Topic: The Pen Lacked Might

Brohkun · Date: 2016-01-18 10:53 EST

Displays at the museum were a strange thing to think about.

Robert rolled up his sleeves and helped with the repackaging of the Medieval armor exhibit. They were old, but solid. He imagined, while hoisting their weight into neatly packaged boxes, that they would have still protected a man from a blow yet he handled it as though it was delicate. It was upon nailing the last crate shut and watching the delivery men lift it on their shoulders and carry it out that he felt a sense of emptiness. The exhibit had moved on.

The displays seemed like they waited to have their insides returned to them. It was two days that they sat empty, no internal organs or items inside to make them anymore than shells. Then the museum's old rotary phone in the office rang. Robert didn't find much comfort in phones, but he liked the way the circular face of the rotary phone felt when he dialed a number. When it broke, it would be removed from the facility. They just didn't make parts for that phone anymore.

"Yes, this is Robert Brohkun. Yes, I'm the curator."

The voice was speaking in kind platitudes he waited to expire before the meat of the conversation was served. He smiled, patiently, knowing that the man on the line could not see it but would know it was there by the sound of his voice. When kind words were completed he cleared his throat and began.

"We look forward to those pieces being here. When will they arrive? That soon? Very good. Yes and yes. We're ready and looking forward to it."

He leaned forward, scribbling in his old, cursive hand the information being told. The office was in his bedroom, the desk against the wall with a tired, low lamp that seemed to be perpetually left on.

"Good. May you have a good day as well. " Robert cut the words in quickly, because the man on the phone was long winded. When the conversation ended he set the phone down, satisfied by the deep, mechanical click the phone made when he set it on the receiver. It felt richer, more personal, than cellphones. Lifting the piece of paper he examined it carefully, his thumb sliding over the letters he had just written.

"An exhibit on writing utensils?" He wasn't sure how many would be interested in it. Many took for granted the cheap, if not plentiful, pens which were around today. There was a vague memory he had of working a feather over, bringing it to a point and then going to the arduous task of acquiring ink. It was a mission in and of itself to write someone a letter. Yes, writing and communication had gone far beyond that. Letters didn't require ink, they floated over electrical wires and reached the intended party instantly.

Yet people still held the signature sacred. It remained on checks and purchases. It was the last haven for the cursive hand and most seemed to cheer on its demise. People cringed at the practice of learning it and rolled their eyes at how irrelevent it had become.

It had been said once that a man's signature was his bond, his word, and with demons it was especially so. They had put their name, their bond, on agreements before the invention of man's written language. Robert considered the mark, the signature, that Mahis had left on him. His mind slid unavoidably to the mark which had been on Cris. Cursive might have seen its death, but the power of a signature had remained unchanged since God first endowed creatures with names.

Somewhere, a signature was moving over skin. He turned away from the office and proceeded downstairs to clean the displays, to prepare them for what was now considered an antiquated version of communication. He would... miss... receiving letters, and doubted very much that there would ever be another hand written correspondence for him. It would be a text, it would be an email. It was strange to think both the pen and sword had become outdated, that they had both become mere exhibits when men used to die by them.

Brohkun · Date: 2016-04-14 14:28 EST

The museum was a converted house which was two stories tall. The lights out front were still on. The museum destined to close in the next half hour. It was already empty, save for him. After the front entrance was a standing desk he stood at, where he looked over the ledger of guests and possible mailing lists. They would occasionally mail our postcards or brochures reminding those that had come that new exhibits were being displayed. His posture was rigid as he carefully penned down information, flipping between pages of the ledger thoughtfully. There was some music playing. During the day, and now, there were distant notes of Beethoven which was meant to keep the air from feeling too still. When it was just him the music could have a hollow echo.

Helena was not there, and then she was there. Like a ghoul manifest from a soft gust. Her chin was raised, eyes fixed upon the sign 'Kultura.' Interesting name. She blinked slowly, stepping forward towards the museum. This evening, she wore an embroidered, dark blue, fit and flare dress. On her feet, a pair of pointed toe pumps, in nude. She looked impeccable, the garment fit to her svelte frame. Her hair was full and loose around her pale face. Up the steps she came, entering the museum in total. Here again, she paused, taking a sight she has not seen since the last exhibition.

