The Pen and Book Files

May 24, 1987 It’s so warm. I can feel the beads of sweat trailing down my face, not bringing any relief with them. The heat is just as intense, wrapped around me with the sensation of a second skin. I can’t seem to escape from it. Opening the window doesn’t do anything; all that happens is that the smell of smoke is drifting into the house. Groaning, I slam the window closed. The sound reverberates through the house. From downstairs, I hear a crashing noise. The resulting swears only cement my certainty of the culprit. It’s my brother, John, like always. He’s always the same. John works downstairs with his projects all the time, claiming they’re delicate operations and nothing is more important. I hold my breath as my brother appears at the top of the basement stairs, holding something rectangular and gray in his hand. The unpleasant smell of paint is permanently engraved in my memory within seconds. “What was that?” John asked, his eyes landing on me. “You ruined my project, an...

June 13, 2020 Each day is the same. The hours, the moments, are blurring together into one infinite line. Some mornings, I wake up and I don’t know what day it is anymore. Trying to make one day stand out from the others is impossible; curing cancer is a thousand times more likely. Summer is going to be around the corner soon, but it doesn’t really feel like that. The grandeur of June, of endings and beginnings, is muffled. The wall is an invisible one, but it’s still existing. I was supposed to feel a kind of electric excitement, but I just feel empty. The treadmill that I’m stuck on, I can’t get off. Each day, each moment, is no different. I reach into the deck of cards and shuffle them; I’ve never been good at cards, so the rectangles of color just land all over the floor. Even amongst so much color, everything is the same. My eyes slide through the differences between them. Everything is identical. There are no new experiences. Graduation was supposed to be this kind of grand...