Put some lead in your pencil

Put some lead in your pencil

A gender neutral story

The HB pencil watched the red pencil roll by and said

“Hello you are looking sharp”

The red pencil grunted

“I am meeting all of the derwents to put colour in the drawing and take everyone’s mind off the hideous black thoughts they have”

Perhaps that was meant as a slight on the lead pencil, but it smiled in congratulations, for such a noble cause and watched the red pencil roll away.

There was a time of day the lead pencil looked forward to.

When the writer had respite from chores and the barrage of information that was called Antisocial Media, there was time to reflect and record. Some times the record was brief and meant adding up the grocery bill and other times it was longer, with beautiful words explaining the world as it was or should be. These were the best, even when they were not funny. Sometimes the words were inscribed on separate pages for folding and disappearing in packets. The lead pencil looked forward to the return packets being opened and left on the desk where it was wonderful to see the work of other lead pencils and the thoughts of writers from far away places. And sometimes the big book came out. It was a book, only the writer and the lead pencil were allowed to see. And it carried words of pain and hurt that no one else would read. But it carried hope, dreams and care, which in a mundane world, is a wonderful thing.