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Dear reader, I’d like to introduce you to a rather important person, quite central to this here tale. His name is Stephan Mckintire. Born February 4th 1971, of average build and average height, not entirely average in all things, but then who is? Much like you or I, he has dreams, fears, desires and dissolutions. He is neither cynic, nor optimist. Merely a man, a mere mortal; much like any other you might meet. His tale however, the one I tell here; it is a little bit different, it’s an unordinary life for this ordinary person. So bear with dear reader and see what becomes him.


Stephen was an aspiring writer. He worked at a local convenience store to support himself. Every day that he finished work, he would come home and write feverishly for hours on end. He’d started shortly after he’d left school, 16 years later at 34 years of age and he had written countless short stories and two whole novels. There was only one problem, a problem he didn’t like to admit. He wasn’t very good. People would smile fake smiles after he showed them his work, tell him he was good and then change the subject. None of the publishers he’d sent work to, had ever written back. He wasn’t getting any younger and it seemed that his dreams of becoming a famous author and being able to leave that damn convenience store were getting slimmer and slimmer.

When he wasn’t working or writing he was searching, spending time at garage sales, flea markets and auction houses. Though he did the majority of his work on the computer; he liked to start a story, do the outline and maybe the first chapter on paper, with a good pen. It felt more real to him somehow; it enabled him to imagine he was a famour old author like Poe or Dickens. Sitting around in his den, with a glass of wine, some paper and a pen, it was the pens that he was after. Fountain pens, the older the better were his preference. Once he’d even bought a pen via an add in the newspaper which the owner claimed to have once been owned by Virginia Wolfe. He wasn’t sure if it was true but he liked to believe it anyway.

So on that fateful Saturday morning, Stephen was at an auction house. He’d come here to watch the auction of an old pen, one of the early fountain pens, dating from the 19th century. He could never afford the pen that was going to be sold but sometimes he just liked to come and watch anyway. The auction for his item was still a few hours away, so he wandered the building keeping an eye out for bargains. That was when he saw an auctioneer bring a box of pens to the table at one of the smaller auctions. The current lot was from somebody who had died without relatives or a will, the government was selling all their possessions as a result and so not much was known about the items.

The auctioneer started the bidding at $10 for the whole box. No one stirred, the box didn’t look like much, just a plain wooden box and there were no guarantees that any of the pens even worked, let alone that any of them might be valuable. The auctioneer tried to raise interest by taking out some of the pens, they looked like just run of the mill plastic ballpoints. Stephen thought he’d take a chance though as he had a bit of cash to spare and decided to make a bid. Raising his hand he nodded at the auctioneer.

”Going once, at $10… Going twice… Going thrice, sold to the gentleman in the white shirt”.

No one else had even bid.

He went around to the side and spoke to another man to pay for and collect his new box of pens. Taking a seat again up the back he put the box on his lap and started to go through the pens. There must have been about forty of fifty pens in the box and as he rummaged through the box he began to despair. All biros, ballpoints and cheap plastic ones that didn’t even look like they worked to boot. Then at the bottom of the box he saw it, 'Oh my god' he thought.

At the very bottom of the box lay a smooth, black stained cylindrical tube. With tiny cut off pieces of feathers still attached to the sides. 'There is a quill in here, wow!' he thought, 'the worlds oldest sort of pen'. He didn’t even know if it would work still, he didn’t exactly understand how to write with a quill but he saw no reason for it not to still write. He could see the ink stains on it still and it didn’t appear to have any holes in it. Suddenly excited, Stephen got up and decided to head home, only stopping first at a craft store to pick up a vial of ink.

Getting back home, Stephen put his new found pride and joy on his normal writing desk. It was a large, old teak desk. There was even a little indentation in the wood to hold an inkwell. Happily taking his purchases out of his bag he carefully placed the vial of ink in the depression in the wood. Took a couple of pieces of paper from the stack on the top right hand corner of the desk, put the quill and top of the stack and looked down in happiness. 'Now I feel like a writer' he thought, 'not Poe or Dickens, but Plato or Shakespeare.'

Carefully taking the lid off the jar of ink and putting it down on the desk, he then picked up the quill and dipped it in the jar. Left it in for a few seconds to let the ink run up to the top of the quill then drawing it out and experimentally he began to try and write with it. He tried to just do a few words, to see how it was to write with a quill. 'This is amazing' he thought. He’d written a sentence just as clearly and easily as he could with a pen. 'In fact, it felt much nicer to write with a quill than any other instrument he’d tried. Bye bye Miss Virginia Wolfe pen. This is my new found writing tool of choice.' So without any further ado, Stephen began to write. He had planned on starting the outline of a new story he had thought of while he was at work the other day. It wasn’t until he glanced at the clock though that he came to his senses. He’d been sitting here for 8 hours. It was nearly 7 o’clock in the evening and he hadn’t even had lunch yet, let alone dinner. But he was writing so well. What he had meant to be an outline, had turned into the first few chapters of a novel.

Quickly glancing through the sheaf of papers he’d written he was astounded with his work. 'This is great' he thought, even though he barely remembered writing it he was delighted. 'This quill pen is inspirational.' His stomach grumbled but he decided to press on, 'why stop when you’re on a roll?'

