With a Memory Foam Grip

I’m a writer who doesn’t write. At least I used to be. That changes today. I have a short story due for my Creative Writing class this Friday, and I am done procrastinating. 

In the last week and a half, I took every reason not to write. Friend were going out? Writing could wait. My stomach was growling? Writing could wait. I needed to get to bed early because I suddenly started caring about my mental health and well-being that very minute? Writing could wait, once again. Not this time! I would sit down, and write until my fingers cramped. Once I get into the flow, who knows what adventure it will take me on! All I have to do is start. How hard could that be?

I walk into the library with my backpack strapped to only one arm, a stride in my step, feeling confident of the genius that is about to flow out of me, into my brand new notebook. I look across the library. On either side stands rows and rows of bookshelves, each about seven feet tall, perfectly lined up. Each section is labeled with a large laminated sign. Right next to me near the front entrance is the check out desk, where one of the students from work study is scrolling through her phone. Every once in a while she glances up, looks around, and sighs, desperately wanting to be anywhere else. 

In the back are about ten computers, and maybe about eight are taken up by students doing homework, watching videos, and two are laughing and playing on coolmathgames4kids.com. In the middle is a clearing that’s about ten feet wide, and twenty feet long, about a dozen wooden circular tables are scattered throughout, each with 6 matching chairs. Suddenly I spot exactly who I’m looking for, silently perched over homework in at one of the tables. My twin sister Katie.

She doesn’t see me walk up to her. I notice her earbuds in. She has about seven pieces of paper scattered out in front of her and not to mention her dumbbell weight that was her “Calculus 2” textbook. Pssh, that’s what she gets for being a math nerd. I sneak up next to her and yank her earbuds out. 

“OW!” She exclaims. “Daniel!”

She proceeds to punch me as hard as she could in my arm, which, to be fair, actually isn’t that hard.

“Weakling,” I mumble, which prompts her to glare at me.

“What are you doing here anyway?” She asks, “You don’t do homework.”

“That changes…” I slam my backpack down for emphasis, “…today!”

She stares at me dumbfounded, as I sit down. 

“I’m here to write,” I specify.

“Well good for you,” she says as she puts her earbuds in, “Just don’t bother me.”

I give her a small sarcastic solute.

Ok, I think, Time to write.

I reach into my backpack and grab the notebook that my mom gave me for my birthday. It was a medium size leather bound notebook. The leather was dark brown and distressed, as if it had been through years of wear and tear, even though my mom had bought it like that at Barnes and Noble. 

Finally I reach into my pocket to find my favorite… wait! Where is it? I pat my pockets, I look under my back pack,I look everywhere and can’t find it.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” I exclaim, still frantically searching. That’s when Katie frustratedly yanks out her earbuds.

“What did I say about bothering me?”

“I can’t find it,” I say defeated.

“Can’t find what?” Katie asks.

“My pen!” I say.

“Oh, a pen?” She asks, “Here.” She starts rummaging through her pencil case. She takes out a standard blue ball point pen.

“No! Not just any pen! My favorite pen. It was an ergonomic black gel pen with a memory foam grip. It costed me like twenty dollars! I can’t write without it!” I explain. 

“Why don’t you just…” she started. “Wait… Did you say twenty dollars? For a pen?”

“It’s like the best pen in the world! I can’t write without it!” I check my pockets again. 

“Well, did you check your pencil case?” Katie so naively asked.

“No, I keep it in my pocket. This is a pen of high standards, Katie. I am not going to subject it’s magnificence to the mundane contents of an ordinary pencil case.”

Katie stares at me for a second.

“You were too lazy to put it in your pencil case, weren’t you?” She asks. 

“Maybe,” I say quietly.

“Why don’t you just type it? Isn’t it supposed to be typed?”

“Enough of these silly suggestions! I’m trying to think of where my pen is!”

I sit silently for a few seconds, pondering where I could have left my pen. Then it hits me.

“Oh, wait! I leant a pen to Jeremy in my creative writing class this morning! I don’t think he gave it back,” I realize.

Katie starts to say something to me, but I’m already gone. I have a pen to find.

. . .

I run through the grey halls of McCarthy Hall Dorms. My feet tread the grass green carpets, looking at the golden room numbers of the matching green doors. The room numbers are going down. M211… M210… M209… M208… until I reach: M207.

