“Pen and Paper”

“And as he ogled the reams of typing paper, enjoying the strange thought that one might build a sort of hut by using the packages as bricks and then gradually render oneself homeless by turning one’s house into books (for it would certainly be wrong to then employ a book as a brick), Skylar recalled the deep joy that had sometimes risen in him while simply writing something with a pen. At those moments, he fathomed the sheer beauty of the physical aspect of written language: the dance of the fingers’ movements as they stroked the letters, the flow of the ink as it met, soaked into, and extended across the paper, the bars and dots, sweeps, and flourishes idiosyncratic to each hand. Certain pens brought out this beauty better than others; these he preferred. Then as the spell lifted, he would understand the next level of written beauty: that these small shapes, when brought together, proved capable of catching and holding in their dark nets, the most elusive and sublime thoughts and feelings of their creator’s head and heart.”