Flying Pencil

With words flying around like weapons, it reminds me of the instrument I was taught to express them – an innocent pencil. A pencil needs to be sharpened before it can be used for writing. A shabby tip did produce words but no one wanted to read it, not even oneself. If you use too much force while writing, it breaks the tip and leaves a mess on paper. The mighty savior – eraser to the rescue but it even gets dirty with the dark charcoal its trying to erase. Just use the right amount of force they said and it will last longer. The obvious question was – to what end.

Copying or quoting too much what others wrote not only wasted the lead but also made the hands tired. Ah, the indulgence to use one’s own words from one’s own experiences is like how the juice is squeezed from the fruit. The right amount of force, indeed. You see, every fruit is waiting to be relished and so it seems two same mangoes never have the same taste. We had fruity erasers with a tinge of orange or peach when used to erase. Oh what fragrance they had, instantly put a smile to the face and influenced what the pencil was writing.

When kids used pencil as a spear, the game didn’t last too long and someone was always hurt. Sometimes, whoever walked in unknowingly got hurt more. Ouch, oops, bandaid could always fix it.

They say, what you learn as a child, biking, swimming or dancing, seems to last a lifetime. When you get in the mode, it just happens like magic. But where is this magic stored – not in conscious mind ofcourse but maybe subconscious. What else is stored in the adult subconscious apart from skills? Hmm, reasons behind those flying pencils…maybe.