The pen exhibit. There was not much that greeted someone upon first entry except for a waiting area with chairs which lined the wall. It was easy enough to see beyond Robert. To see tastefully plain and elegant displays that he and Disa had arranged for the show. There was not much sound, perhaps not one at all, that alerted him. Robert just looked up, but he did not look surprised. The ink pen rolled between his fingers with the motion of his hand before he clicked the cap on and set it down. The simple, obvious greeting, "Good evening."

She blinked slowly, her frown relaxing. "I am here to redeem my private tour." She took a step towards him, her arms loose at her side, her eyes shifting around the exhibits. "You have the time?" And they came to rest, again, on him.

"Yes," he glanced down, seeing the ink had dried and slid the ribbon into place before shutting the ledger. There was a look at a clock which was mounted on the wall before his gaze settled back to Helena, "You have an interest in pens?" He stepped around the counter and motioned for her to join his side and approach the first display case.

Her eyes left him, and so did she. She moved towards an particular pen from the eighteenth century. It was an old fountain pen, currently on display in the pieces making up the whole. "I am a relic older than these artifacts. I have an interest in the forgotten objects. They..." She reached up, indicating. "Remind me of a moment in time." Her hand then relaxed again, looking to him. "And do you? This is your exhibit, does that also make it your interest?"

"I am fortunate in that I have a hand in which exhibits come here. Also, that I don't have a narrow range for what interests me." He stared at the pen through the case, drawing his fingertip over the glass before he looked at her, "The pen is only interesting to me because of cursive handwriting. It was the way all had to write and if you were a nobleman your penmanship was said to be a reflection of yourself. Those... values all changed over time and now it seems the last bastions for it is in the signature. The symbol of the self. I would say, more honestly, that a signature interests me." His fingertip slid off the glass. He stepped to the side slowly, giving her time to continue to examine that particular pen before moving. "But, like you, they are reminders of another time."

She watched him silently as he spoke, digesting the statements regarding the signature and the relationship to the exhibit at hand. Essentially, there was none. It was a small leap, but one that was not dismissed lightly. She let his statements fade back into silence - or whatever current work was playing over the speakers. She moved on to the next exhibit. "Does the value impact your interest?" She had paused before a very early Mont Blanc pen; beautifully designed, larger and more masculine looking. An art piece as much as a writing implement. There was, within the display, a writing sample. Freshly done. Perhaps the writing was by Robert or Disa. She would not ask; it did not matter.

"In a way, yes. I can be like an old man, convincing myself that things were better in the past and that all revisions are a bastardization of the thing I knew and loved. But that's more a cry for the want of the familiar than for what makes sense. Today's pen is the stylus on tablets and... honestly, the signature is no longer significant. Companies don't check or read it, and you're considered strange for writing a check." Robert sometimes had the feeling that time used to progress more slowly. That one had a decade to adjust to something new instead of a few years. "Companies know your forgery based on a long list of data about you. They look for irregularities in your purchases. One might argue that your signature is now something unintentionally created and shaped by your purchasing history. Perhaps it is more you than it ever had been in the past." A writing sample would have been done by him, though Disa always took pride in making the displays. For the masks she had done much to 'bring them to life.'

Again, his words were met with silence. She walked on, to the next. Having given his words a quick thought, she responded, "Such an absence of paper then allows one to slip into anonymity. Fail to keep up with all that this world forces upon you, and you wind up here. In a glass cage with a placard." She looked from the next display, to him. "While I can appreciate your drive towards preservation, the commentary that is essentially a resistance to the onslaught of modernity. Why does this impact you so? Or rather, why do you let it?"

Brohkun · Date: 2016-04-14 14:43 EST

"Yes and no. CCTV, and its kind... you are your signature, and it is becoming more and more impossible to separate yourself from your transactions. There was a time you could just pay for something with coin and the purchase required no... company with your name and purchasing history that then had a formula which said whether or not what you bought was suspect. Now... there are places that will refuse coin as payment. It is becoming more and more the norm for... eh... I sound like a man who should have a tin hat and speak about conspiracies. Except, of course, that I've not spoken of anything that isn't obvious. I'm just one sentence away from saying that the government did it." There was the crack of a smile, but it looked embarrassed. As if he had said too much, revealed some strange reservation he expected an eye roll for having.

