Fiction: The pen

The pen
Mark was writing his best work. He slid the pencil along the lines with fine black squares, the phrases flowed on the virginal canvas witness of his ideas, a little crazy, but passionate. His fine hands squeezed the instrument of his writing, one by one the letters were engraved in the imperishable archive of his creations. His face drew with his lips a smile of orgasmic delight, as he watched his great story take shape.

"Mark, love of my life, come to lunch." A voice interrupted the writer's hypnotic trance.

"Coming, woman." A thread of annoyance was visible coming out from between his teeth.

At the woman's command, Mark left his small pencil on the side of the cedar table, stained with colored drops, and hurriedly got up to meet his long-time accomplice of stories and verses.

Mark would arrive at the dining room and trace with his gaze the curvaceous figure of his great love, then he would meet pearly teeth, almost perfect, almost white, that received him in a cordial welcome to the spontaneous appointment, born from among silent habits forged of years.

"My life, how do you go on with your great work?" A smitten gesture escaped from the woman's crimson lips.

"It's already for little, a few more chapters and I'll have the wonderful work ready to enchant many eyes. Haha..." The hasty laughter was not long in coming and filled the whitish space of the dining room.

"I'm so glad, my life." The woman focused her honey-colored eyes on the man's scrawny, slightly demented figure.

"My love, things will be different after this, believe me."

She would let out a sigh into the frigid air and stand up without uttering a word, then turn her back to Mark, who stood expectantly for an answer that would not come immediately. The man stood up a little disappointed and left the dining room, walking down the colorful tiled hallway, adorned with a faint shadow of years gone by.

"I believe you." The woman's sweet voice cut through the tense silence that hung in the air.

Mark smiled and swung his legs in a rapid repetitive cycle. He reached into the dream workshop, as he called his creative space, grabbed a faded chair, and dragged it over to where the cedar table sat. Intense noise took over the house for a brief moment, filling the ears with annoying sounds.

Slender hands picked up the pencil and kept pace with Mark's ideas. He flew between fluctuating and unconnected ideas, which then took shape in his ingenious and talented mind. He could feel that pleasant sensation that made his heart beat with more life than ever, that almost orgasmic delight was the machine that gave him the strength to face the problems of reality, which he escaped while inventing destinies at will.

The writer put the final touches of inventiveness, and closed with a grand finale, as the night fell like a theater curtain at the end of the show. Mark felt an effervescent pleasure as he brought the 290 pages, a year's work, to a close. He stood up and grabbed his lower back and stretched it in a gentle backward motion, to shake off the mild ache of a productive day.

He would return to the kitchen and grab his wife by the back in an ecstasy of joy. "Rejoice, woman, today the most wonderful work of all time was born, haha..."

"How much humility my ears hear, Mr. writer, haha..... I am very glad, love, and when do you have to send the text?" The woman's eyes rested on Mark's ecstatic face, waiting for an answer.

"In two days, I have to call the editor to tell me what to do." Excitement was still fluctuating with vivid expressions on his face.

Mark would call the publisher who would give him the guidelines to send the text, Mexico would be the destination of his great work, but he had to pay a high sum of money to send the book. Mark's spirits fell to the ground when he heard the news, sighs came out in single file, as he walked ungainly and with slumped shoulders.

He got as far as the house and his wife was greeting him warmly, then asking. "What happened, love?"

"Leave me, woman, I don't want to talk about it." He locked himself in the workshop of dreams and began to throw everything away in a vain effort to vent his pent-up rage and helplessness. Then he threw himself on the cold floor and with his gaze lost in nothingness let time slip away.

His wife would come in and lie down next to him, embrace him and a kiss on the cheek left a mark, with the illusion of making the writer feel better.

"Woman, I have lost my last hope, the money they are asking for is impossible to give". He would turn and turn his back to the woman. "You don't deserve a loser, you don't deserve this life full of needs, you are worth much more than this pigsty where I have you living, please leave."

"What are you saying?" the woman asked in bewilderment. "We can look for the money, we can..."

"You didn't listen, woman, get out! I don't want to see you again, go away, go away, go away, leave me alone."

Mark would get up and run out of the house, as his eyes expelled tears that flew to the wind lost in frustrations of a lifetime. He got so drunk that his reality was lost in stories created by ethyl alcohol, he woke up the next day lying in a pasture, while a dog licked his face.

He returned home at noon and saw no one. He went to the workshop of dreams and set about burning his text. Once the bonfire was made he uttered delirious words, while he saw the leaves. He took the book and lifted it into the air, at that instant his wife shouted. "Don't do it!"

"What do you say, woman? This has only brought me misfortune and poverty, I don't need it anymore, I have given up."

"Do you remember you once told me that no matter what happened there was still hope?". The woman's crystalline eyes rested on Mark. "There's still hope, love." She held out her hand, and a wad of bills she held out to the incredulous writer.

"Where did you get so much money?" she would ask puzzled, Mark.

"Remember my family's gold chain? My mother gave it to me this morning and I went to pawn it." The woman let out a few tears.

Mark embraced his wife and felt that hope was reborn in his heart, he took the text to the post office, and after a few months, his great work was a success, fame and fortune did not take long to appear. The book was dedicated to his great love who despite everything was there unconditionally.

...For the love of my life, Yei.

The end...