The Day I Picked Up a Pen
It all started on a Tuesday, which is already suspicious, because nothing good ever starts on a Tuesday. Mondays are for disaster, Wednesdays are for pretending to recover, and Fridays are for bad decisions. But Tuesday? Tuesday is that awkward middle child that insists on being important. Anyway, that’s the day I picked up a pen — and apparently, changed my life. Or at least wasted a perfectly good morning.
Let me paint the scene. The sun was shining, but not in the happy “birds are singing, angels are dancing” kind of way. More like the “it’s too bright, and my curtains are traitors” kind of way. I woke up late — 10:37 AM — because my alarm clock hates responsibility as much as I do. I stumbled out of bed like a confused potato and made myself a cup of instant coffee that tasted like burnt regret.
Then it happened.
On my table, between an unpaid electricity bill and a piece of bread that had gone philosophical (it was growing its own culture), I saw it — a pen. A simple blue pen, lying there like it had seen things. The kind of pen that’s probably been chewed on by ten different people before finally finding me.
Now, you might be wondering: “So what? It’s just a pen.”
Well, so did I. But that morning, something deep in my half-asleep brain whispered, “Write something.”
And like an idiot, I listened.
Chapter 1: The Pen and the Panic
I grabbed the pen dramatically, like a knight lifting his sword. Except, instead of fighting dragons, I was about to fight my own inability to spell “definitely” correctly on the first try.
I looked around for paper — of course, there was none. So I tore a page from an old school notebook that still smelled faintly of failure and cafeteria beans. I sat down, took a deep breath, and wrote the first thing that came to mind:
“Today I will do something productive.”
That was it. That was my grand opening line. A total lie, obviously.
I stared at it for about five minutes, feeling like Shakespeare, except dumber and hungrier. Then I thought, Okay, maybe I should write something real. Something deep. Something that changes the world.
So I wrote:
“Cats are mysterious.”
And that’s when I realized I was in trouble.
Because now, I had accidentally started a philosophy essay about cats. My brain immediately went on a tangent: What if cats are actually aliens? What if they control us through purring frequencies? I ended up writing two paragraphs about how my neighbor’s cat, Simba, stares at me like he’s judging my Wi-Fi password choices.
I was proud — until I noticed my pen wasn’t working anymore. It had betrayed me halfway through my rant about feline telepathy.
So, naturally, I bit the pen. That’s what people do when pens stop working, right? You chew on it like you’re trying to unlock a secret level of life. Ink exploded on my lips. Great. Now I looked like a low-budget Joker who just lost his scholarship.
Chapter 2: The Pen Strikes Back
I tried to wash it off, but instead I just smeared the ink around until I looked like I’d kissed an octopus. My reflection in the mirror looked at me with the same disappointment my mother reserves for me when I tell her I’m “freelancing.”
That’s when I realized: maybe the pen was cursed.
It made sense. Everything that touched that pen ended up weird. The unpaid bill? Still unpaid. The bread? Still alive. My dignity? Gone.
But then, something weird happened — I felt… inspired. Maybe this was my origin story. Maybe the ink on my face was like war paint. I was destined to be a writer — or a clown. Either way, destiny had spoken.
So I sat down again and started writing, this time furiously, passionately, like someone who just discovered what fingers are for. I wrote about my life, my dreams, the time I tried to impress my crush by pretending to know French and accidentally ordered twelve onions. The pen moved like magic.
Until it didn’t.
Halfway through my dramatic monologue about onions and love, the pen ran out of ink again. Completely dry. I shook it. I smacked it. I begged it. Nothing.
That’s when I snapped. I threw the pen across the room — and it hit the wall with a “plink,” bounced once, and landed perfectly in my cup of coffee.
Silence.
I stared at it floating there like it was taking a vacation. Then, like any mature adult, I screamed, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”
Chapter 3: Existential Crisis (With Coffee)
Now, I had no pen. No coffee. No dignity. My life was a metaphor for spilled ink — messy and pointless.
I thought about giving up on writing altogether. Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a writer. Maybe I was meant to be something else — like a motivational speaker who tells people, “Follow your dreams, but don’t use cheap pens.”
But then I thought, No. Heroes don’t quit. Writers suffer. So I dug through drawers like a raccoon looking for treasure. After ten minutes, I found another pen. It was red. Dramatic. Evil-looking. Probably stolen from a bank.
I sat down again and started over.
Title: The Day I Picked Up a Pen.
It was going to be autobiographical — which is fancy talk for “I’m just going to write about myself and pretend it’s deep.”
I began describing everything that happened: the ink explosion, the coffee tragedy, my spiritual connection with Simba the cat. I was on fire. The words poured out like expired milk — smooth, but slightly disturbing.
At some point, I forgot what I was writing about and went on a tangent about how spoons are underrated compared to forks. By the time I realized, I had written an entire essay on spoon superiority.
But you know what? It felt good.
For once, my brain was doing something other than worrying about bills or Wi-Fi speed.
Chapter 4: Inspiration or Insanity?
It was around 2 p.m. when I noticed something strange. The pen — the new red one — had started leaking too. Onto my hand, my notebook, and eventually my face (again). I looked like I’d lost a paintball match with Satan.
But I didn’t care. I was in the zone.
I wrote about everything — my childhood dreams of becoming a professional sleeper, the time I accidentally joined a school choir because I thought “alto” meant “free snacks,” and how life is just one big game of “Did I leave the stove on?”
By page ten, I was laughing at my own handwriting. It looked like an ancient language invented by drunk spiders. But something about it felt… real.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine.
Then my neighbor knocked on the door.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “I heard yelling.”
I opened the door, face covered in red ink, holding the pen like a sword, and said, “I’m writing!”
She slowly nodded and backed away like I’d just confessed to inventing chaos. Which, to be fair, I had.
Chapter 5: The Aftermath
By evening, I had written 15 pages of absolute nonsense. It had everything — talking cats, onions, spoons, and a motivational quote that made no sense:
“If life gives you ink, write your destiny before it dries.”
Honestly, I thought that line was genius until I reread it later and realized it sounded like something a malfunctioning AI would say.
But I didn’t care. For the first time, I had done something weirdly productive. I hadn’t scrolled TikTok for four hours. I hadn’t fallen into a YouTube rabbit hole about “Top 10 Mysterious Noises Heard Underwater.” I had created something — even if it was stupid.
I looked at the messy pages, smudged with ink and fingerprints, and smiled. That pen — cursed or not — had made me feel alive again.
Like maybe I could actually do something with my life. Or at least write enough nonsense to fill a blog post.
Then, as if the universe wanted to remind me who I was, the pen rolled off the table and disappeared under the couch. I didn’t even try to pick it up. I just let it go. It had done its job.
Chapter 6: Lessons from a Pen
That night, I made instant noodles and stared at my masterpiece — fifteen pages of what could only be described as literary confusion. But it was mine. Every messy, ridiculous, overdramatic sentence was me.
I realized something important:
Sometimes life isn’t about doing things perfectly. Sometimes it’s just about picking up the pen.
Even when the ink leaks.
Even when it makes no sense.
Even when everyone thinks you’ve lost it.
The next day, I tried to write again — but the pen was gone. Probably living its best life under the couch. So I just grabbed a pencil instead.
And you know what? It broke in half five minutes later.
I took that as a sign to go take a nap.
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