The Writer's Desk

I stared at the blank paper in front of me. Surprisingly enough, it stared back with equal innocence, as if it were waiting to learn a lesson that it would never forget. I could almost make out its twirling lips, and the childish eye brows, and the playful eyes, through its ruled lines, and margin.
I lifted my pen and saw the paper jump up with excitement as I breathed out. The innocent smile had miraculously changed into a happy grin, like that of a kindergarten child awaiting a prize from his teacher. I smiled back with the serenity of the teacher, as she hands out the prize to a jumping kid. I stroked the ends of the paper like she would fondle a new student on her first day at school. The eyes looked back at me with admiration and awe. I uncapped my pen, and rested my hand on the paper making sure that I wasn’t hurting it in any way, or folding it from any side. Dog ears and crumpling edges, they hurt. The paper smiled gratefully, and stared at me with unconditional love. It was ready.
I smiled as a thought crossed my mind. My mind began to set itself into WRITE mode, and all that remained to be done, was pen the thought down. I looked at the paper one last time, and satisfied with the eagerness in its eyes, I began. The paper chuckled and laughed and gloated, as I wrote out my initial thoughts onto it. I wondered the reason for such hilarity. I soon realized that the whole writing episode must be a rib tickling experience for the paper, in its true sense.
As I continued to vent myself out, I briefly saw the paper undergo a mix of motions, best compared to those a child undergoes as it trudges through her initial years of schooling. It laughed boisterously at times, and wailed loudly at other times. It hummed playfully for some time, and acted snobbish the remaining times. When my thoughts paused for breath, I noticed the paper heave sighs of unrest, as a child would on his morning games workout. I ruffled its edges, assuring it that it was in safe hands, as it looked on hopefully. Then my mind began to race again, and I continued to cast my imprints on the once plain and white paper, now blue with my thoughts. When I ended, the paper seemed tired and rugged, like a fifth grade student returning home from a hard day at school. I consoled it by running my hands all over it, but it was all blue with color, desperate to tell a story, dying to babble something out.
I read it up to down, not even barring a single full stop or punctuation. When I finished my read, it seemed content and satisfied, as if its purpose in life had been fulfilled. Its smile exuded the confidence of a teenager narrating her experiences of her sleepover to a pretending-to-be-stunned father. I smiled knowingly, as it stared back at me with utmost happiness and vigor.
I then read it once again, like an examiner would recheck a student’s answer sheet, and frowned like the examiner would on catching a blunder. The paper seemed apprehensive now, and looked at me with shivering lips and fearful eyes. It seemed to have realized what it’s fate was coming to, and pleaded me to let it stay. It had the emotion a twelfthie goes through as she realizes that time to depart has arrived. It begged to stay on, as I tore it out and threw it away in the dustbin, wherein lay a million others like it.
I only heard a feeble cry, as the paper seemed to battle its way through the big bad world outside. Leaving the security of my desk was indeed very painful for it.
I grabbed another paper hurriedly, ignoring the paper’s cry as it made its way out of my cocoon. I nervously looked at the time, and wiped drops of sweat from my face.
I couldn’t afford to lose my job as the columnist. I must come up with something in another hour.
As I wrote again, the paper in the dustbin seemed to look back in nostalgia, and seemed to be calling out to me. It didn’t take me long to realize that it would be calling out forever, but I mustn’t listen. It must brave the horrors of the world outside.
That’s growing up.
And this was a farewell, indeed.