Darkness inside us: A book of short stories

The Pen

It was Christmas time. Ten year old Roscow got up from his bed and went down the stairs, looking under the Christmas tree. Presents were sitting under the tree, tumbling down, piled up so high. He was getting excited. He turned around and ran back up the stairs, going toward his parents room. Roscow stopped right in front of his parents room and opened the door, seeing their sleeping lumps on the bed.

“It's Christmas time come on come on!” shouted Roscow excitedly. His mom turned on her back and looked at him.

“It's too early,” she muttered, tiredly.

“It's time for Christmas. Presents are under the tree. Gotta get up gotta get up!” He dashed forward and jumped on the bed. His dad and mom groaned for a moment, but then they slowly sat up.

“We'll be down in a few minutes,” his father said. Roscow twisted around and went back down the stairs. He heard the rustling of people in a room above him and then he saw his parents walking down the stairs, draped in colorful bath robes. They were looking tired, but he could tell they were excited as well.

Somewhat.

But not as excited as Roscow. His parents sat down and he grabbed the biggest present, and before reading the small tag on the top of it, he ripped the paper open. There was a large box containing a remote control car.

“Thanks mom!” he said and was moving toward the next present.

“Your welcome honey. Calm down though a little bit. It's unnatural for someone to be this excited in the morning.”

“But it's Christmas!”

“Yes, I know,” his dad muttered. Roscow went to a smaller, square present and he ripped open the paper. It was a blue pen. This was a great gift because he loved to draw and he was a very artistic person, he had been for as long as he could remember. He hugged his mom and dad and opened the rest of the presents, thought none were as exciting as the pen he had just received. After he helped his parents clean up the trash, as he always did on Christmas, he zoomed back upstairs like a car and went into his room slamming the door. He put some of the things he had brought up with him either on the floor or on shelves.

And he opened the pen. It was a really, electric blue pen. And it sparkled. It was a beautiful pen in his eyes. He grabbed a notepad from his bookshelf and began drawing. He had numerous drawings in the book that he had drawn when he was five, that was how long the book really was. And he loved it, he really did.

He drew a few pictures on a blank sheet of paper and the pen just seemed to draw a blue, flowing line that contained no sort of squiggly lines, the lines were completely straight and smooth. He drew a couple of people standing hand in hand beside a large tree with small lumps that were the leaves, the kind of tree you could expect a kid of his age to draw. He always thought of the future, even at this young a age, because he thought—no he knew—that when he was older he would be an artist, and even in college he would still probably pursue art because it was something he loved, something that had always appealed to him. He stood up from the floor where he had been drawing and walked toward one of his bookshelves, laden with books (he loved reading and he was way above his reading level) and he knelt down in front of the smallest shelf, which contained finely sharpened colored pencils that he rarely used. He grabbed a green one, a brown one, and an orange one, and he began coloring the images in, using his brain as inspiration for what to color them because he didn't want to color the images some of the traditional colors since he felt that it would be boring that way.

Art was a way to express himself. He had found that out when he was five when he had to deal with some stuff. His life hadn't always been good. His father had once been a drinker, and he had beaten Roscow on several occasions when he was really, really young. He had even been taken away from his dad for awhile. When he was five he would grab magazines from the tables and waiting rooms and from the racks at the library, and he would point out the colors, shapes, and patterns to his mother, and anyone who would listen for that matter. His mother understood that because she had once been a person who also loved art. An artist who had painted and sculpted and had won several art prizes. So for his sixth birthday she had gotten him a notepad and some colored pencils, and that was how his love of art began. When his father was in rehab, Roscow would draw pretty pictures on the paper and show him mom and she would congratulate him on his drawings because she said they looked nice, and they did.