Page after page he wrote, barely conscious of himself he stayed at his desk for hours, as time went on he became even more frenetic. It was only the sound of his alarm that finally bought him out of his reverie. 'His alarm? Dear lord' he thought, 'it must be 8:00 in the morning; it’s time for me to get ready for work.' Looking up from his writings incredulously to notice that it was indeed light in his apartment. He’d worked throughout the night, without a single break. The few chapters had turned into many and the bottle of ink was half empty. He noticed for the first time that his hands were shaking and that he was ravenous. With a gasp he put the quill down and stood up.

Looking around him he considered his options. 'I really should get ready for work' he thought, but glancing down at his burgeoning new novel he was beset with doubts. Making a decision he left the desk and grabbed his phone.

He dialed the number to his work.

The person who answered the phone was Brad, Stephen liked Brad, he was a young fellow, wasn’t the hardest worker but he was quick to smile and easy to get along with. Stephen put on his best sick voice.

“Hi Brad, its Stephen, is Gary or Michelle there?”

“What’s the matter Steph? You sound sick… or like you’re pretending to be?”

Stephen could almost hear the smile as Brad said it.

”No afraid not, I’m really sick at the moment, either of the bosses around at the moment?”

“Sure thing dude, just a tic… hope your hangover gets better, later alligator”

Stephen smiled in spite of himself. He didn’t like doing this, wasn’t even completely sure why he was doing this, it would be the first Sunday shift he had missed in nearly three months. Then he glanced back at his desk. His eyes fell upon the pen (the quill) he had picked up at that auction yesterday. 'Yesterday... Good Lord, I barely remember writing all those pages but still it feels like a lifetime ago. It's alright though, I’m doing the right thing. I have to get back to my writing (and my quill).'

He ended up speaking to Gary about not being able to come into work today. Gary didn’t sound very happy about being given such short notice but he didn’t put up much of a fight either and with a terse “hope you feel better soon” he was gone.

Stephen went back to his desk. He knew he should get something to eat, but he was starting to feel like he was losing the train of his story, even just after having made that phone call. It wasn’t till he sat back down and had his new pen in his hand again that he started to feel good about things. Dipping it into the ink bottle for a few seconds he grabbed a new piece of paper and started to write again.

Page after page, chapter after chapter, time passed and Stephen did nothing but write. His hands shook but the words were clear, he glanced at the clock again. 8:10 am, 'that’s odd' he thought. 'It’s only been ten minutes, and I’ve written hundreds of pages… it couldn’t have been a whole day since I last looked at the clock. No, it’s just been ten minutes, I’ll keep writing.'

Page after page, chapter after chapter, time passed and Stephen did nothing but write. The ink continued to flow, his hands shook, his body cramped, his stomach was a gnawing animal that demanded he feed it; he could smell something foul which he suspected was himself but he still didn’t stop. 'He was on a roll; this was his Magnus opus, if it required some self sacrifice, well then what truly great works did not?'

An alarm sounded, a small part of his mind knew that it must be Tuesday already and he should go to work, or at least call in sick, but he couldn’t leave his desk (or his quill). Chapters later and the phone started to ring, he ignored it. Parts of his mind were starting to protest, tell him he had to at least get something to eat. But he kept writing, he was so close, the story was coming to an end. He knew it would be something that would be passed down through the ages. That teachers would give to children in classrooms, that would make him immortal in all but the flesh. The phone rang again; he kept working. The sun set and the sun rose, he never left his desk. The ink bottle ran empty, but the quill still wrote and he never noticed. The stack of papers he had written on was bigger then the stack of paper he had at his desk at the start but he didn’t remember going out to get more.

Someone knocked on the door, he didn’t even tell them to go away, he just wrote. He just continued furiously pouring out his soul via the ink onto the page. He wondered what the time was. But he could no longer even bring himself to stop writing for the moment it would take to check. It was dark, a part of his brain realized. Dark and he was fairly sure he hadn’t heard the bell from the local school today, 'but it can’t be the weekend already. No the bell was just broken, that was it. I’m almost finished' he rationalized, 'I know I feel weak, lightheaded but just a few more pages, just a few more chapters and then I’ll be done. Then I can rest, sleep, get something to eat.'

Page after page, chapter after chapter, he wrote until at last he slowed, slowed and then stopped. He smiled as he looked down at the end of his book. A magnificent masterpiece he was sure. His name would go down in history, it was the finest work to have ever been written, and his inspiration was this ancient pen, this quill. He smiled as he laid his head down on the stack of pages to rest.

It took two weeks for the people Stephen worked with to convince themselves that something was wrong, a few had gone round to his place and he wasn’t there, nor was he answering his phone, it just wasn’t like him.

When the police finally broke down his door they found him at his desk, his apartment stank of food gone bad and of a decomposing body. For that is what he was when they found him. Just a corpse lying on top of a stack of papers, with a quill clutched in his hand.

Stephen was an only child, his parent had died a few years ago and he had never made out a will. So all his possessions were sold at an auction. His TV, his sofa, his fridge, they even put all his precious pens (black stained quill included) in a box, all to be auctioned off so that they could be passed on and enter someone else’s life.

His last great novel? His Magnus Opus? That was just a stack of scribbles, intelligible and ineligible scribbles, page after page of them. It was the opinion of the police coroner that he had cracked. Gone insane, sat down at his desk and written chapter after chapter of nonsense until his body finally gave up and died.

When the clean up crew went through his belongings they threw out the stack of papers. All covered in that same inexplicable scrawl. They also threw out the solitary bottle of ink that was on his desk. Empty it was, all the ink long since dried and gone.