Sparkler Snapshots

XXXIX | Erasable Ink

"An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." – Bill Vaughn

Date: January 1st, 2018

Occasion: New Year's Day

Country: Worldwide

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XXXIX | Erasable Ink

THE THREE WORDS eyeball her with utter skepticism. Though inanimate on paper, the dark blue letters are almost scowling at her, scolding her for her incompetence. She wonders how authors can get anything written when their mind is screaming different ideas from every direction. A novel may be great, but it can only be appreciated by an audience when in print.

Around her, cicadas harmonize on the windowsill, their chirps reverberating into the tranquil night sky. She wishes she can be a cicada, where her only responsibility would be staying alive. If only life were so simple. The rest of her family have long since gone to bed, having hopped off a plane a few hours ago and suffering from jet lag. For this occasion, it feels as if she's the only person on the planet still awake. There's a haunting peace to the thought. Her lamp faintly flickers, its dim glow casting shadows across three words:

New Year's Resolutions.

"How hard is it to write one damn resolution?" the girl whispers to herself.

The only earwitnesses are several towering trees and the cicadas, which continue chittering without a care in the word. The wind picks up, whistling through the leaves. Whistling at her to hurry and write the resolutions before the clock strikes midnight. Like whistling at a dog to come here, or hailing a taxi driver. Like a command.

It'd been almost an hour since she'd first forced herself to put pen to paper, but the only things she's achieved so far are writing those three words and getting frustrated to the point where she nearly throws her notebook out the window. Maybe the cicadas can make do with it. At this point, the cicadas can probably write better resolutions than her, and that's just sad. Raking a hand through her blonde tangles, which look like they came straight from the vines of the Amazon rainforest, she finally sets her pen down beside the notebook, where it lays stiffly in defeat.

As frustration bubbles up her throat like magma, she forces herself to stay calm. No problem, she thinks to herself. I'll try again in a few minutes. It'll be fine. I can do this. Perfect resolutions. How hard can it be?

It proves to be very hard, as five minutes pass. Then ten. minutes. Fifteen minutes. Before she knows it, her phone, the only other source of light in the room, signals the passing of twenty whole minutes. By this time, sleep has almost consumed her. Her head slowly droops, with even gravity resisting against her struggle. Before she knows it, her forehead is resting on the frigid wood of her desk.

Though her head is resting, defeat is what pulled her down, not exhaustion. So, she lays there, sprawled on her desk, eyes wide open, staring at the notebook, wishing the resolutions would write themselves. Ten seconds pass, she counts, before something peculiar happens. Scribbling noises start up beside her ear, growing louder and louder, like an engine being revved. Head perking up, her eyes widen to the size of galleons as she watches something spectacular. Something terrifying. Something impossible.

Her pen is moving all by itself.

She rubs her eyes to rid the hallucinations, but the problem is, there aren't any. The pen is indeed skidding on the piece of paper, drawing and writing with the speed of a cheetah chasing its prey. The page is soon covered in ink black cursive, much neater than her own practical, sans-serif handwriting. Though the pen usually leaves blots when she writes, this writing leaves none. It's the epitome of perfection. She suddenly wonders how sad it is to be jealous of a pen, of all objects.