I hastily rap on the door. No answer. I’m about to knock louder, when the door slowly opens. White tendrils of smoke come pouring out of the room. A skunk like stench seeps out with it. Emerging from the smoke, is a tall, lanky boy with bright red hair. His green eyes are tinted red and he is coughing up a storm. He looks at me for a second, seemingly processing what he is seeing. Then he finally recognizes me.

“He man! What’s up?” He pulls me in for a hug. The skunk stench is unbearably strong. I pull away.

  “Do you have my pen?” I cut right to the chase. He pauses and looks at me, processing again.

“Pen?”

I sigh.

“Yes, the pen I leant you this morning! I need it back,” I’m starting to get impatient. I mean I have a story to write ASAP! (Or at least as soon as I find my pen!)

“Pen… Pen? Oh! Right that pen!” He finally says. I sigh in relief.

“So you have it?”

“No man, I gave that back to you,” he says. I raise my eyebrow.

“Are you sure?” I ask. He clearly wasn’t in the best state of mind.

“Yeah, man! I gave it back to you when you were talking to that cute girl Carly. You didn’t really notice me, you just too the pen back and put it on the desk beside y-“

“The desk! That’s it!” I run off before he can reply and make my way to the Creative Writing classroom.

. . .

I burst into classroom B113. 

Luckily, it’s empty. I quickly run to the desk I was sitting at. I look on top of it. I crouch down and look under it. I look around nearby desks, just hoping it was still here, and not stolen by some pen thief.

Unluckily, it isn’t there. What am I going to do now? I’m all out of leads. No direction. Just as I’m about to cut my losses, I hear the clicking of heels stepping into the classroom. I turn around to see my teacher, Ms. Green, standing in the doorway, clearly taken aback by my presence. 

“Mr. Johnson? What are you doing here?” She asks.

“You haven’t seen a pen near this desk, have you?” I waste no time.

“Mr. Johnson, you can’t be serious,” she says. When I don’t answer, she continues. “Do you know how many pens come in and out of this classroom? How many get lost or stolen? I don’t keep track of that.”

I let that sink in for a second before I get an idea.

“Well who sits at my desk the next period?”

She stares at me for about three seconds, then sighs. She walks over to her desk, and looks through some papers. When she finds the paper she is looking for, she studies it.

“Taylor Hutchens,” she says.

“Taylor Hutchens? Like Senior VP Taylor Hutchens?” I ask. Ms. Green nods. 

Well this wasn’t going to be easy. Senior Vice President Taylor Hutchens doesn’t know that I, lowly sophomore Daniel Johnson, even exists. Not to mention I don’t even know where I would begin to look for her.

“You know, I think Taylor is at a fundraising event in the main courtyard today, until three,” Ms. Green says, as if she was reading my mind. I look at my watch. It’s two-thirty.

“Yes!” I exclaim. “That’s just enough time!”

I’m about to leave when Ms. Green stops me.

“Hey Daniel? I’m curious. Why do you need this pen so bad? They recently started a take-a-pen-leave-a-pen program in the library.”

“This is my favorite pen. I can’t write my short story without it,” I say.

“You do know this assignment has to be typed, right?” She asks. 

“Uhh… I gotta go! Taylor and my pen won’t be there for much longer!” With that I run out of the classroom.

. . .

The main courtyard is a vast open space, with lots of trees and benches to sit on. It was basically a tiny park in the middle of campus. Scattered here and there, groups of students did their homework in the grass. Today, in the center of the courtyard was a large stage with a discount “Wheel of Fortune” wheel in center stage. There was a sign that said

“$5 a Spin” at the front of the stage. On the wheel was pictures of different prizes, like school hoodies, food vouchers, gift cards. The best prize was tickets to a concert. It wasn’t a big name singer, just some up and coming boy band, but it must of been the reason for the long line of gushing girls (and some boys) stretching across the courtyard. 

The Senior President, Damien Marshal, was hosting the event. Taylor Hutchens was collecting donations from the fan girls in line. I run up to her. 

“Hi Taylor! Excuse me but-,” I start to say, but she cuts me off.

“I’m sorry sir, but you are going to have to get in line if you want a turn,” she says.