She had a point, though, at asking why the inevitable bothered him. To that, he quietly considered it with a tilt of his head and said, "Beneath the layers of all I would tell you, it's an admission of a fear of dying. Displayed items come from a lifestyle which used to thrive and be well known. It's a practice in accepting that you have only a certain amount of time."

The following was going to seem nearly out of character, save for the bare-bones truth of her words. She did not mince words, and she did not paint a picture of something other than what was the stark reality. She was far too old for that. "Before you are objects. Items of utility that bowed to that which is more efficient, making these models obsolete. Before me is a man. Irreplaceable in his unique traits of his character, the unique patterns of thought which manifest the ideas that move us forward from the decay. A living, breathing, changing thing. Though, what you have said is correct: we all have a date upon which we will expire."

Her hand opened, indicating. "We can choose to spend it among the dead." And it lowered, back to her side, as fluid as though she were operating under water. "Or we can accomplish that which this one life has gifted us." Her chin raised just so, her eyes narrowing in a smile that did not make it to her lips.

"The very thing about moving on... contradicted by my job in a museum. For whatever reason, it gives me peace." He stepped to the side and indicated at the next display piece, "this was the first fountain pen. That seems like a small accomplishment but it allowed for so much more, more fluid, writing." He clasped the wrist of his other hand behind his back and looked at her, "You don't mention your past much. Do you spend much time with the dead?"

The Witch appreciated his commentary on the pen, and so agreed with it. There was nothing further to offer. She moved on to his question. "On a timeline as long as mine, Robert Brohkun, all around you are dead. You see their lives blossom and wither in the time comparable to the blink of an eye. Furthermore, you do not ask of my past. Thus, I do not offer it." She then considered the first fountain pen; the pioneer of the stylus.

"That must makes the lives of those around you like goldfish or gerbils. While I am like you, I do not retain a clear memory of it so the sensation of time passing for me is no different than a human's." Robert had disliked how things had become forgotten, with only a handful of details or points which remained. With a small nod, "I suppose I do find it rude to inquire. Here, I am always thinking of the past and the history of items. I'm used to it being offered up."

Still with eyes fixed upon the fountain pen, but lost in thought over the reflection. Indeed, it was wisdom which suggested that the lives of those around her were like so many animals. You grow attached, to a degree, but always with the lingering inevitability that the finality of death was ever looming. And without succumbing to the greatest of temptations, death could not be beaten. She blinked slowly, returning to the present. "If you do intend to ask, the question will need to be specific. My years span many. A general question will run the risk of awarding you a life sentence of monotonous narrative." Her mouth softened to a smirk, and her eyes shifted to him.

"The blame for the questions specificity could always be shifted to you," that was what a lawyer might say, and though he thought it was exactly what he meant he did not like its implication. Anyway, "What do you think I should know of you? If picking a handful of details from a long lived past..." and then his hazel eyes lifted from the glass of the display, squaring off steadily on her strangely confessional and still somehow guarded face, "Tell me, then, what I should know." It was better if someone did that. Confess themselves then search with mindless, endless, unknowing inquiries. Only one person knew what was relevant-- her.

The smirk softened as she regarded him, squaring with him as he posited his question. Her chin raised and her head shifted some, as if about to announce and imperfection in his query. So it was. "Am I speaking to Robert Brohkun, the museum director with his affinity for history and documenting the forgotten? Or am I speaking to a different audience?" She inclined her head, a gracious gesture meant as an apology for answering a question with a question. "The answer will impact my own."

"They are one in the same but if there were a division," his hand smooth over the glass, rubbing away the fingerprint of someone who was oily and careless, "I would say that you are speaking to Robert Brohkun, the man who examined the pasts of many in the hopes it would illuminate his own." Eventually, it had. A partially well-known story at this point.

