Part 5
To whom it may concern:
This Oral History is being written approximately 4 days after the previous entry. The preceding account I fear lacked some of the, shall we say, "culture" expected of pencils in most generations. Understanding that decorum has oft disappeared from this generation, I am still quite shocked by what my acquaintance Notoo (a peculiar name by all accounts) felt compelled to declare at the last reading of this epistle. However, after hearing his story, I am convinced it was mostly spoken under duress. When he arrived in my working place two days later, he was under the influence of an insanity bred from loneliness, disappointment, and dehydration.
Pardon me, I have been amiss in introducing myself. I am Horace Bailey. Mum calls me Horace. All of my acquaintances, both slight and intimate, call me Horace. My sister calls me HB. Alas, she was transferred to the junior high sector while still impressionable and has lost all the moorings Mum and I tried to impart to her in her fragile youth. As is evident from her creating such an unacceptable and trendy moniker for her older brother, she has succumbed to the leniency associated with the hooligans she writes for and is gone the way of all informal societies.
I share this with you only to give you a sense of the gravity with which I assure you that you will naturally feel most comfortable calling me "Horace." To clarify, you will not call me "HB," but Horace.
With that clear, I wish to explain a little of my association with the previously mentioned Notoo. Notoo was unceremoniously deposited in my jar the day before last, obviously delirious from neglect.
"Pardon me," I said, "but do you need help?"
However, he was too far incapacitated to tell me anything of his history until yesterday. So I continued about my job.
As you are not familiar with my job, I will explain. I work in the school office. I am used by human hands to fill out tardy slips, hot lunch tickets, phone messages, fundraiser order forms, and, most importantly, the concluding details of student applications. What I do is of the utmost importance for the maintenance of this institution. I have willingly accepted the responsibility bestowed on me as an office pencil and formally, in the presence of witnesses, declared my vow to maintain the clarity and accuracy so necessary to my work.
Obviously I could not allow one, seemingly inebriated, pencil to distract me from my duty.
Nevertheless, this lone pencil drew my interest and, I admit, my curiosity.
The day and night passed, and he was still unable to communicate more than words at a time. Variations of the phrase "great and important work" seemed to be the only thoughts occupying his demented mind.
I wondered at this. Perhaps in him I would find the comradeship that so few pencils understand today. I speak of the comradeship between those who understand the great and important duty given to pencils today. In the face of computers, tablets, smart phones, and other electronic means of note-taking, we carry on the tradition of "hard copy," as they lovingly deem it today. We provide a "paper trail," that is not subject to the whims of contrary technology.
I allowed myself to hope that Notoo would be a fellow agent in the task of maintaining office standards amid a derelict society.
It was not to be.
To be the lone beacon of professionalism in a world of trite nonsense is my burden to bear.
I bear it with all solemnity.
As for Notoo, his aspirations reached into a different sphere than mine. As he has proven quite verbose on the subject, I will abstain from repeating his words here.
Although we are quite different, we are similar in one: we are both pencils. Therefore, when he finally grew lucid, I listened with all the respect due one of my kind, even as I realized we were from vastly different worlds. I listened to his woe-begone tales of rolling about in the asphalt. I did not doubt his word; his body was full of barely perceptible pock-marks. Hairline streaks of tar added to the proof. Sorrowed to see an apparently new pencil brought down so low in the world, I attempted to cheer him up.
"The office maintains a temperature of 70 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter and 76 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer," I assured him. "The office staff ensure that all office pencils stay here. You will never be jarred around in the hands of an infant again."
"But what about Florence?" he ejaculated.
"What is a Florence?" I inquired, my curiosity again piqued.
"Florence is my best friend! My chum! My steady anchor when my world tilts sidewise! If Florence had been here do you think I would have gone crazy in the sun? No! She would have spoken quiet words of truth to me. And sure, I might not have listened at first, but I definitely wouldn't have yammered to the asphalt. I was actually talking to the asphalt. Can you believe it, HB, I mean Horace? I can't believe it. How ridiculous can I be? It was the sun. Really, it was the heat. I wasn't used to it. I'll be more careful about getting left out outside from now on. But I've got to get back to Florence! I know you've been really good to me, and I definitely needed to recover here, and, hey, the temperature really is perfect, but I can't stay here in the office. You've got to help me get back to the classroom."
I have had a full day and night to accept this truism: As the apple does not fall far from the tree, neither does a pencil that has spent its formative moments of writing in an elementary classroom have anything in common with the office pencil.
Notoo tried to declaim any attachment to the classroom from which he had rolled. It was apparent to me, however, that whether it be Florence or some invisible force, something was drawing him back to Room 9, despite violent declarations to the contrary.
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