Sown in Memory

The wastebasket steadily filled with crumpled balls of paper. Each one a reminder of his failures. It sat in the corner of Otis' peripheral vision, a constant symbol of the talent he no longer possessed. The pile taunted him—not only reminding him of his lost ability, but of the reason it had been extinguished.

Otis stared out the window of his high-rise at the beautiful day. Sunlight streamed through, casting its warm rays over his desk, illuminating yet another blank sheet of paper. How dare the world be so beautiful? How dare life march on, day after day, with people smiling in the streets as if nothing had changed? As if his one true joy hadn’t been ripped away. But that was just the bitterness talking. He preferred rainy days—not for the gloom, but because his daughter had loved them. She would come into his office, asking for help to build a small fort. They’d laugh, stacking pillows on the floor to create a makeshift bed for their new indoor campsite. His wife would playfully act like a bear, seeking shelter, and his daughter would scream for him to save her. Yes, he had always liked the rain.

Grief was a never-ending cycle. Some days, he lingered on the good memories; other days, he pushed them away entirely. He moved through the stages as if they were merely phases, though he knew grief wasn’t that simple, no matter how much the world tried to make it seem so. His wife had urged him countless times to seek therapy, but he refused. The memories of his daughter were his alone to cherish, not something for a stranger to pry into. They were his treasure, a part of him he would never let go of. If grief was the price to keep those memories alive, then so be it.

A small, hesitant knock at the door. "How's it going, honey?"

"Same as always," Otis muttered, not bothering to turn and acknowledge her. His wife had been patient, but he knew her tolerance wouldn’t last forever. It was already beginning to wear thin. His publisher’s patience had run out long ago. Now, he was a man without a book, without a way to publish one if he had it, and without a daughter to share his writing with. The final, crushing blow that made it all feel pointless.

"Something will come to you. Just give it time." His wife entered, holding a small rectangular box. "You got a package." She placed it on the desk beside him. He kept his gaze fixed on the window, hearing the soft click of the door as she left.

He took a breath and looked down at the box. "Seed Publishing" was written in large, ornate letters. He hadn’t heard of this publishing company before. Strange. He lifted the lid, and for reasons he couldn’t explain, his breath caught. Inside was a simple gold pen, but something about it seemed to pulse. It was as if he could feel the ink swirling inside. The inside of the lid, in the same ornate lettering, read, "Happy Writing." And inscribed on the pen in delicate cursive were the words, "For anything sowed, something is reaped."

Perhaps it was a gift from a new publisher—though something about it felt… strange. He took the pen from the box, its weight surprisingly solid in his hand, as though it held some hidden gravity. He clicked it, expecting some dramatic revelation, some flash of brilliance. But nothing happened. Just an ordinary pen, gleaming under the soft light of the room. What had he expected? Magic? A sign? A miracle? He couldn’t tell.

Otis stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of him, the emptiness mocking him. His thoughts were a chaotic swirl of half-formed ideas, and he longed to empty his mind, to let the words flow without purpose, without care for what came next. He wanted the writing to take him somewhere—anywhere—but he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was watching, something waiting for him to make the first move.

He picked up the golden pen again and let it glide over the page, its nib scraping lightly, almost as if it were reluctant to touch the paper. He wrote, almost without thinking, about storm clouds—how they would slowly unfurl across the sky, swallowing the bright warmth of the day. The rain would begin in a whisper, a light trickle at first, coaxing people to rush for shelter. Then, the rhythm would shift—the steady pitter-patter on the windows like a quiet drumbeat, adding an almost hypnotic ambiance to the room, perfect for any moment of contemplation or escape. It was cliché, of course. The rain, the gloom, the inevitable descent into nothingness. He knew this would be just another crumpled page tossed into the wastebasket, swallowed by the ever-growing pile of failed attempts. Yet, as his hand continued, he found himself lost in the rhythm of it, if only for a fleeting second—a small fragment of peace in a sea of frustration.

When he finally stopped writing, he didn’t even bother to reread the words. He knew it was another failure, another piece of himself thrown away. His hand hovered over the paper for a moment, a silent question in the air, before he crumpled it with a heavy sigh. But before he could discard it, something caught his eye. Looking out the window, he saw dark storm clouds creeping across the skyline, their ominous spread swallowing the last of the day’s light. The soft splash of rain against the glass seemed almost too quiet, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Below, he watched people scurrying for shelter, their frantic movements a stark contrast to the stillness in the room. The timing was almost too perfect. He crushed the paper in his hand and tossed it into the ever-growing pile of failure.