His answer had substantially more gravitas than she anticipated, though her surprise was absolutely unnoticeable. As she thought about her answer to his initial question, her smile faded, and her eyes became very somber. "In the ever forward motion of our lives, we often forget to stop. Either we are scratching at the gate to be granted access. Or we are gazing behind us with longing at the graves in our wake. In the meantime, our lives evade us. They slip through the cracks of our fractured attention. And the biggest sin is that we are unaware of what we have missed, for we are so focused elsewhere. Too much are we gratified by an endurance test of expectation. In my lifetime, I shift between the periods of man as a ghost. Here and not, engaged yet distant. I travel alone. I see and smell and taste and preserve the memories as a selfish hermit whose home is the entire world." She blinked slowly here, her lips echoing a hint of amusement. "Picking a handful of details, then, from a life spent in motion..." Her chin raised, considering. "My fondest memories are of studying at the Paris Conservatoire during La Belle Epoque. There was such an appreciation for music; and at the time, I began to know very well a young Claude Debussy. He entered the Conservatoire as a young man, you see..." She glanced to Robert to ensure he was following.

Brohkun · Date: 2016-04-14 14:53 EST

She was speaking to the right audience. What museum curator did not know of the delicacies of time and the details, the moment which were lost because they were not preserved? Helena held onto it all as if they were spices that she occasionally tasted. He wondered if such a clear recollection was maddening or not. It did not show, immediately. He stared at the pen through the glass with a gaze so loyal that an outsider might have thought she was narrating its past as he looked at it. In a way, she was. Slowly his eyes ticked over to her hands, as if the marks of them would say more than her lips and eyes were. He spoke so that she knew she would be heard and not feel interrupted, "I did not know you had an ear for music."

She inclined her head, gratefully. "Music possesses a power unlike anything else. A wordless arrangement of sound can call to one sorrow or gaiety. It can be exultant and oppressive." Her arm came away, her fingers extended towards him as she continued. "Music can reach through barriers of language and culture and bigotry and even, we are finding, the addles of a ruined mind; and once it reaches through, it can touch -" Her fingertips came to rest upon his arm. "- something inside which transcends any medicine, any communicative therapy." Her hand retreated. "It is glorious. But I do not mean to make it sound as a 'miracle cure.' It has simply served as a focus of my fascination."

He was nearly obsessive with signatures and she spoke of intangible sound. Wasn't that strange? Enough that he spoke, "It has moved people through centuries to do and feel things and yet... it has no substance. Yes, there are music sheets but a true professional will know the notes and not need them." His eyebrows were knit and he was so distracted by the thought that he did not feel the pressure and then the lift of her hand upon him. He continued, "I am so used to the important things having a physical manifestation." They could not become a display otherwise, "I forget how the unseen is also real and replicated and... shared." The intensity of the thought eased, but not joyously. He was left feeling he had not really expressed what he meant to. Only a shadow of its meaning had come.

His response was ripe for exploration. "Such are the hallmarks of communication, both the fixed medium and the unseen." A pause, "Though it seems as though you have forgotten something." She let the words drop, breadcrumbs on a trail that lead down a path towards a destination that was entirely his own. All he needed to do was to pick up one to start the journey.

"The unseen are... strange." He shrugged his shoulders some and then looked at her when she said he had forgotten something. His expression lightened. He was curious. Maybe delightfully so. One might have said that there was even the suggestion of a smile as he looked at her, the gentle upward tick of his eyebrows as he studied her face, "What has been forgotten?"

"There is more that is unseen than music." His curiosity was charming, the way his face lit up at the sudden minor quest to retrieve that which is forgotten. The museum director in him shone like a beacon, ever ready to preserve and protect. This caused her pause to consider him with some regard. The origin of this longing was have to be perused later.

"I find memories to be strange," he remarked, stepping away from that glass display and to the next. This was more modern to them, now. The pens and tools were looking less and less foreign and more like the items used in a lower budget 'ye olde' type of film. He looked over his shoulder at her, "You see, learn, and acknowledge. And that which... is physical and is perceived in a unique way by you becomes a wrinkle in your brain. A slot of recognition that is unique and... sadly reserved only for the self. Even standing side by side, our feelings and interpretations change the outcome."

Helena did not follow and instead stood where she was; "You find memories to be strange due to their amorphous quality? Or due to the ambiguity of their meaning?" He was indicating both, truth be told.

