Sharpened

Flash Fiction

The pencil was new, purchased and sharpened for the occasion. 

Was it an occasion or just a thing, a lark?

Carissa took the pencil and at the top of the unlined sheet wrote Tender Hearted, underlining each word individually.

With an audible breath and a snort, she scratched over Tender Hearted as though a seismograph was announcing the end of the world.

Underneath her scribble, she wrote Tender and underlined it at a slight angle, with a flourish at the end like the wake of a pleasure boat.

Beneath that word, blank white paper began a staredown.

The paper won, Carissa sipping tea that was still too hot to sip.

She stood, then immediately and audibly plopped into her chair and wrote 

My Own Woman, the legible words not lasting a breath before being scribbled away by a pencil with a perfectly good eraser at the end.

Carissa shed the pencil, recalling a coworker who completed crossword puzzles in pen.

Deep blue ink christened a fresh sheet of paper with The Phoenix.

She gave the individual letters perspective and depth, as though they were three-dimensional stone, but wrote nothing further underneath.

The first page sat flat on the desk. Carissa was proud that she hadn’t crumpled it, or even thought about a wastebasket.

She was ashamed that she was neither tender hearted, nor anything resembling a phoenix.

No, no, you’re not ashamed you’re not those things, you’re ashamed that when you began to write about yourself that you would attempt to claim to be those things.

Closing her eyes, she considered that she had no deadlines, no parameters, no plan, and no rules.

Her own voice, her strongest voice, spoke through her eyelids and climbed over her scars.

Just write about the past three weeks, ‘Riss, just write about the past three weeks.

Grabbing the pen like a conductor’s baton, she wrote Night Sweats and began to compose.

***

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