One day, I found myself saying "Oh Pencil, what a marvelous gift you are."
"You craft brilliant stories and heartfelt poetry. You hold a power so strong that you can tell daring tales of courage and danger, and yet, you hold enough compassion to whisper in our ears tales of extraordinary Poverty and of racing Love. Life and Death intertwine at your tip, and from it spews the nectar of creativity and of passion. You are brilliant in every way, and reality surrenders to your great Might. So long as I have you, my works will always be brilliant."

At the time, I knew the Pencil was my ticket to greatness. I thought that, Together, we would sculpt brilliant works of art that dazzled the world, and we would happily live together forever. But when ill-fate decided to intervene...









That dream changed.

When the Pencil began its daring decent to the paper, it touched its lead down on the paper, and the Tip broke off. Immediately, I threw my arms into the air to shield myself from the incoming explosion of art and imagination that was sure to follow the destruction of the only thing that restricted the flow of the Pencil's might.

I thought to myself
"We'll never survive the destructive flow of weight and meaning that will surely burst forth from an instrument such as this amazing tool of art that surely had belonged to Athena herself."

Then, right as I believed things could get no worse, something bewildering happened. And to my amazement, the Mighty Pencil just lay there on the paper. With the same vibrancy, or lack there of, that I had seen before.

Nothing had changed. No explosion. No outburst of divinity and power. And no colorful river made of all the ideas and stories in the world. It just lay there.

Confusion overtook me as I stepped back from the site that should have the next Ground Zero. How could nothing happen when a tool as potent as the Pencil broke? Surely there should have been an event that dwarfed the Big Bang, and that would have made the very Creator of the universe cringe at the disgrace. The notion that nothing would happen made no sense to me.

I begun to speculate about what could've happened that would have presented such a baffling result. Had the incredible power of the Pencil dissipated right before its ill-fated crash landing with the paper? Had the Pencil's mighty will moved to another vessel when it sensed its approaching death? Yet, as I searched for the reason for what happened, another solution presented itself to me. With a troubled mind, I thought to myself, "Had the Pencil even had any power in the first place?"

At first, such a notion sounded ridiculous. Yet, the longer I pondered this idea, the more rooted it became in my thoughts. I thought, "What if this proposal wasn't false, but it was, in fact, the truth." If that were true, from where did the amazing stories of Strength and Love come from? Did they come from Space? Or from Thin Air? Or from some other place that was entirely different?" I had no answer for such a mystery.

The amazing supremacy that I thought the Pencil had owned must've come from somewhere. But where? From where did the ability to create breathtaking art and moving poetry come from? I tried to imagine where such supremacy came from. And as I did, I found the answer.

Such a place would have to be the very birth place of Creativity and Imagination. It would be a never before recognized bastion of knowledge, where Hate and Love lived in abundance. It was a place where Life and Death intertwine to form something entirely different, and a place where reality truly surrenders the hold it has on Existence itself. Everything the Pencil displayed would have to come from a place like that, or it would come from nowhere at all.

Yes, this had to be the answer.

But what should I call this amazing place? Was it even named yet? Could any name describe a place as divine a this place? Would it be called Heaven? Or Paradise? Olympus, maybe? "No," I thought."None of these names fit, but surely it had to be named."
Then, for the second time that day, a much simpler idea presented itself to me. The Idea said, "Call it 'you. 'Within every mind is the Creativity, the Imagination, the Love, and the Life that you moved through the Pencil. The Pencil did nothing. It never did. For the Mind sculpts the masterpiece...
The Chisel merely brings it to reality."