Community of Magic Pens Read online

  Community of Magic Pens

  Copyright ©2020 by E.D.E. Bell

  This is a work of fiction.

  Cover and interior illustrations by Artistic Journey Creations

  Editorial services by: E.D.E. Bell

  Camille Gooderham Campbell

  Catherine Jones Payne, Quill Pen Editorial

  Jason Sizemore

  Elsa Sjunneson

  Typesetting and layout by G.C. Bell

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the copyright holders.

  Published by Atthis Arts, LLC

  Detroit, Michigan

  atthisarts.com

  ISBN 978-1-945009-61-7

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935159

  Each story in this collection is copyrighted ©2020 by the story’s author.

  Cover Description:

  The cover is a sunny yellow, with colorful scribbles and doodles.

  Across the top half of the cover, the title says "Community of Magic Pens" in a font that looks handwritten in purple marker. Around the title, there are lavender and blue ink splotches to the upper left, a rainbow scribble to the upper-right, and a few light blue stars and dots to the far right.

  Four anthropomorphic pens are spaced across the bottom half of the cover, standing happily in a line. They do not have legs, but they each have cartoonish stick arms and cartoonish faces. From left to right:

  First, a copper-colored fineliner pen is smiling with a red cap and a moustache. The arms are down, and one is holding a cane for the visually impaired.

  Second, a blue fine-nibbed pen or marker with light stripes is holding arms up to the face in happy surprise. Small black shirt buttons run down the front.

  Third, a dark gray or black stylus with a couple of small button controls and a content face has arms to the sides, and is wearing a rainbow-colored headscarf.

  Fourth, a gold fountain pen or dip pen is raising arms high and smiling. The pen wears a large gold beret, has glasses and a bowtie, and is adorned with wavy gold decorations and dots as if embellished or engraved.

  A signature: "AJCreations" is scrawled in pink and purple to the lower right of the pens.

  Across the bottom, reads: "An Atthis Arts Anthology." A black scribble rests on the bottom left, near the spine, and a pink star with some dots is to the far right side.

  Contents

  Preface

  Penultimate by ZZ Claybourne

  Of Signatures and Contracts by Andrew K Hoe

  The Confessionist by Ava Kelly

  Mightier by Elizabeth Shaffer

  Qalam by Z. Ahmad

  Inheritance by J. S. Bailey

  The Taste of Words by Kella Campbell

  Writink by Ether Nepenthes

  The Cemetery Merchant by Anthony W. Eichenlaub

  Love in the Library by Robert Perez

  Pen ID by Adam Kissel

  Do Not Write to Wrong by N.R. Lambert

  Invisible Ink by Gerri Leen

  Werepen by Avery Montavon

  Scrawls of Squid Ink by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

  Memories of a Rose Garden by Beth Goder

  Today, I am a Fountain Pen by Lawrence Miller

  A Pencil Golden and Rich by Rai Rocca

  MaterialSkin by Tlotlo Tsamaase

  The Last of Your Kind by Vijay Varman

  Memory Malfunction by Minerva Cerridwen

  Shared Space by A. P. Howell

  Mystical Woo by Victoria Hollis

  Charcoals from an Unidentified Chicago Artist by Dawn Vogel

  Pointy Chances by Robert Kingett

  Old News by Gustavo Bondoni

  Illumination by Joy Givens

  A Blank Canvas by Ethan Hedman

  One Story, Two People by Nicole J. LeBoeuf

  The Oneiric Archive by Lorraine Schein

  Writ Large by Holly Schofield

  Rhapsody in D Minor by Jannae’ Sifontes

  Written with Love by Stella B. James

  The Healer by M. Kaur

  Magical Markers by Lena Ng

  Rekindled by Mikko Rauhala

  Ink by E.D.E. Bell

  The Drawing of a Sword by K. Alysee Simon

  Nothing to Write Home About by M. R. DeLuca

  Write Me a Soul by Jennifer Lee Rossman

  Official Membership Offer

  Content Notes

  Landmarks

  Cover

  Preface

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Our Gratitude to:

  Z. Ahmad, Saladin Ahmed, Tessa Anouska, Jasre’ Ellis, Andrew K Hoe, Stella B. James, Tushar Jhunjhunwala, Leslie Kannon, M. Kaur, Gerri Leen, Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little, R.B. Lemberg, Valerie Linebaugh, Donnie Martino, Jennifer Matthews, Cat Rambo, Jennifer Lee Rossman, Jannae’ Sifontes

  Our Love to:

  Rita Beth Ebert

  About the Cover Artwork

  They’re pens, cute and silly. The story behind them can mean a thousand words to me or just a handful to you. A fineliner, a stylus, a ball point, a dip pen, or my favorite pen that I unconsciously click far too many times not to annoy those around me but to calm my anxiety. Just like people many pens come from different backgrounds, with different stories, and a million different things that make them great.—Journey

  Preface

  Thank you for picking up this book! I am so excited for you to read it.