Another tap at the door broke the silence, and his wife entered, her eyes distant, lost in some quiet place far beyond him. She moved slowly, as if weighed down by some invisible burden, and sank into the recliner in the corner of the room. Her breath escaped in a slow, weary sigh. "Rain always makes me think of her."

"Why?" His voice was flat, almost mechanical. He didn’t quite understand the connection between his daughter and the rain—didn’t know why his wife would say something like that, as if the two could ever be linked.

Otis brought his notepad to the coffee shop the next morning, though he knew it would be a futile attempt. He thought that perhaps a change of scenery might stir something—might reignite the spark of joy he once found in writing. But deep down, he knew it would only end in more crumpled paper balls tossed into a new trash can, the same cycle repeating itself. He sat, the warm latte in his hands, the bitterness of the drink unable to mask the bitterness in his chest. He waited, hoping that somehow, the weight of his frustration would transform into the energy to create something, anything.

The pen from Seed Publishing clicked in his hand, its smooth surface cold and unyielding. He began to write again, his hand moving almost mechanically, the words spilling from him like a slow trickle. He didn’t care if they were good or bad—he just needed them to flow. His thoughts wandered back to when his daughter was born. He had taken to writing children's books then, convinced that the world needed her stories. His plan had been simple—to write books as she grew up. First, children's books, then middle grade, and eventually young adult. But those plans, like everything else, had withered and died before they could ever truly begin.

His daughter had an odd fascination with cuckoo clocks—one so deep that he had gone out and bought one, just to hear her giggle every hour when the bird popped out of its wooden face. He'd started his story with the words "Once upon a time." Four words in, he already knew this one would meet the bottom of the trash can, just like the rest. Yet he continued, almost as if driven by some unseen force.

He wrote about a cuckoo clock, but with a twist. Each time the bird popped out, instead of the usual obnoxious chirp, it would announce the time. He transformed it into a nursery rhyme, each page showing a different time with the bird wearing a tiny, comical hat, one that marked the hour in a playful way.

He placed the pen down, his hand heavy with the weight of his own disappointment, and crumpled the paper. He moved to the trash can, ready to add yet another failure to the ever-growing pile, but he froze in place. Just beyond the trash can, nestled between the two bathrooms, stood an old oak cuckoo clock. It had not been there a moment ago—he was sure of it. His heart quickened. He glanced at his watch—it was five minutes to the hour. Otis returned to his seat, a chill creeping up his spine, and stared at the clock, wondering if he was losing his mind. But in the silence of the room, nothing seemed impossible anymore.

As the clock struck the new hour, the cuckoo bird popped out. It wore a small hat with the time written on it. The bird opened its beak, its voice oddly clear in the quiet room: "10 AM and here I am. 10 AM and here I am." Then, as quickly as it appeared, the bird vanished back into the clock. Otis stared, his mind racing, unsure if he had truly seen it, or if grief had finally warped reality into something else.

Otis shot up from his seat, his movements quick and jerky, and rushed to the counter. His voice came out strained. "Excuse me?" he asked the barista, his finger pointing shakily toward the cuckoo clock. "How long have you had that clock?"

The young woman behind the counter followed his finger to the clock with a frown. "Hm. They must have just installed it. I haven’t seen it before." Her tone was casual, as if nothing about the situation seemed odd. But to Otis, everything felt wrong.

He returned to his seat in stunned silence, his mind racing. His gaze drifted back to the pen, the gold gleaming faintly in the light. "For anything sowed, something is reaped." The words felt heavier now, suffocating in their simplicity.

Impossible, he whispered to himself. The thought clung to him like a dark weight. He gathered his things in a hurry, the urgency in his actions almost frantic. He had to get home, had to make sense of it all. But before he turned to leave, he took one last, lingering look at the cuckoo clock across the room. Why had he chosen to write about a cuckoo clock in the first place? What had drawn him to it?

Otis pushed everything aside on his desk, leaving only one sheet of paper, a warm lamp, and the Seed Publishing pen. His mind raced in a thousand different directions, each thought more fractured than the last. If this worked, what could it mean? He needed it to mean something—anything. He started with something simple. "A red ball appears." Nothing. He tried again: "My wife knocks on the door." But the silence remained. Over and over, he repeated his attempts, each one met with crushing failure.

