Dear Parker,
I hope this letter finds you well, wherever you might be. I imagine you nestled in a dust bunny or cozying up to a Cheez-it maturing under my desk.
You might be wondering why I never came after you, why I let you slip away to the dark abyss under my desk. You might even feel a sting of betrayal, remembering how just yesterday I was on my hands and knees scrambling to rescue a lost gummy bear.
I see how this might look to you, but in my defense, it’s a matter of dignity and knowing when to let it go.
The truth is, my friend, I’m tired. Not just tired of your mind games — your constant flirtation with gravity, vanishing when I needed you most, sneaking off with my co-workers, conspiring to give me paper cuts, and that one time you convinced me you are mightier than a sword, and I had to be hospitalized for three weeks— but mostly, I’m just tired physically, and my knees feel weird if I think about them.
But as I write this letter with your identical twin brother — who hasn’t shown your flights of fancy yet— I want you to know that I’ll remember you fondly.
You were a good pen, Parker. Not like those incontinent gel pens that can’t hold it together or those high-maintenance fountain pens demanding their own cushioned holders. You were real. Authentic. An everyman’s pen. But the time has come for us to part.
I’ll think of you every time a pen slips from my fingers, every time I see a dust bunny, and yes, every time I drop something edible and retrieve it in a heartbeat — I will notice you from the corner of my eye, acknowledge your presence, then leave you be.
In a way, I envy you, Parker. You’re free from the oppressive grip, the incessant scribbling, and the five-second rule. You’re free to stay under the desk, doing god-knows-what with that flaming hot Cheeto.
So, farewell, my fallen comrade. In another life, under different circumstances, I might have dove after you.
But probably not.
Yours absentmindedly,
Ajin