"Do to the fact that they have no tangible quality like a book but change the shape of who we are in our brain. They don't exist... but do, because they are in our minds." There was his small shrug afterwards, his pose unmoved at the display case as he awaited her to join.

Finally, she followed. "Do these thoughts not diminish the impact of particularly fond memories?" Standing beside him, she looked from him to the instrument in the display. "How do you ever hope to fix your memories in a tangible form while still hoping to retain their meaning?" Eyes still fixed upon the display.

"I don't remember like you. Nor do I want to." He reflected, jamming his hands into the front pockets of his black slacks. "My memories don't need to be fixed, they just need to let go. Smooth out. Make room for this life." There were eight plastic totes upstairs. Duct taped and unopened for the past decade or so. He had thought he would open them when Timothy had died, but that wasn't the case. He avoided them and perhaps was now thinking that they were simply glorified trash. Memories of old. Helena would retain them but he did not have to.

The answer was unexpected, and she turned from the case to stare at him. Perhaps it was unsettling, the way she regarded him. Silently her eyes skimmed over his face, the lines, the eyes, the unseen. Finally, her hand came out, and she gestured around them, a smooth and beautiful gesture for her pale arm. "And yet..."

"And yet?" He reflected her words like a cool, all seeing mirror that still wanted to know what she thought. Unruly dark hair, hazel eyes. The face of a man in his thirties with a brush of dark facial hair. A tweed coat like a man of his eighties. Black sneakers like a man of his twenties. A mog-pog of time pasted together and still decidedly old.

"For one who spoke so eagerly of letting go, you spend much time holding on." She blinked slowly once again, kindly. Her tone was easy, relaxed, and languid. The words came out slowly, but not patronizing. Merely the rhythm of one among a kindred, one with a substantial amount of time.

"I've always had that problem. Disa coped with it... better than I deserved, when we first met. More and more I am coming to this time and detaching from all that was. It is... time for what is forward. Perhaps I'm not suited to be here." That was far from untrue. Robert was nearly a relic, a step away from being in one of those cases himself. For that matter, wasn't she?

"And what is forward, Robert Brohkun?" The comment about him not being suited to be here was ignored for now.

"I'm not sure. Something different than what was? Than what I've always been? Doing more than just chasing my tail or being the janitor which watches over the important things of everyone who is not me." The armor of fallen knights. The pens of noblemen who wrote history. His eyebrows knit and he confessed, saying a thought which had never come to him before, "I am not a father." And then, a second later, "I don't wish to be, not now." Of that, he was certain. Centuries later and Robert wasn't convinced that being a father would be an answer.

"What has brought this on, Robert?" She narrowed her eyes some, though her expression remained kind.

"This discussion. Wandering thoughts." And now it was his turn to grow quiet and pensive as he looked at her, opening up the air for her to speak. She had grown curt with him. Intentionally or otherwise, it snapped his lips shut.

She nearly broke into a smile as his pout was darling. "You are capable of many things. More than most people, and you are certainly capable of more than chasing your tail, and more than this -" She gestured again, "- if it is in you to believe that you are capable of more than this, that is." Her hand lowered. "Robert, if 'suited to be here' you mean in my presence, then you are correct. That is where you are now. You disagree?"

"Suited to be here in that sense... and a grander one." It didn't bother him to be in her presence. He was fond of her, she was the only friendship he had managed to cultivate. Whatever it was he had with Cris was tenuous at best. All things diverted to him, away from her, and he noticed that, "And are you... more capable?" Head ticked to the side, just a bit, with his query.

"I am limitless." Said with all of the confidence of a summer storm, dark and magnetic. Utterly believable. And it was honest, as well. The Witch did not begin each day with a list of her limitations. She began her day with tea. "But expound upon 'capable.'" Her eyes widened on the word, just briefly for emphasis.

Brohkun · Date: 2016-04-14 15:10 EST

"Do you feel limitless, or is that what you're telling me?" It was one thing to list an ability, or even boast it. It was quite another to believe it, wasn't it? He sucked in a breath and exhaled out his nose like a horse. Sometimes, the tea someone started their day with said a lot, "That's really something you should ask yourself, since you used the word first. You asked me if I was capable of more than this. I suppose, in that sense, you mean potential." There was a small shrug of his shoulders as he looked at the white, stringy flesh of a feathered quill, "I suppose I am. But I am not ambitious. I am not without goal or purpose. I go for what I want and not for some idea of success."