  Sometimes I think I do anthologies sideways, and people are probably shaking their heads at me. Normally, similar stories are compiled. Stories in the same genre, with the same tone, the same audience. That way they can be marketed to the people who will surely like them, and the people who surely like them will know what they are getting.

  Yet, what excites me about short fiction is the unexpected. I love to take a theme and see what people can do with it. Where each piece is a new surprise, a new experience. Where our unique voices are as stark as our shared chorus.

  Amidst a whole list of concepts, this idea stuck into my mind and wouldn’t leave. I thought . . . can I do this? Magic Pens? Will people connect? I knew it was a bit on the nose. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the stories that could be written. So I went with it.

  What happened was honestly very different than I thought. I expected people to run away with ideas, until I better understood that there was no reason to. A whole universe of pen love swirled right where we already were. I learned that not only are pens, both fancy and simple, intensely treasured—pens, the actual devices, have some of the deepest meanings. Friendship. Power. History. Religion. Love. Mystery. Dreams.

  Pens are not just symbols of writing. Or of communicating. They are symbols of the shared human story. Of time and space . . . and memory.

  I don’t normally do a dedication in a collection like this, because I feel the energy is so shared. Yet, I do want to offer this book to you In Memoriam my friend, Alonza McKenzie. See, this wasn’t supposed to be the next collection for me. Al had brought me in to fulfill a vision of his: To create an anthology of real-life stories focused on present and former students of Detroit Public Schools (with regional submissions also) who could attest to how comprehensive music education had changed their lives. Then, after a medical emergency, Al was diagnosed with brain cancer and sent to the hospital. He was there. Then he wasn’t. He called me out of the blue one day, reassuring me he’d be back in just a few weeks and we’d get to work. He was so cheerful—told me to keep working on my other projects. Repeated that h
e believed in me. “I’m not worried about you,” he said. Al didn’t come back. As his Pastor said, he returned to the Light.

  Al’s collection would have featured Jazz and Soul stars, as well as people, both known and unknown, who’d had a career in something other than music, and all alongside current students, conveying their own lessons and dreams. Just as this collection features seasoned writers along with first-time publications—we both believed in that breakdown. I considered whether I could investigate continuing the project without him. I couldn’t. That project was deep in his heart, just as this one is mine.

  Yet, now, I’d like to use my magic pen in the tiniest way that I can, to deliver Al’s message. A message he wanted everyone to hear. Comprehensive music education changes lives. Not just music lessons or bands, but comprehensive education: theory, practice, drills, improvisation, performance, and community. This should not be viewed as a nice-to-have, the first thing to be cut when school or family budgets are strained. It should be valued by the people and by the people of their governments, by those with the power or resources to provide it. Access to comprehensive music education doesn’t just change lives: it changes the lives of all those touched, as Al’s life of service demonstrates.

  Al also wanted people to tell their stories, and I can definitely say that my own music education as a kid, with my parents’ and community’s passion toward providing it, affects me here, now, doing this. Just as Al’s influence most certainly does.

  I won’t go through all that he taught me, but let’s say he lit up both my persistence as well as my faith in community. In giving. And trusting.

  He also told me vegans are cool. ☺

  I will just note one of many things highlighted by our time working on the project together: Don’t let someone outside of a community tell you the nature and state of that community, not when that community is available to speak. Listen to the community directly. What you find will be different. Authentic understandings are core to making our shared world better for us all.

  Al spoke about the first time he was able to go to Interlochen Center for the Arts. He found a line of practice rooms and was overjoyed. He practiced and practiced and practiced, and every opportunity he had, he was back in that room, working. He spent a lot of his money—and raised a lot of money—making that opportunity available to other kids.

  I can’t live up to Al’s example, but I can try in the ways I can. And I can remember the first time he saw Diamondsong, and I sort of hedged that it was different than he was used to, and he snapped back, “I know you off-kilter. That’s why you’re here.” Then he told me that I was in the place I needed to be now, and soon I’d see that too.

  So I guess this book might be off-kilter too, and I’m so proud—so happy—to present to you what all these amazing writers have done. I hope you will enjoy the stories within these pages. If you do, tell the author. Tell people who might read it. For indie presses and writers, that support is critical. That community.

  I want to thank everyone who’s been involved with this project. It’s a really long list, and please know I’m so grateful to each of you. Whether your contribution was large or small, it all made a difference in the final product. Especial thanks to author and friend L. L. Reynolds for her generous support to our crowdfunding campaign, and to my dear friend Camille Gooderham Campbell, who is often unseen, holding my hand. Thanks to Journey for her art and enthusiasm, and thanks to G.C. Bell for believing in me. All the way. And thanks to Al. I remember that last thing you said to me, and I’m doing it. Best I can.

  And, of course, thanks to you.

  We are all so glad that you’re here.

  Cheers,

  E.D.E. Bell

  Spring 2020

  E held eir pen over the paper, hovering with visions of glitter and fairy dust powdering the ecru paper. A buzz passed by, like a dragon in flight, charging to a vision of flame and sword. In reality, a snowblower. What could e write? E felt weary, both from the pummeling of the fortunate and the knowledge of eir own fortunes. Warm—the soft barrel turning in eir waiting fingers, a comforting weight. A thought occurred to em. The train whistle blew in the distance.

