An old love.

Yes, it is all thanks to M. She careened into class with her limited sophistication and her old friend. She lodged herself into the chair next to mine and introduced him to me. I was enamored. He was a brown ink pen. The made in china one with its gold cap and HERO embossed into the edges.

I was brought up in a school, which allowed the use of only pencils up to fourth standard. By fifth standard, our much-awaited dream was fulfilled when we held our first pens. A brown ink pen. Practically organic like my blood flowed from my fingers into the pen and dripped through the nib into a blue- lined notebook. However, that affair did not last too long. We soon dumped our first ink pens for fancy, newer, snazzy looking gel pens.

However, here I was and HERO was back into my life. I spent much of that lecture smiling. He kept me from the professor’s rendition of social markets and I kept him away from M. I had decided I needed to get back with him.

On my way home, I dropped into the local stationary shop and purchased my lost love. The shopkeeper reluctantly gave me the huge bottle of black ink that I had ordered to go along with the pen, as if knowing that I would never use the pen anyway and I was just
satisfying my upper-class whim.

Back on my study table, I tried to unscrew the inkbottle whose metal cap refused to budge. Finally, late in the evening, S came home. I introduced him to my new friend and turns out, we had another friend in common. With his huge hands and wieldy fingers, S opened the bottle. Needing no encouragement, I hurriedly dipped the nib right into the inkpot and the ink overflowed blackening S’s hands. S held the pen up and rubbed it into his hair.

Another old memory instigated. I wanted HERO for myself, into my hair.

I spend that night with him. HERO, not S.

I was sitting in my pajamas lolling on the bed with him. We started with shy nods but slowly progressed into a slow waltz gliding over the white ice of my notebook. We lazed around in bed until four in the morning and the last thing I remember is murmuring, “Thank you for such a good time.”

Nothing like an old friend to make you happy.