like the end of a morbid melody.

When it was over, Sam laid senseless on the table while her legs dangled down like a block of flesh hanging from a meat hook. I could see blood creeping into every crevice of the table, forming a dark red circular puddle. I couldn’t believe one person had that much blood, it was everywhere. That was the last thing I remembered before everything went a blur.

When I came to, I was back on the table, the lights were working again. Sam’s body was still there. Focusing my vision further, I saw Bob approaching the table. He seemed “like Bob” again if that makes sense. I couldn’t find it in me to even be afraid anymore, so I just watched.

Bob dragged Sam’s lifeless body out of the room. The thud her head made when it hit the floor was sickening. I didn’t want to know what he did with the body, I just wanted to be alone. Eventually, the blood on my casing dried up, anointing me, changing me from an instrument for memorable occasions to a murder weapon. But I suppose a murder isn’t something you’d forget, ever.

A few hours passed and Bob was back. Being a person with “high OCD”, He started wiping every surface of the room just like he did with the previous pen. The antiseptic smell came as an odd relief from the sourish scent of blood.

When it came to my turn for cleaning, he dismantled me into smaller pieces and gave each part a proper rub down, any leftovers of Sam that was stuck in between my handiwork was removed meticulously. By the time he was finished, the room looked normal again, back to its quaint self.

I was still in functioning condition, so Bob penned his next entry.

I finally did it. Sam put on quite a show. Red really looks good on her.

The final icing on this horrible cake was sealed when Bob added a photo of him and Sam into the diary. Sam’s head was carelessly sawed out like all the other girls. I could still see her sweet innocent smile through that hole.

I am not sure how to put this, but ever since that day, I “gave up”. I spent every living moment hoping some component within me would fail and force Bob to throw me away.

I just wanted to get out of that wretched place. Sadly, neither I nor the diary saw any interaction with Bob after that. It was as if Bob was “done” in a way.

He returned to his normal routine after that. Wake up, morning coffee, shower, go to work, return home, sleep. The only addition was him scouring the newspapers every morning. He’d buy multiple different prints and turn the pages frantically. Pointing with his index finger from word to word as he reads the headlines.

When he found Sam’s report, his expression turned into a vile smirk, his pupil almost rolled back fully. There it was again, the same evil eyes that I saw during the murder.

Instead of fear, I felt hatred. I despised the very idea of its existence, I despised the fact that he used me as a murder weapon. I forcefully closed my eyes and prayed so hard that it’d never open again.

I awoke one morning to the sound of police sirens. Cops burst through the room door but Bob was nowhere to be seen. The officers’ faces turned pale when they saw newspaper cuttings of Sam’s death.

They started confiscating evidence from the house. I could hear the detectives trying to figure out what happened in this room. I was shouting the answers as loud as I could, but they weren’t listening. It was pointless.

It is true what people say, when you’ve given up, time seems to pass much slower. Make no mistake, the police were working with urgency, but everything felt morbidly sluggish from my point of view. After what felt like an eternity, it was my turn to be collected.

And that’s how we got here. This forensics person is about to put me in my box again, this time, perhaps forever. I never liked boxes. It is dark, covers my beauty, and always smelled funny.

As they closed the lid, darkness slowly consumed the light, almost like a coffin made just for me. I’ll never know the fate that befalls Sam or Bob, but I am glad I got this off my chest before I go.

But why does it matter?

After all, I am just a pen.