The War in the Study

 

 

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The War in the Study

 

Morning.

I entered the study: chaos. Business cards were strewn across the table. Pens had leapt out of their holder and were reeling around, Blu-tac had stuck itself to every available item it might: drawing pins, a pen top, a broken crayon. A notepad lay open, pages crumpled,  violated by the glue tubes that lay astride it. A sellotape rolled, as if drunk, behind a pot plant.

"What on earth is going on?"

Silence.

"Well? I can't work like this. I wake up and everything's a mess. I need to get on with my reports! What the hell."

I directed my ire at the business cards. With their sophisticated logos and embossed letters, I thought they might feel some sense of responsibility.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you in your container? You should know better."

An estate agent's card, carrying a huge eagle crest, replied, "Look, look at our home.  See for yourself."

I looked at the container where the cards normally rested.

It was evident that the cards had been expelled from the container in the desk organiser- a set of three conjoined boxes, two suited for smaller items and the third for pens. Where the cards had been, was now occupied by paper clips along with three bulldog clips and a pencil sharpener.

"Who did this?"

"The paper clips, the pencil sharpener and the bulldog clips," replied the estate agent card, who I could see had been torn down the middle and was struggling to maintain composure.

"They have no respect for basic rights," added a second card, which came from a legal office, and which was a little bent.

"We have lost our home!" added a third card, which bore the logo of an industrial cleaners, but alas had been scratched.

I addressed the paper clips. They were grouped in the container where once the cards had rested. 

"What is this?" 

"Look," said one, resplendently dip coated in pink plastic, "They rented to us on a long lease, and now, all of a sudden, they want to return. They can't just come back like that, making demands. We pay the rent and it's ours for as long as we pay the rent. We belong here. We've lived here all our lives. We've got rights."

The other paper clips started cheering, "Our home, our rights, our home, our rights."

"It might be fine," added a big black bulldog clip, " for them to come back if they'd shown some respect. But there's discrimination. They think they're better than us just because they work for fancy companies. But it's us who do the real work here, holding everything together."

The second bulldog clip joined in, "Yeah! Stick it to the man!" The third added, "white privilege. That's what it is."

"They are a bunch of fucking snobs, " added an old, rather twisted clip.

Now the paper clips began another chant, "Fuck the racist business cards, fuck the racist business cards." 

I was becoming quite dizzy. The chanting was horrible. And now the clips started to fling whatever they could find at the cards: staples and pieces of broken matchstick landed on or around the cards. A card representing my bank manager was  badly marked but there were few serious injuries before I could move the cards to safety.

A red chisel-ended marker then entered the discussion, addressing all the stationery in loud voice.

"Look guys. Come on. You've got to learn to get on. We have to get on. Basically, we are all the same. We all serve him. Unwaged. Zero hours contracts. We need to unite. We need to get rid of these tiny compartments and boxes and have one big red compartment with equal rights for all and total freedom of movement."

Something flickered ever so briefly across the expressions of the stationery, the business cards and paperclips and adhesive rolls and pens and pencils, notepads and glues.

But I weighed in, ignoring the personal attack.

"Look, we tried that. And last time we tried...we all know what happened."

All went silent. The cards looked down to the table surface, and the paper clips stopped chanting and rioting and the marker pen stood up straight and didn't move. A notebook turned a page, solemnly.

I was bringing up "The Massacre."

"The Massacre", sometimes referred to as Black Tuesday, happened one dark night when the pencils found themselves put in with the pens and pencil sharpeners in a small cigar box: a massive act of naivety on my part. I was greeted the next day by the appalling sight of pencil shavings piled high spilling over the corners of the box, and the sharpeners in a ring, drunk, bragging.

The most awful thing about the incident -so the one surviving pencil, now a pathetic stump- had reported, was how the pens had hung about and watched, even cheered, as their brother writing implements were inserted into the cold metal chambers, turned and sliced and shaven to death by horizontal blades of razor steel.

Sometimes, I guess, it's the closest relatives who hate each other the most.

And that strange dry smell of shavings will never leave me.

An inquiry was conducted by an august Canadian fountain pen and an antique Swiss paper knife. Basically, everyone was guilty from the lowliest Bic to the rubber plant towering above. But most guilty of all was me for my sheer stupidity in letting it happen. And I know there are those, mainly among the pencils and their allies, the erasers, who think I knew it would happen and arranged the situation, either because I wanted rid of the pencils or because I was set up by the laptop. It isn't so. Please believe me.

I had to decide what to do about the current situation, which had dragged on for ages. I confess, at times, I'd found myself developing a "hang them all" mentality, and considered dumping everything on a charity shop. Who really needs stationery these days?

But I diligently separated the items. Yes, that was sad, a defeat for optimism, for the humanistic imagination. Sad to think that, in the twenty-first century when we have cracked the genome code, that humble pens and pencils are unable to live together, harmoniously.

There were protests. The red marker pen started shouting "apartheid state! It's an apartheid state!"  and some of the pens, mainly the red ones, joined in, scribbling on the Post-its various slogans: "Down with the racist state" and "No to Segregation" which the black bulldog clips took to waving.

But I proceeded, nonetheless. I returned the business cards to the desk-tidy container. I found another box for the pencil erasers. The paperclips were sent to a slightly chipped china cup. The red marker was exiled to a bookshelf, next to Jordan Peterson for correction.

The black bulldog clips were locked in the desk drawer. I heard them shout as I turned the lock, "Hey fascist. They imprisoned Mandela too." "Oh shut up," I replied, giving the table surface a thump, but a stream of protest continued, "You can imprison the spirit but the mind is always free... The only prison is fear and I'm not afraid of you, cocksucker...Truth is on the side of the oppressed...Fuck the business cards... Fuck Capitalism."

The matches who, although relatively well behaved on this occasion, had a long history of making incendiary remarks, were sent to the kitchen.

Separation  isn't entirely practical. And, however careful one is there is always going to be some mixing, and with mixing, some conflict. But, at least, now that conflict would be contained.

I wanted to get at least halfway through a report on vacuum cleaner dust penetration tests. It might be better to do this in the kitchen, I thought, as the voice continued from the drawer, "No Justice, no peace...No Justice, no peace!"

 I went and made coffee and began my work on the laptop there.

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Illustration: acrylic on card, 7 x 5 cm

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Read to Albuquerque Cyberscribes 31 May, 2021 and Edinburgh Creative Writers Club, 1 June, 2021, Cornwall Writers Club, 2 June 2021, and Astoria Writers Group 6 June, 2021

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