A.F. Waddell

Running with Pencils

It must have started with crayons. Crayola, usually the small box, but sometimes the large economy box. The crayons smelled good, but not as good as PlayDoh. Melting crayons smelled good too.

Pencils were okay, kind of boring, and when sharpened, allegedly dangerous. Be careful with that, you could put your eye out! The pencils danced between blue lines on faded gray speckled notebook paper, letters into words into sentences into paragraphs, the user marveling that letters formed words which formed language, and that the human brain could process such things.

Pens were ball point or felt-tip or fountain type, multi-coloured inks flowing and exploding between journal covers in stream-of-consciousness rant. The pens illustrated the rant with peace symbols and palm trees. 

Typewriters were heavy and metal and evil, causing young brains and fingers to produce clatter and noise and mind-deadening language—I knew this. I had friends who typed.

Word processors were somehow not as bad as typewriters, though either could take away the magic and rhythm of the organic flowing pen—typing somehow being out of tune with channeling.

Years ago in ink I used to write A. F. Waddell and draw peace symbols on my denim-covered cardboard school binder. Dear History Instructor Becker, if you are not dead and are reading this, please return my confiscated journal. I need the notes.

A.F. Waddell writes multi-genre fiction, is a film lover, and lives in California. Works include the Thelma and Louise parody "Tina and Lucille" in The Mammoth Book of on the Road (Carroll & Graf/Robinson); "Cashmeres Must Die" in Leather, Lace and Lust (Venus Books) and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Volume Four (Carroll & Graf); "Whitewood" in Foreign Affairs: Erotic Travel Tales (Cleis Press); "Marilyn" in Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers (Cleis Press).

Email: A. F. Waddell
Website: afwaddell.com

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