Wesley Hall

The Fountain Pen

Henry had always relished his fountain pen. He'd endured gentle ribbings from friends and the occasional injunction to "get with the times" and use a computer, but still he persisted in his singular ways. There was something about the fountain pen that connected him to himself, as though each stroke was a meditation. Maybe it was something about how the ink bubbled up on the page and took a moment to dry: a sort of harness that reigned in his penchant for impetuous writing. Then again, maybe it was the smell of the ink sopping into the course pages of his little black writing book. There was something physical, even temporal about it. The tip of his pen was shaped like a diamond, and Henry liked to think about how both diamonds and ink were made out of carbon, black as his notebook. Like the glittering diamond he'd purchased for his fiancee, the vows he'd written her were born out of intense pressure. But Henry had never read those vows, at least not to Olivia. Some things happen so suddenly and unpredictably. He was stationed in Stuttgart. He didn't even get the chance to say goodbye.