This series began when I purchased a fountain pen – a very particular fountain pen, that bears a striking resemblence to the pen in the words below. I DID think it looked like a Hubble photograph, I DID think there were worlds contained in the pen, and I DID think of the stories that could be contained in those worlds. That is why I bought the pen.
Everything else is pure, absolute fiction…..except for the fact that the pen did inspire these stories…
Part One
“It looks like a lava flow from an erupting volcano.”
“No, it looks like oil on water, the way it swirls.”
Abby stepped closer to catch a glimpse of the object under discussion, the acrylic of its body a kaleidoscope of orange and yellow and purple. There was something unusual about this one.
“It’s a Hubble photograph.” The conversation stopped as the focus moved to Abby. She reached out a finger, mesmerised by the swirling pattern.
“There are universes in that pen,” she whispered softly. Only the man behind the table heard her. He smiled. He’d known when he was making the pen that it was meant for someone in particular. He had a feeling the chosen person had just appeared. He watched as the pen rolled, ever so slightly, until it rested against Abby’s finger.
Abby’s eyes widened at the slight movement. She must have imagined it, just as she was imagining the warm tingle at the fingertip where the pen was touching. She stared at the pen, and the colours intensified, the pattern seemed to have more depth than before. Unable to resist, she picked it up.
As soon as it was in her hand, things started to happen. The warm tingling at her fingertip enveloped her whole body. The colourful, but static, swirls came to life. Abby stared at the pen, feeling it grow warm, watching the colours ebb and flow as the pictures changed.
There were words swirling through Abby’s head to match the colours swirling through the pen.
“Stories.”
Abby didn’t realise she’d spoken out loud until she felt everyone’s eyes on her.
“There are stories in this pen.”
The others smiled and moved on to other tables.
The voices still filling her head, Abby looked at the man who’d made this remarkable pen.
“The pen says if I take it home, it will tell me its stories. There are so many. So many worlds in the pen, and so many stories in each world.”
Abby looked at the man.
“Am I mad?”
“I don’t know you well enough to offer an opinion,” the man said. “But I knew when I was making that pen that it was meant for only one person. That person is obviously you.”
Abby nodded and reached for her purse. The pen was going home with her. It had spoken to her. She’d heard its voice, or voices, as it sounded like many voices speaking in unison. They were real to her. If she left the pen, she’d feel like she was abandoning them.
Part Two
She opened her eyes so that she would stop seeing them. All the words. So many words. Too many words.
Every time she closed her eyes the words came at her, some meandered through, some came charging at full speed. Some snuck by, hiding at the edges of her perception. Some planted themselves front and centre – demanding notice.
She actually found herself ducking to avoid being hit by one particularly pesky word that dive bombed her on occasion.
When she opened her eyes, she stopped seeing them. But she could still FEEL them. If it was very quiet, she sometimes thought she could hear them.
The words had started when she brought home that pen. She’d tried writing with the pen but the words came so quickly they were jumbled. It was trying to tell all its stories all at once, but it made no sense.
She picked up the pen again, and the clamour grew louder, the chaos more pronounced.
“That’s enough!” she said out loud, feeling foolish. “When you throw so many words at me, I can’t connect the right ones. Nothing makes sense. You’ve got to stop for a moment. Please!”
The clamour in her head receded.
“I know you have stories to tell. I brought you home so that I could tell your stories. But I can’t do it all at once. If you all talk at the same time I will go mad, and then I’ll start taking medication, and then I won’t hear you at all.”
The words suddenly disappeared altogether.
“Thank you. I’ll make a deal with you. I will write all of your stories. I promise.” She felt the wave of excitement. “But in return you have to agree to not talk all at once. And you need to leave me some time when you don’t talk at all.”
She felt the grumbling, and then the agreement.
“Now, I need for you to decide who tells me the first story. Think about it and let me know when you’ve decided.”
The maelstrom of words erupted again.
“Stop!” Once again there was peace. “I meant talk amongst yourselves. I don’t need to hear this. Come back to me when you’ve chosen.”
The noise began again, but became progressively quieter, as if those speaking were moving away.
Abby sighed in relief.
If they could learn to play nicely, this might work after all.
Part Three
Abby tossed and turned on the sofa, as though unable to get comfortable. But it was her mind that was unable to settle.
Her body suddenly went slack, as though the mind animating it had left the premises.
Had anyone been in the room, they might have glimpsed, out of the corner of their eye, a ripple in the air, as though someone had walked by. They would have dismissed it as a trick of the light. They would have refused to see the ripple when it crossed back to the bed, to Abby, who stirred for the first time in an hour.
Abby rose, disoriented, as she hadn’t intended to sleep. The sleep had not been restful.
As she crossed the room to go into the kitchen, her eye caught sight of the desk, where she was supposed to write, but hadn’t lately. She walked slowly toward the desk, her heartbeat pounding, her skin growing cold.
The pen was on the desk. The pen she hadn’t used in over two weeks was on the desk. The pen which always lived in its suede pouch, in its presentation box, in the desk drawer, was sitting out on the desk.
Under the pen was a sheet of paper filled with handwriting the Abby recognised as her own. But the words were not hers, could not be hers.
Abby picked up the paper and her hands started to shake as she read:
“I stood there, staring at the pen. I could feel it reaching out to me. I was a bit afraid of it today, actually. Pens in my experience do not behave like this. Pens do not behave at all.
But this pen was…..humming. As I drew nearer, my hand began to throb and I watched in wonder as my fingers reached out towards the pen.
My hand grew hot and as I touched the pen, the room disappeared.
At first it was black and then gold and then red – I was dizzy from the rapid flash of changing colours.
