Metaphor
Normal people use their pens for writing. This “Talia Ehrenhart” clearly did not. When I found her name etched in precise letters on the plastic pocket clip on the pen’s cap, I realized that this wasn’t a pen you’d lose in a backpack. This pen wasn’t meant for writing – it just happened to be a pen.
Talia’s eccentricity did not restrict itself to an engraved name. I would later discover that Talia was a pseudonym, meant to hide Lydia from questions about her odd pens. Most of them began as Pentel R.S.V.P. Fine Tips. She would mold thin neoprene sheets onto the transparent body of the pen to create a grip. On the rubber, she would etch a thin circle near what I would later discover to be the balance point. The tip and back cap were weighted with cured glue, and Talia had drilled a hole in the back cap so that she could insert the ink cartridge backwards. She didn’t like writing with a backwards pen, but she also never planned to write with these pens.
Talia created these pen while she was learning to twirl them. This single, small, annoying habit blossomed into an evening obsession. She would twirl absentmindedly as she read, even as she wrote. She would twirl to stay awake in class. She would even twirl butter knives, more than once intimidating friends at lunch – Talia didn’t use butter knives to cut, either.
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