“No, that’s not it. I have a question!” I say.

She pauses what she is doing, composes herself, and turns to me. She has the biggest, fakest smile I’ve ever seen, it could have been a Joker halloween mask.

“How can I help you today?” She asks in an overly friendly voice. 

“Um, Ms. Green’s class, you, uh, sit at my desk, like, right after me.” I say, quite smoothly, if I do say so myself.

“Ok?” She is clearly confused. By how I know this, or why I was bringing it up, either way, it didn’t look good for me.

“I’m looking for my pen,” I start to explain. She catches on, pretty quickly.

“Oh, I did find a pen at my… er, our desk, today,” she says.

“Sweet! So you have it?” I excitedly say. She gives me a disappointed look.

“No, I’m sorry. I gave put it in the take-a-pen-leave-a-pen jar in the library! You know the student government started that program, so no student has to be without a pen…,” she goes on, but I zone out.

The library of course! It had been there all along. Right where I started. 

“I gotta go! Bye!” I say, as I start making a b-line for the library. 

“Don’t you want to hear about the program?” She yells back to me.

“Nope.”

. . .

I rush into the library. I don’t even stop to say high to Katie, who is still nose deep in her calculus book. I just run straight to the front desk. I pick up the pen cup labeled: Take-A-Pen-Leave-A-Pen. I look through all of the pens, none of which are my own. This commotion was enough to catch the attention of the bored student at the desk. She looks up from her phone.

“Can I help you?” She asks.

“Did Taylor Hutchens put a pen in here?” I ask.

“Oh, Tay? That’s my girl! She just came in here earlier!” She said.

“Yeah, I know. Did she leave a pen?” I ask impatiently.

“Oh, Yeah! It was the one with the duct tape,” she replied.

“What? Duct tape?” I’m confused at the moment. I relook through all of the pens in the cup. Sure enough, there was a blue Papermate pen, the cap was slightly chewed, and it had a makeshift grip, made out of cartoon taco duct tape. The same duct tape I had in in the middle pocket of my black and red backpack. 

This was my pen. Just not the pen. I must have leant Jeremy this pen. Never my favorite pen. I sulk back over to Katie and slunk into the chair next to her. 

“Didn’t find it, huh?” She guesses. I hold up the chewed up Papermate. 

“This is what I’ve been chasing all afternoon. How am I supposed to write now?” I say. Katie rolls her eyes.

“We both know what this is about,” She says. I just stare at her.

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “This is about my pen. I always write with my pen. What if I write without it and it sucks? What if I’m no good without my pen? What if I’m no good?”

Then I heard it. As it processes in my head, a small “Oh” escapes my lips. 

“Yeah, ‘oh’,” Katie says. I sigh.

“It’s just, every time I try to write, I get this knot in my stomach, and I can’t get it out of my head, that all of my stuff sucks,” I confess. 

“Boohoo! so what?” She says, and I’m taken aback.

“What?” I ask dumbfounded.

“So what if it sucks? So what if everybody hates it? You love writing. So write! And if it sucks, then you just get better with the next one. But, you are never going to get better, if you don’t keep writing.”

I let that sit for a few seconds. I swiftly tap on the table with my taco tape pen, thinking about what she just said.

“Look,” she continues, “everyone procrastinates from fear of failure. You just go to a ridiculous extreme that leads you on wild goose chases. This is your second one this week!”

“The other one was important!” I argued. Katie gives me a deadpan look.

“You were trying to find the taco truck,” she says.

“Exactly, important!”

“Daniel,” she looks at me. I sigh.

“I hate to admit you were right about anything, but you just may be right on this one,” I say.

“May? I’m definitely right!” She says arrogantly. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah! Don’t let it go to your head. I guess I should go start typing my story.”

“As long as you leave me alone!” She sing songs as she puts her earbuds in, and goes back to her homework. 

I look at the pen I spent all day looking for. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. I don’t need a fancy, twenty dollar pen. This could be my new favorite pen. I reach in my backpack for my pencil case. It took a lot trying to find this pen, I’m not going to lose this one. I open my neon green pencil case, and you will never guess what is staring back at me (actually you probably will).

It is an ergonomic black gel pen with a memory foam grip.