The Mighty Pencil

The Mighty Pencil

At five o’clock on Memorial Day, Astrid sat down at her kitchen table, took up her pencil, and began to change the world. She’d thought about it for a long time. The state of the planet appalled and frightened her, but mainly it had disappointed her. She remembered after her fifth birthday party, her father had held her in his lap. They listened to the radio while he spun tales of the wonderful things people would do in the future.

Now nearly ninety-five years later, Astrid had to admit some had come true. Promising, she told herself, but not the complete picture. She wanted that picture. Oh yes, people were what they were, and one would never eliminate all the suffering in the world. You couldn’t live a hundred years and not know that, but there could be less suffering. There could be a gentler more beautiful world.

Her father had done his part. He’d volunteered a great deal of his time. Later, she’d tried too, but it was just a band-aid on wounds that never seemed to heal. She couldn’t tell that any real change had been affected. Friends shared her opinion. She turned to the great philosophers, hunting out their no longer in print books in moldy second hand stores. They’d contained great knowledge, but they didn’t have the answer she sought.

Then one day, she came across a thin, beaten, little book called White Magic, for the Disillusioned. She bought it and read it, cover to cover, several times. ‘The world is what we create it to be,’ the author wrote. ‘If you believe a thing is, then it is. Making a thing exist is as simple as writing it down.’

This idea intrigued Astrid. She’d immediately set about making a list of those things she wanted to create. Time and thought went into the list, which she’d written in fine, old style, handwriting. Astrid’s teachers had drilled into her proper penmanship. Her letters were lovely, curling lines that undulated gracefully across the page.

Once finished, she set the list aside to wait. Days passed and nothing changed. Hopefulness gave way to anger. What did I do wrong? She reread the book, but no solution presented itself. She thought about it for nearly another year.

Then one sleepless Saturday night, over a cup of tea and the millionth perusal of her list, she got it. If one could bring ideas into being just by writing them down, then one might be able to banish things by erasing them.

Heart pounding she rustled through drawers for a pencil, with an eraser, to test her revelation. Something small, she considered. Something I can be sure of. With trembling hands, she made two columns. In the first she wrote, my granddaughter seldom calls me. In the second she wrote, my granddaughter calls me every Sunday. Then she used the eraser and scrubbed out the words in the first column. After that, she had a second cup of tea and felt a little silly. When she finished her tea, she rinsed the cup and returned to bed.

The ringing phone jolted Astrid awake the next morning. Fumbling with the phone, she finally managed a weak, “Hello.”

“Grandma, it’s Carrie. Are you okay?”

“Carrie, it’s been forever. I’m fine, I slept a little late that’s all.”

“Oh.” She paused and Astrid waited. “I had this dream about you and it scared me. Stupid isn’t it.”

“Oh no, honey. I’ve had dreams like that. It always makes you feel better to talk to the person.”

“What are you planning on doing today, Grandma? I thought I might bring the girls over this afternoon.”

“I’d love to see you. I’ll fix lunch.”

“You don’t have to do that, Grandma.”

“I want to.”

“Okay. Grandma, why don’t I call every Sunday about this time. I don’t want to get so caught up in the girls and John, I don’t spend time with you.”

“That’s a lovely idea.”
Astrid was ecstatic. It worked! For another week, she’d planned and now on Memorial Day, she was ready to proceed. She got her pencil and made two columns on a new pad of paper. One she titled Goodbye and the other she called Hello.

Under the Goodbye column she wrote, school shootings, prejudice, family violence, cruelty to animals, terrorist attacks, and Astrid having to park a long way from the door to the grocery store.

In the Hello column she wrote, tolerance, patience, kindness, manners, respect, and a good parking spot for Astrid.

Then she erased everything under the Goodbye column, leaving only the swirling letters of the Hello column visible. She reverently folded the paper and tucked it away in the top kitchen drawer. She spent the rest of the evening as usual and went to bed early.

The next morning, Astrid got up, made her tea, and turned on the television to see the local early morning news show. The male host was flashing a bright smile at the camera. “It’s been a slow night on the news front, folks,” he gushed. “But there have been a couple of interesting developments. In international news several groups of terrorists have announced they will no longer be spending money on guns or explosive devices. They have retained lawyers and apparently plan to bring the world to its knees through legal means.”

“That’s amazing,” his female co-host interjected. “I’m a little scared by this news.”

“I’m feeling that way, too,” the male anchor agreed.

“In local news,” the female continued. “We have a citizen celebrating her 100th birthday today. Happy birthday, Astrid. What an accomplishment! And to help you celebrate, Jerry’s Groceries is giving you use of the V.I.P. parking spot right by the door, for the next year.”

“Well, that’s wonderful, and congratulations to you Astrid.”

Astrid snapped off the set, hummed a merry tune, and went into the kitchen for her second cup of tea.

Word count 995