Maybe this was it. Maybe grief had finally worn him down, twisted his mind until it no longer knew what was real. Otis flung the pen across the room in frustration. His daughter always hated it when he did that—when he threw his pen in anger. She would crinkle her nose, her eyes wide with that innocent confusion only a child could have. It was something to envy—the simple purity of not understanding why an adult could be so lost in frustration. She would walk over, pick the pen up wherever it had landed, and bring it back to him, smiling, saying, "Here you go, Daddy."

With tears blurring his vision and a tight knot in his stomach, he shuffled to the floor to retrieve the pen. It wasn’t supposed to be him, not like this. He sat back in his chair, the weight of the world pressing down on him, his sniffles echoing in the emptiness. He wiped at his nose, his hands trembling. He clicked the pen, his fingers cold against the smooth surface, and wrote the words: “Here you go, Daddy.” Just like she would have said it.

And then it broke him. A raw, guttural cry tore from his chest. The sobs wracked his body as he hunched over, the pressure of grief building in his chest like a storm he couldn’t control. How could someone so sweet, so pure, be taken so suddenly? With no warning. No goodbye. He clawed at his chest, the ache unbearable. He heard his wife approach the door, but then she turned away, knowing he needed to be alone. He could feel the distance between them grow with every passing second, even though she was just on the other side of that door.

He lay curled in a ball on the floor, his knees hugged to his chest. He squinted through tear-riddled eyes, and there, just within reach, lay the golden pen. He swore he heard the ghost of a whisper, faint and almost fragile, say, "Here you go, Daddy." But it was impossible. His daughter had never said those words—not like that. Or so he didn’t think.

The next morning, it hit him like a freight train. For reasons he couldn’t explain, his daughter was the key to unlocking whatever power the pen held. It didn’t matter where the pen had come from anymore. What mattered was what it could do. He kept turning the words over and over in his mind: "For anything sowed, something is reaped." The first part was clear enough, but the second part—what it truly meant—remained elusive, slipping through his thoughts like sand through his fingers.

He paced the room, his footsteps frantic, as questions battered at his mind like a relentless storm.

Why was he given the pen?

Who had given it to him?

What was it reaping as he sowed?

...

Could he bring his daughter back?

The question struck him like ice, freezing him to the core. His chest clenched tight, as if the very air had been stolen from his lungs. His head spun, dizziness clouding his vision, and each breath came in shallow, desperate bursts. He fought to regain control—control of his body, control of his mind—but it was slipping from him. His thoughts no longer felt his own. All he saw was her. All he heard was her. The overwhelming flood of memories, the best thing that ever happened to him, drowned out everything else.

It wasn’t his life flashing before his eyes—no, it was the most beautiful moments of his life, all at once, crashing down like a wave. His daughter’s birth. The first time she had said "Dada." The feel of her tiny fingers curling around his. The sparkle in her eyes when she had lost her first tooth. The innocence, the joy, the love he had once lived for. These were the memories that flooded him—torrential, relentless, unstoppable.

The sensation was too much. There was no place to hide from it, no escape from the ache. He shook, trembling as he sank into his writing chair, desperately grabbing the pen. He needed to release it, to pour it all out. The memories twisted inside him, demanding to be shared. His hand shook violently as the words began to flow. The air around him seemed to hum, vibrating with a strange energy, the hairs on his neck standing on end. Tears blurred his vision, but he kept writing, his heart pounding with each stroke.

This was the story he would write. The best thing that had ever happened to him, the only thing worth remembering. The memories were no longer his alone; they needed to be shared. He had to make her live on—not in his broken mind, but in the world, in the pages of a book. He wrote and wrote, as memories he didn’t even know he had rushed forward like a storm, too powerful to stop. His hand cramped from the effort, but it didn’t matter. It was all he could do.

Finally, with a flourish, he wrote, ‘And she lived on.’ And with that, he let the pen fall from his grasp.

For a moment, the wind seemed to leave the room. The air grew heavy, and he swore his desk trembled slightly beneath him. His mind blinked out, blackness swallowing him just for a brief moment before reality returned, sharper than before.

Otis looked down at the page he had filled. His brow furrowed in confusion. What had he written? His eyes scanned the words, but before he could fully comprehend them, there came a knock at the door. He didn’t turn. He didn’t need to —but it wasn’t his wife who entered.

“Daddy?” The voice was small, almost a whisper, soft like a memory, like a dream. Only, he wasn’t sure who it belonged to.