The Fountain Pen by A.J. Cole (free novel 24 .txt) 📖

All my language arts teachers told us that when we write, we should never use passive sentences. You know, like “It was a dark and stormy night.” Seems the “it was” part makes it passive, so they would prefer “the night was dark and stormy” or some such…you know, I honestly don’t care. I think they’re all nuts. After all, George Orwell started his famous book with a passive sentence, but I don’t see that story being banned by school systems. At least not for its opening sentence.

Oh, and adverbs. Words like “honestly.” Another no-no, or so I’m told by those in the know-know. Sorry, that was lame. But never mind. I’m trying to tell a story here, and my near-inability to avoid tangents is getting in the way. In this case, the cause is that question all writers face: How do I start?

So language arts and editors be damned, it was a Saturday afternoon in the middle of March when I received a package that would literally (pun intended) change my life. But to give some context so those reading this won’t yawn and close the book, here’s what led up to that Saturday.

My name is Perry Driscoll, and I have no idea why. I mean about the first name. “Perry” is a male name and I’m not. A male, that is. I don’t know what my parents were thinking, and the one time I asked, they got insulted and started pointing at the bookshelf while babbling something about a gardener. Now I get it, of course, but at the time…whatever.

When I graduated high school, I considered becoming a hairdresser, but my mom said she didn’t want me to look like a pineapple (I almost never understand what she’s talking about) and said I was smart enough to go to college.

“And major in what, mom? Literature? I hate reading.”

“That’s not a bad idea.” She started giving me that narrow-eyed stare thing, tilting her head to one side, a combination of upper body gestures that always ended in my doing something I hated.

“What isn’t a bad idea? Hating to read or going to college as a literature major?”

“Well, since you already have the first one down, I’m clearly talking about your major.”

“It’s not ‘my’ major. I’m not even in college.”

“Yet.”

“She should start by learning about life beyond the internet.” My father had come into the kitchen, the scene of that exhausting discussion, and sat at the table with a big grin on his face. Okay, that’s…I’ve since learned a lot about redundancies. Saying the grin was on his face is ridiculous; where else would it be? And if you’re going to be gross, don’t answer.

“The internet,” I remember informing him, “is the greatest source of information out there, dad. You know that.”

“I do. I also know that you never use it for that.”

“How? Huh? How do you know?”

“What’s the last thing you researched?”

He had me. Research, like reading, was right up there with things I despised more than cleaning out closets. “Fine.” Yeah, I was pouting. So what?

“Why wouldn’t you consider college?” My mom had started making sandwiches, so she wasn’t looking at me.

“Because I’d have to study and I hate reading.”

“So,” my father said, his eyes narrowing (I knew at that moment that I was doomed for sure), “when you get online with your friends, what are you doing?”

“Chatting.”

“How? I mean, if you don’t read, how are you communicating, and how do you know what they’re saying to you?”

Deep, deep sigh. “I can read, dad. I just don’t like reading books.”

Thunk! Mom was cutting one of the sandwiches with a knife that was, in my opinion, overkill. A small steak knife would have done the job, but no, she had to use one of those massive implements you see Hibachi cooks attacking steak with at your table. When you’re eating at a Hibachi restaurant, that is. If you have one of those guys chopping food at your table at home, there’s either something weird about you or you’re rich as…damn. There I go again. Tangent attack!

The whole point of mentioning this whacko discussion with my parents is that it resulted in me going to college and majoring in Literature. There. Why couldn’t I have just said that? And it was in college that I realized how wonderful reading books can be. And yes, that was a passive sentence.

Anyway, I was inspired. I was thrilled (“Two! Two passive sentences, mwah-ha-ha!”). I even started a blog. No one but a few close friends read it, until soon after that afternoon in March, but I enjoyed doing it. After graduating with two degrees – A BA in World Literature and a Masters in Business and Marketing – I worked for a publishing company, a popular bookstore, and an advertising firm. This little tour of the business world in someone else’s employ lasted about five years before I decided to strike out on my own.

I got myself incorporated as an LLC, became a business consultant for several marketing companies, and on the side continued blogging. Mostly about me, of course, and my so-called journey through life, a topic no one but me (and those few friends I mentioned) gave a crap about. Until that afternoon in March. The package. What its contents did to my life. All that.

Everything that led up to the moment when my doorbell rang and the UPS guy had me sign for a small box was the right kind of preparation I needed to deal with what I found inside.

