Day 1: Write about a single object in your room for 10 minutes. Describe it in obsessive detail—texture, color, history, imagined personality.
Behold: a pen!
Not just any pen. It's a Silverlink pen. It clicks like home and with the easy press of a highly fatigued thumb. The other four fingers casually grasp the smooth black of the coating. A silver plastic tip holds the ink at bay, another silver piece plays as a comfortable catch for the downward press of the clicker. A logo, next to the word Silverlink, shows two linked chains held snuggly together by the integrity of the business for which this pen was made to advertise.
Wait, not just advertise, but seep into the lives of every person who happened to touch this pen without anyone knowing that they were being inherently changed. I remember the day when I accidentally put the pen in my pocket, after watching it fall out of an old lady's purse. Why did I take it home? Something inside me said, this pen was meant to find me. It wanted to find me.
I have never touched a pen that vibrated with life, and what was that… humanity? I don’t know why I thought of humanity; this pen is clearly not a human! How silly! And yet, when I hold it, I feel less alone, as though some part of me is suddenly understood.
I clicked the pen again and, I swear, I feel like it helped me decide what I would make for supper. Hamburgers. Thank you, Silverlink. You’ve changed my life and the life of my family.
I will guard this pen with my life because that’s what I feel like I must do now. It wants to stay with me, it told me so, and it will.
But tonight, things feel different. I think I saw the old lady outside my window. I think she has been walking past my house several times in the past hour. Her steps are slow, deliberate, and though she never glances directly up at me, I know she knows. Does she feel that the pen is with me now?
When I click it, the sound echoes louder than before, like a message, or a warning. I clutch it tight, tighter than I should. I look at the chain-link logo faintly illuminated by the lamp, almost pulsing with life. Perhaps she wants it back. Perhaps she regrets letting it fall. I click some more... it's a heartbeat. Click, click, click, click. Steady, and in control.
But it’s mine now. Mine to protect. It said so.
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