Slowly, as my eyes adjusted to this strange red-orange world, I saw to my left a plinth. It was the size of a building and it was covered with roses. As I watched, the roses burst into flame. They glowed, but they did not burn. The odd flame grew and grew until the plinth itself was a torch.
As it continued to burn, a river moved towards me. It was yellow and green and it moved swiftly and it was not made of water. The river flowed towards me, and then past me.
In the rush of its movement I could hear music, it was the humming I’d heard from the pen, but infinitely more melodic. Floating across the surface of the steady hum I could make out ripples of melody. Some promised secrets, some knowledge, some joy and some pain. Most sounds I heard, but some sounds I could only see.
Some skimmed along the surface. Some sank and bobbed up again downstream. Some got caught in the eddys of the flow and went round and round upon themselves.
And then I saw Her.
She was magnificent. She was naked, with the sun in her hand and the tiger at her heel.
She danced upon the flow of Power and Time.
She took strength from the river, and left the river stronger in her wake.
She was the cause and the effect.
No one who saw her could remain the same and live.
As she passed me she clasped my hand, my burning hand, and took me with her.
I felt myself die. And I felt my soul rise up, cleansed, stronger, and ready to begin again.
She smiled at me and released my hand and as she disappeared I found myself back in my room, holding the pen which was the river.
I sobbed with relief and desolation.
And hope.”
Abby let the paper fall from her fingers as she backed away from the desk.
Where had those words come from? She knew she hadn’t written them. But there was a strange…echo…of recognition as she’d read them that terrified her.
She forced herself back to the desk, having to concentrate on her movements as her trembling hands returned the pen to its box. This time she placed the box in the main drawer, which she locked for the first time ever.
Part Four
“I knew what it would be like.”
The voice startled Abby. Mostly because she was alone in the house and the words had not come from her.
“I knew what it would be like,” the voice repeated. “That’s why I didn’t want to go.”
Abby sighed and put down her book. The voice had appeared in her head, as it always did. It seemed the denizens of the pen had decided whose story was the next to be told.
It had been months since her last experience with the pen. That had disturbed her, frightened her and she had stayed away from the pen since.
Apparently the pen was tired of waiting.
She would have to fill the pen – the last experience with the pen had drained it, though she’d not written a word.
She opened the drawer that held her inks and reached for her standby bright blue.
She felt, rather than heard, the disappointed sigh. She watched as her hand replaced the blue ink.
“Purple, please,” said the voice in her ear as her hand reached to the back of the drawer for a bottle she’d yet to open.
“Purple it is,” Abby replied.
As she dipped the nib into the amethyst liquid, she could feel the pen quiver with excitement. She got a mental image of Jessica Rabbit sinking down luxuriously into a clawfoot tub filled with purple ink, and grinned.
When the pen was filled and the ink put away, Abby reached for the leather-bound notebook that held her ‘pen stories’ as she called them.
“Right,” Abby said out loud. “I’m ready.”
There was silence, except for the sounds of splashing as Jessica ran a sponge up one arm and then the other. Her skin was taking on a decidedly lavender tinge.
“You knew what it would be like…” Abby prompted.
“I did. I knew it would be horrible before I went through the door. I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t stop myself. Something was making me go into that room. That sad room.”
“It should have been beautiful – it had been beautiful once. But the high ceilings were covered in cobwebs, the large, lovely windows were too dirty to let in anything but the dimmest light. Those windows turned even the sun’s glorious light small and grey – and heavy. That grey light seemed to weigh everything in that room down. And the room was filled to bursting. Things that had been beautiful once were covered in dust and clutter. They seemed ready to weep for what had been possible.
“I wiped a spot on one window clean, and the sun poured in. A beautiful white flower began to grow in the sunbeam, but the window was dirty again in a few minutes. The flower lost strength when the light was gone, and soon it was just another dead hope in the room.
“That poor flower…”
“As my eyes adjusted to the dimness, I began to recognise things. And people. Every stupid purchase I’d ever made, everything I started and didn’t finish, everyone I’d ever let down. It was awful.
“And then it got worse. Because a silent film began to show on one grimy wall – it showed me everything that could have been. Everything I could have been, everything I could have accomplished, all those people who could have been better off for knowing me, but weren’t.
“When the film ended, I was left with the full understanding of all I hadn’t done.
“It was a room full of my failures. It was a room dedicated to wasted potential.
“And now I’m here – and I don’t know how to fix anything. I don’t know how to make anything better. All I can do is realise what I really am.”
Suddenly the figure in Abby’s mind stood up in the tub, the purple ink running down her body. The vivid red hair seemed to be alive as it whipped around her head. She pointed at Abby, and Abby’s field of vision was suddenly filled with Jessica’s eyes.
“Don’t you dare do what I did – DON’T YOU DARE!” Jessica’s gaze was intense and Abby felt pinned to her chair, the pen in her hand flying across the paper as the words poured out of Jessica.
“I know the last time frightened you, but don’t give up. We have to do what frightens us, that’s how we grow. I know that now that it’s too late. But I will not let you waste your life out of fear.”
The terrifying gaze retreated and Abby could breathe again.
“You must keep writing, dear,” Jessica said simply. “There’s nothing else to be done. It is why you’re here. It is how you fulfil your purpose.”
“But how do I find my purpose?” Abby cried. “I don’t know what it is or where to look.”
“You can only find your purpose by doing. Hiding does nothing positive in the world. Standing still helps no one, least of all you. We’ll help all we can, we’ll tell you our stories and what we’ve learned. But you must keep moving, dear. You must be ready when it comes. Ripeness is all.”
Abby felt a hug, and then she was alone once more.
becausebettywest 