  E set the pen down. And read, instead.

  Penultimate

  ZZ Claybourne

  There was power in her pen but she dared not use it. There were stories in her head she dared not say. She walked the Earth stealing pens from hotels and banks, writing no more than three words at a time on slips of paper here and there, tucking the parts of a story meant to be discovered long after she was gone into books, between the cushions of bus seats, cracks in trees, and—very specifically—the tables of lovers looking for something to be rekindled, looking to be re-born.

  She’d been born seven times within one year once, always with that pen nearby. A fountain pen. Casing black with white dots like random stars, the nib as golden as first light, the band the gold of a ring. She was born married to the pen. She was in love with its hidden stories.

  She had forgotten their strength once.

  A long time ago. She can’t remember any of the people’s faces although she’d loved them and knew them. The pen was an odd thing. When she’d found it in the lee of a tree and touched it, everyone went away. Everything went away. The world was changed . . . except her.

  What had been a field, now contained structures. Huge buildings and noise all around.

  She’d dropped the pen to immediately return to her world, the pen at her feet. She was relieved to find that birds sang, that insects struggling beneath her tickled the soles of her bare feet, and in the distance were people, people whose conversations flowed as though never interrupted.

  No one was dead. Nor had anyone noticed she was gone.

  “I want to stay,” she told the pen, hesitantly bending for it.

  It obeyed. It was patient with her. Memory was sometimes tricky.

  In the earliest days it showed her there were more uses for a pen than lists. It gave her new words; the words became stories; the stories became . . . reality? Sometimes it was hard to know which dream was hers and which belonged to all the world.

  She would write, then glance around, and notice things had changed. Small things. The arguing lovers across the way, now kissing. A hornet prepared to sting, now content to laze among the many flowers that grew uninterrupted.

  One day she got bold, very bold; she wrote a tale of new love, designed specifically to change.

  Which it did.

  She unwittingly wrote everyone out of existence.

  Even the world: gone.

  She looked for her hands and they weren’t there. Her body consumed stars as a galaxys-wide nebula thrust into the universe mere seconds after the Big Bang; she was the first touch of consciousness and wonder and delight and fear and wanting ever to exist.

  She was love.

  It had taken a huge effort of will to pull herself together. Billions of years. In that time the world re-formed, people returned, life evolved on track.

  And the pen lay nearby.

  She didn’t fear it. She picked it up, willing everyone and everything to stay.

  They did.

  She knew the story of love. It involved destruction, tearing, rebuilding, reimagining, becoming—all things the world wasn’t designed strong enough to hold in its hands for very long.

  It was a story to be told in whispers, in slips, in sudden findings.

  In epiphanies or words stopped solely by kisses on lips.

  After several lifetimes she realized she was not separate from the pen; it was not separate from her.

  She hadn’t found it. She’d forgotten she’d created it, knowledge which created a nomad of her. As she walked the Earth pretending to be smaller than anyone ever truly was, for the world, the stars, the universe was a story of love, a tale which erased entire existences to rebuild them anew, she felt more emboldened at leaving parts of the mystery much more often in full view.

  She remembered loving th
e summer, the sounds of lovers, intertwined stories erasing solitude, erasing separation.

  Strips of paper on the wind, blowing toward you.

  ZZ Claybourne (he/him, also known as Clarence Young) is the author of the novels The Brothers Jetstream: Leviathan, Neon Lights, and By All Our Violent Guides, as well as the acclaimed short story collection Historical Inaccuracies and inspirational gift book In the Quiet Spaces. His essays on sci-fi, fandom, and creativity have appeared in Apex, Strange Horizons, and various other outlets. He is currently at work on his 4th novel. Find him on the web at writeonrighton.com.

  Of Signatures and Contracts

  Andrew K Hoe

  Trenchcoat Man, a silent 6’4” harbinger of corporate death, fixed Michael with a stare that practically froze the nearly empty boardroom. Not his actual name, of course, but Michael didn’t know what else to call him. He’d started shadowing Mr. Detenweiler as negotiations with NyxCorp finalized, but never spoke. NyxCorp’s hired muscle, most likely.

  Detenweiler himself sat across from Michael. It was impossible, but beyond the skyrise windows, Michael thought he heard protesters chanting below. The document before him was pristine—the Devil’s contract for his soul should look so clean.

  “Okay, Mr. Ho?” Detenweiler asked.

  Michael grunted against the pit in his stomach. “Fine.”

  The last concession NyxCorp had forced was they could fire whomever they wanted after the merger. But Michael had persisted, even after his staff resigned in protest. Why balk now?

  He squeezed his pen, then scrawled:

  I love Christina Vei.

  “What the . . . ?”

  Not his signature—but definitely his handwriting. Yes, some nights he stared at the ceiling wondering about Christina. Their romance was years over—mutual decision—they’d been Big Picture people with careers . . .

  Trenchcoat Man flexed his fingers, like maybe he’d reach for a pistol.

  “Problem?” Detenweiler asked.