My Story - The Pencil stub that started it All - Part 1

She gave me the stub of a HB yellow pencil and told me to get to it. My Nana was a miserable old broad and not too many people liked her. She didn’t care whom she offended, condemned and stared at. What the hell, she’d say when she saw a fat woman wearing a too short dress. Or, wipe that kid’s snotty nose, will you? at some negligent mama.

She didn’t like me either, and told me so several times a day. But she couldn’t expect much being as her no good son had spawned me. She’d sit me down at her kitchen table, which was carved with her anger. Thrown plates, scorches from a pan, even a carved in you’re an assh. I was sitting there just minding my own business, eating macaroni and cheese that day. The word was stopped by a firm hand by the nice man she was married to at the time. I thought he must be some kind of saint to stay, because he’s the one I remembered the most. But she eventually ran him off too. Lucky bastard.

She kept the pencil sharpener on a high shelf like it was some kind of special precious diamond. I wasn’t allowed to get it myself, but I was allowed to ask for it each time my pencil needed sharpening. I sat there every day, and wrote and wrote. Once I’d worn down the lead twice, and sharpened my pencil twice with Nana’s okay, it was okay to stop. She was that kind of miserable. Sit until you’re done, she’d say. I wrote a lot of stories in those days.

Of course, she took full credit when I won all the writing contests I sent away for. It’s all because of me girl, you just say so, cause you know it’s true, she’d say.


Part 2 - tomorrow...