She stared at him as the silence settled among them and the corpses of history. "I do not feel such pressure as you do, Robert Brohkun. There are none to hold me accountable for what is done or not done." She followed his eyes to the feathered quill, archaic yet beautiful. An elegance like a flexible spine. "Thus, ambition, goal, purpose... These words apply a certain amount of eyeballs watching." Her mouth hooked in a smirk, and she turned slowly to him.

"I suppose I used to... and it's just the ghosts which linger and make me feel that way." He admitted. There were no parents, no professors, to glance down at him over the rim over their glasses. No long-standing friends to make a query about his behavior or actions. The closest he had to that was Disa and Cris, because Gus was more like someone he had hired for years than someone who had known *him*. There was a brief break of his smile, "Sometimes. I suppose it's really something that society has defined. An ambitious man, these days, pursues fame and wealth." It had not changed, much, over time. Perhaps what qualified as fame and wealth had, though.

"A lofty and, perhaps, erroneous definition." She turned away, moving to another exhibit. It is the first ball point pens. Not as beautiful or interesting in architecture as the quill, frankly, but nonetheless relevant to the exhibit. "You mentioned earlier that you go for what you want." She turned her head to speak over her shoulder at him. "Let us start there. What do you want?"

"Erroneous?" The use of the word made his smile broaden. At least, momentarily. The ball point pens were decidedly more modern. Something that didn't look far removed from the everyday. Just one breath away from the gel-ink and the roller-ball pieces which were in every library, tea house and bar. She had artfully kept the conversation about him again. It felt like fighting a tide to learn anything about her. That must have been on purpose, though he did not know of the reason why. "I want... to play a game of cards with people. I wish that they were friends, that they were people that knew me well and after knowing me well, liked me anyway."

This had her turning to face him. Helena was not a social creature. She lurked in the shadows, observed miscellaneous details, and vomited her keen observations. This made her attractive but also kept people at arms length. The observations often came off as judgmental. Often, it was correctly perceived. But in this case, it was very different. Robert Brohkun was very different. "People? Are there those you have in mind?" The Witch did not often suffer the company of people.

He had enjoyed a small social circle. He had enjoyed the way they would bluff and speak to one another. She asked him about people and his eyebrows knit, "I didn't have a formula in mind, I simply thought... that the idea would become reality." He was not seeing faces and labeling them as opportunities, in short. It was more like he sat at a table and was waiting to see who would join him for a game. "Two people can't play rummy. Our games are limited." That was the weakness. It was just the two of them and so long as it was, the game selection had narrowed. Not that it seemed to strike him poorly. Or put a sour taste in her mouth. But Robert *did* like the idea of a dynamic. Of multiple faces and wondering just who had the best hand in the poker match.

"Are the games for fun, or is there something more?" She blinked slowly after the question. Her chin raised and her head tilted, eyes resolving into a soft-lid way. "Is this a test by Robert Brohkun? Or is this an opportunity to make friends?" This was a glimpse into the psyche of The Witch. Most everything had a dual meaning. A game was a game but it was also an opportunity to examine a person in a new way. Within the confines of rules and subject to the reactions of winning or losing.

"Both. It's good to have a bet that means something while... also just playing for the exchange that happens in play." It was now time for the modern display. Of pens that were nice, expensive, and also very much like the ones used at the front desk. Cheap, available pens which reflect their market of high-literacy in a more developed nation. Anyone who could write these days, did write. Eyebrows arched up and he admitted, even though the answer seemed less pointed, "Friends, not a test." It was near impossible to have a competition with cards and it not imply a "test" of some sorts. Only that... what was the prize?

Her expression softened, taking into account his sincerity. Friends, not a test. Her attention turned towards the pens that echoed the contemporary age. Her eyes skimmed the placard without reading. "There is an expression. That no man is a failure who has friends." She blinked slowly, allowing her mind to create some distance from the present. "Your definition of what is an ambitious man is false."