To the Pen That Couldn't Be Refilled
The day I walked into the stationery store,
I thought I was just going to buy a new pen.
It should have been simple.
Pick one, pay for it, and go home.
Just a small thing
that you replace when it runs out.
But as I wandered between the shelves,
picking one up and putting it down,
picking one up and putting it down,
I started to feel like it wasn't that simple.
I was looking for one particular pen.
Cream white, with a clear pastel blue cap.
One I'd used before... until it ran out.
I thought there would be something that could replace it.
Because it was just a pen.
But I couldn't find one.
To the new, all-white pen,
you looked soft.
You seemed closer than anything else
to what I was looking for.
I picked you up,
thinking maybe you could take its place.
At least at a glance,
you seemed like you might help me
move past that feeling of something left unfinished.
But when I actually held you in my hand,
I still knew you weren't it.
It wasn't a difference I could explain right away.
I just knew, from holding you,
that it wasn't the same.
So I put you back down.
I kept walking.
Still looking for the same thing,
even though I already had a new option in my hand.
To the old pen that had been forgotten,
while I was wandering between the shelves,
picking one up and putting it down,
picking one up and putting it down,
as if I were trying to choose something
that wasn't just stationery,
I saw you again.
You weren't displayed somewhere noticeable.
You weren't something I'd seen right away.
But you were still there...
just as before.
I don't remember the last time I used you.
I don't even remember why I'd left you there like that.
But when I picked you up,
the weight in my hand felt strangely familiar.
I gently clicked the pen.
There was still ink.
Like something I thought had already run out
had actually just been left sitting there.
I chose you again.
Not because you were better,
but because you were still there.
To a small feeling,
I used to think replacing the refill would be enough.
But when I looked more closely,
the pen I'd been searching for
never had the same refill available in the first place.
I tried replacing its refill.
In my hand,
it still felt as comfortable as before.
But the ink color and the tip size weren't the same.
Even though it could still write,
even though it was still the same pen in my hand,
it no longer wrote with the same feeling.
It was still a gel pen,
but the ink was dark like a ballpoint.
The line was thinner.
And it felt different from the other pens.
It seemed replaceable.
But really,
nothing was quite like it.
I started to understand
that some things we think can be "refilled"
might not have the original thing available to refill them with
in the first place.
But the strange thing was,
while I was writing this,
the pen actually disappeared.
Not the one that had run out of ink,
but the one I'd just bought.
Along with the one
I'd gone to the trouble of ordering a new refill for.
I searched for quite a while.
I looked on the desk.
Under the desk.
In all the little corners,
in case it had rolled somewhere.
I turned on the light.
Went back to check the same places.
Then came back and checked again.
Like someone hoping
that if I looked enough times,
whatever had disappeared
would somehow be there again.
But in the end,
the only pen I found
was the same old one.
The one I'd thought had already run out.
The one I'd gone to the trouble of ordering a refill for.
The one that still had the same body as before.
I picked it up.
Gently clicked the pen.
The ink still came out.
Not exactly like before,
but it could still write.
I sat there looking at it for a while,
and found myself slightly amused.
As if the story I was writing
had somehow turned around
and started writing me instead.
I used to think what I was looking for
was a pen that wrote the same way it used to.
But maybe
what I was looking for
wasn't really the pen at all.
Maybe I was looking for the same feeling.
The same moment in time.
Or something that had happened
alongside that pen.
And I was trying to believe
that if I could find it,
everything would go back to the way it was.
But the truth is,
even if I found it,
it wouldn't be the same day anymore.
Like the pen whose refill I replaced.
Even though it was still the same pen,
it could never write with the same feeling again.
I started to understand
that some things we think can be "refilled"
might not have the original thing available to refill them with
in the first place.
And some things we keep trying to find
might not have disappeared at all.
They may have simply changed.
Just like us,
no longer the same people
from the day we first started looking for them.
When I read it again,
I realized I wasn't only looking for a pen.
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