Mightier than the Sword

The wallpaper rustles as I smooth it back into place. I take care to tuck that loose corner behind the wooden trim so a casual observer won't see anything amiss. My pencil sits in my apron pocket, a large, hard lump, and heavy as any boulder. I'm sure it broadcasts its presence to anyone who stands too close to me. A woman in the bakery looked at me for a moment too long, this morning. I'm convinced she knows.

But I can't stop.

I have my weapon.

I have chosen my ammunition.

When I found the pencil, I didn't know what to do. I almost left it there on the pavement. It nearly ended up between the bars on the grate of the sewer. But instead of nudging it in with my toe, rolling it down into dark oblivion, I concealed it with my shoe, instead. And I stood.

Considering.

Like the princess with her pea. Aware of something so small becoming something big. Meaning more.

A man will have dropped it there. A man who doesn't care, and won't come back for it. He will have many more. All neatly arranged in a pot used just for that purpose right at the edge of a big wooden desk inside his large, stark office. An office where he holds power and wields it. This one pencil...it isn't important to him. It isn't power for him. But it is for me.

I have two things now. My pencil—for it was mine, not his, the moment my fingers grasped it and my teeth nibbled into the painted wood, leaving their mark. In my grip, this pencil is home. I also have my name. Except, not the name anyone else gave me, the name those men with great power bestowed on me as I served their purposes. Their purposes are not my reason, not me, not my name.

My name. How I recognise myself. Identity.

And the town is learning my name. I write it when no one is looking. But where everyone will see. Sometimes, I hide it somewhere, and then it's my secret.

Behind the wallpaper is my biggest subterfuge of all. I'm writing lots of names. So many. Names I barely even remember. I'm dredging them from my memory and committing them forward into a history I'm making. I started with my mother, family members, neighbours, my friends. Every woman who can't write her own name is there. Not everyone has the same power as I have. I am lucky.