Life of Pencil

The Pencil was going over.


Overboard, falling onto it’s multi-faceted sides, plodding along in its’ awkward role, casually extending to tumble over the edge.

Kai woke up.

“It’s been over an hour”, he thought to himself. Reaching out his right arm, Kai snagged the wayward pencil in mid-descend. “What am I going to do?”

It had been three years since Kai had left his hometown in rural Pennsylvania on his somewhat now tired dream of ultimate fulfillment. He sat now in a worn out seat in a hospital waiting area. Back after three years away. Back to Pennsylvania.

When his Aunt Mabel had called him a week earlier Kai had hardly been able to make out the words between the sobs, but he didn’t need to hear them. He already knew. It was time. Mom.

Kai’s mother had been sick for a long time. The cancer had started in her liver, and had been moving slowly up through her body over the course of the latter part of the year. “She’ll get better.” He had thought, but from the beginning the prognosis was grim. Kai had been planning a move back home, but now there wasn’t enough time. His denial had kept him away, living in a safe little retreat of ignorance and false logic. And now…

He just couldn’t face the truth. MOM.

Kai’s head snapped up as the doors to his mothers’ room opened. The doctor walked out. He walked toward Kai in a slow, mechanical manner. His head was bowed. When he got to where Kai was seated he couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” said Dr.. What was that? Brown? Kai wasn’t listening to the doctor, he was trying to read his name tag, but the edge was obscured by the doctor’s scrubs, he just couldn’t see the very edge, he was sure he could read it if the doctor would only just move an inch to the left, just a small baby step. Hell, even just change the way he was standing; sway a little to the side..

The doctor did move. He grabbed Kai’s shoulder.
“I know it’s difficult, but you need to listen”. Dr. Brownstone said. The problem was, Kai already had. It had been hard over the falling sensation in his body, but he had heard. Kai’s world was falling apart.
Shaking, Kai snapped the pencil in half, stood up, turned, and walked away.