It-Narrative

Panorama: Love Letter to My Pen.

By Oleksiy Fesenko

March 26, 2019

Day One: A month ago I used to visit the International University “Krok” in Kyiv. There I headed to the men's room and noted a mess in a cabin; someone had deliberately pissed into a waste paper bin instead of a floor-mounted water-closet pan. I was taught that people should keep up dignity in any situation as we are bone to live well, learn to respect and love each other. I wanted to talk through with the boy about esteem to the peers and teachers to tick him off. But nobody was around.

It was easy to give up, but I concentrated, one explanation was occurring to me after another: the boy was boxed in his own world believing he had got a flash in the pan; falsely feeling himself born perfect, blue-blooded; or realizing no need to study or further improvement. I outlined the problem which might be in his gray matter – or in an absolute ‘absence’ of the above, I thought for a while of the situation attributing to him the qualities of a ‘thing.’ In a moment, I was already thinking up a scenario on how to get a handle of this confusing situation. That student might have been too impersonal and unkind having the too subjective view. I reached into my pocket and fished out a subject - the blue pen with the tag “Dignity Pen.” I didn't know the pen’s ins and outs, I mentally switched around the profiles of the object and of the subject bouncing my thought off the pen and thinking of the imaginary boy.

The nuns are chasing the thieves: don't mind that the number plate reads 'demon'.

Day two: Two, nuns on Nesterivska Street in Kyiv are chasing thieves: vehicle number plate stands for 'Demon.' At this time, the pen was lying relaxed as if he had a lot of time. As I looked at a price tag, I read that the ‘Dignity Pen’s cost was 600 US dollars/per month. Instead, I saw no reasons to relax and be proud of. So, I told him a story about my mother. Her family lived in a village named 'Stupku' and was evicted in 1932. Being expropriated of all the property, the family became naked and bloodless. As a child from the evicted family, she had not been allowed to join the young pioneers’ league. The family neither had good clothes or footwear, and at school, she was treated as underdog accordingly. But my mother explained how happy she was when she found a lost pen outside of the school premises. After that, she would not hear more about ‘the label’ of a member of the pioneers’ league but received peace of mind. Happiness and peace fitted into her paradigm of patience to study and brushed off all the labels. Since we believe that we are rich, we pay with our money? In fact, we are frittering our time away. Your blood my pen, your ink, is also your useful lifetime.

Day tree: We live in the 21-st century with a clatter of things pressing on us. Shall we work eight days a week to earn money and to continue this vicious cycle to become not happy in the end? Often we cannot buy time: it is passing into nowhere. Why we are losing our freedom and the brightness of our lives, with the false missions to buy a new item and then again and again. Theft of the subjects as in my mother’s case was eviction and expropriation, in your case - the mess is the theft of time. There should be something opposite to a robbery, as the free will of the subjects to change the owners. You must have free will to choose the owner as it was with my mother’s pen. We forget about our intrinsic value, it is not of the paycheck or a label of the young pioneers’, or an attachment to a dedicated owner, it’s something that adds up to our life! So pull up stake and go to the loving one.

My pen, be the Thing of the things and exercise the Free Will of the Thing. "So pull up stake and go to the loving one."

Day Four: The day began from the storm, and a roof landed downtown Kyiv at Mykoly Lysenka Street, the lesson had started: As I see your next problem is that you have no wardrobe. So, I will write you a letter of authentication telling you that you have learned all the letters of the alphabet and should not be considered without clothes anymore. When I was a preschool boy, my father taught me to learn one letter a day and explained that education is a continuing process like a road uphill to the mounting peak. He said that people are bone to be positive, developing their natural skills adapted to life in society. When I went to school, my peers had respected me, because I already was able to read and count well and be more productive. So, in my head, I had a ‘wardrobe’ in this sense.

Day five: As you are the developing pen, I will also write your mission. When I was a first-year student in 1983 I joined the Soviet Army; still, there was an amendment to the law granting me to skip the Army Service because both of my parents had been of the pension age. But I believed that dignity is the critical attribute to my Country, Parents and Me. In total, I was coming at this duty from different time perspectives twice in 1983-1985 and 2016-2018. As you live in a vulnerable time, I will write in your Mission Statement, that after graduating from the University you must have a commitment to serve in the Ukrainian Army.

Day Six: As you are supposed to become a soldier you will understand that your blood is of red color, forget you are the blue-blood. Since you are the blue pen, you will also know that the peace treaties are signed with a pen, yet the orders to beak peace are written with blood. The ink is over the blood, my pen.

Day Seven: I love you as a pen and as a person, because you understand the high value of life; have the stylish mental outfit, intrinsic qualities such as the Ukrainian citizenship, dignity, peacemaking, and have the mission in your life. You also recognize that you are not perfect and have to improve. Otherwise, after the next storm, you will turn into a ‘thing’ again.

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