Did I mention that at the time I had a wonderful boyfriend? Well I did, or I wouldn’t have used the word “boyfriend” anywhere in this chapter, except maybe to say I didn’t have one, but I did. And I’m babbling. Great. So I had a wonderful boyfriend named Wynn Jones – he was Welsh or something and had the cutest accent – and he treated me like a princess. I also had a cat, but only because Wynn gave her to me as a Christmas gift the year before. I’m not a cat person, but after getting past the whole litter box necessity (I tried to teach her to use the toilet – I really did), I started liking the way she purred at me and got all affectionate when I came home from the store.

I worked at home, of course. Being an independent consultant and blogger has that perk, even if it sucks in terms of health insurance and such. I have no idea why I mentioned the cat. Editors will tell you that you should cut irrelevant words, sentences, and sections. If I did that, this book would have a title page, a blurb on the back cover, and around three or four pages in between.

I’ve also been given a multitude of lectures about “showing” rather than “telling.” Let me tell you, this book has so far “shown” very little, other than the stuff about mom cutting sandwiches, which, now that I think about it, is probably why I included that bit. Ha.

Since becoming an avid reader, I’ve also become an avid babbler. I go on at length about everything, but don’t get into meaty action descriptions. I just…go on at length about everything.

But back to the lead-up, which is what this chapter is all about, after all, even if it’s impossible to tell because of all the tangential babbling.

Right! I had a nice apartment several miles from my parents’ house, an awesome boyfriend, a nifty cat, and several close friends who loved me enough to read my blogs. And a well-paying business. Can’t forget that. Oh, and a Prius. I think they look cool, even if no one else I know does. At the time I was twenty-seven, “at the time” being the beginning of March the year I got that package.

I hate the cold. Did I mention that? No? Well, I do. So it doesn’t help that I live in the northeastern part of the US. Upstate New York, the land of beautiful lakes, mountain ranges, summertime tourists and wintertime depression. By the time March strolled into view, I was ready for some warmth and skies that were blue more often than grey.

As a rule, snow continues its assault way into April, which means March is not only blustery and bone chilling, it’s also inconsistent. One day the sun graces us with its presence and starts melting the snow and some of the ice, turning both into a slush cocktail with lacy black splatters across the blobby snow banks along the sides of the road. The next day, the sun is gone, temperatures go down, and all that slush turns into bumpy, treacherous ice, necessitating the return of the sanders: big, noisy trucks that dump sand or salt on the roadways to cut down on spin-outs. Of course, that doesn’t include sidewalks, so if you happen to be walking along one and hit a patch where a store or homeowner didn’t bother to scrape off the ice or melt it with salt, you got to enjoy a quick slide that often ended in mortification or a trip to the emergency room. Usually both.

Who would feed the cat? That question occurred to me as the EMT was shining a tiny flashlight into my eyes. I’m not sure why he even needed to do that since it was broad daylight (as opposed to narrow daylight?) and my eyes were wide open.

“What’s your name?” He waved for someone to join him without looking away.

“Perry Driscoll.”

“Mary Driscoll?”

Good God. “No, Perry. With a ‘p’ followed by an ‘e.’”

“Okay, Perry. My name is Jake. You’ve had a bad fall.”

Really? Is that what happened? Gee, I thought I’d tried to go sleigh riding without my sled and missed the hill somehow. Good thing he was being so nice or I might have said that out loud.

“Can you feel pain anywhere?”

Like the thudding in the back of my skull? Or… “There’s something wrong with my left leg, and my head hurts a lot.”

“Yes. It looks broken below the knee.”

My head?

“You probably sustained a concussion as well, so I need to you stay awake.”

Oh.

The sound of something on wheels, and a moment later I was being hoisted onto a stretcher. During the ride to the hospital, ol’ Jake held my hand, which made me wonder if things were worse than I thought, and I would be DOA by the time we got there. Obviously I wasn’t, so maybe Jake was an aspiring doctor, and was practicing his bedside manner.

That expression always makes me giggle. Seriously. When I hear “bedside manner” I get this image of a doctor cursing out everyone in the room, being a total creep to his staff, and then sidling over to the bed, sitting down, and suddenly becoming this charming, lovely human being who speaks to the patient and everyone else in dulcet tones of reassurance and hope. Then he gets up after patting the patient’s hand, turns around, and goes back to being the world’s biggest bastard.

Why I would giggle about that is a question for another day. My tangents are getting out of control again, so back to the story.

During the week I was there, Wynn, my parents, and two of my blog-reading friends came by. The doctor? Not so much. A bunch of nurses, yes, and a phlebotomist every morning, usually at an hour when not even ants are awake. I’d had an operation on my leg, but apparently the break was beyond bad, and I would be spending the next month or so bed-ridden. Wait. Sounds like my bed would be riding me like I was a horse, which those of you with dirty minds could reinterpret as…huh. Poor Wynn. There’d probably be none of that for a while.

I was told that within