My footsteps make an audible padding noise on the mahogany floors. I try to tip toe as quietly as I can, but my presence is given away as the wood below me creaks. I freeze, feeling like a rabbit trapped in a room with a wolf. Adrenaline races through my veins, and my heartbeat thunders in my ears, as I hold my breath. When I finally decide that no one has heard me, I walk, even slower this time, to the room.
I grasp the brass knob, and swiftly open the passageway to my sanctum. I flinch as the door slides back into place, and the click of the lock shatters the silence like the crack of a lighting bolt.
After a few more precautious moments of stillness, I breathe a sigh of relief. I turn, and let my eyes wander across the dark room. Bookshelves line every wall in the small space, and the only piece of furniture is a petite desk that sits proudly in the center of the room.
I saunter towards the desk, no longer worried about being caught sneaking around at night. My hand trails along the rough edge of the desk. The old wood splinters in some places, but it gives the fixture a rustic, classic feel.
I turn once more, and now stroll to the literature filled shelves. I brush my fingers over the spines of many glorious story filled treasures. I carefully pull out one, and clutch it to my chest. I amble back to the desk, and sit in a modest wooden chair that matches the writing table exactly. The left leg wobbles slightly as I take a seat, but I’m used to it.
I place the leathery book on the desk, and twist around vaguely to open the thick curtains. The glow of the moonlight pours through the streaked window, illuminating miniscule frays of the ancient manuscript.
I peel open the front cover, and flip slowly through the thick pages. At last, I find an empty sheet, and reach across the document. My hands grip the smooth edge of a pen, and I dip the golden tip in a jar of midnight ink.
I bring my hand back to the empty page, and hesitate, just for a moment. Then, I bring the pen down on the paper, and start casting shadowy liquid across the stark white background.
The ink flows onto the page, curling up, and then cascading back down, twirling, and dancing on the smooth snow-white sheet. The darkness seeps from the golden pen, onto the barren polar backdrop. Soon, these strokes of a pen, and grazes of dark coal fluid, are not just meaningless lines.
No, they aren’t. They become letters. Letters that are soon paired with other letters that form a puzzle of random letters that when coupled with the correct letters, create words.
Words! Ah, how magnificent words are.
Peanut. Snowflake. Angry. Touch. Always. Love. Grind. Copper. Adhesive. Knock. All of these words, and millions more are the most precious gift we have.
They allow us to communicate, and express ourselves, and share our voice with others.
And as I sit at the old wooden desk, on an old wooden chair with a wobbly leg, in the darkness of the night seeing only by the light of the moon, emitting graceful loops and curves of ink that streams from my golden pen, I create these words.