Purple

With a placid look in his eyes, the old man began to write, as he did every day, the story of a young man’s life.  He sat in an overwhelmingly grey room that contained a desk, numerous mostly full book cases, and a tube above his head that would dispense a new pen when his ran dry.  He sat scribbling across the coarse white pages with his black pen documenting every mundane action of the day.    Of the countless books he had written this story was as unremarkable as the last. The only thing that would break up his day would be the sound of a pen coming down the shoot as the ink ran dry in the one currently occupying his hand. It got to the point where he could sense it was about to happen. He would toss the old pen in the box next to his desk, reach his bony fingers out, catch the new one mid-air and continue to write without missing a step.  
As he sat writing he heard that familiar sound from the tube above his head, but this time it was different.  It was way too early.
  
It’s not time for a new pen, he thought. 

He emptied his hands and looked up curiously as he caught and grasped the new pen.

“Purple?” he said to himself.

Turning the pen over in his hand he stared in wonder. With a face filled with curiosity he touched the pen to the paper. His eyes lit up as he scrawled across the page.  Never has he been so excited to write a story before in his life. Page after page filled with the most vibrant purple ink: story upon story. At times he would stop writing because he couldn’t stop laughing at the stories unfolding before him. Cackling, leaning back in his chair and wiping tears from his eyes he weaved the most incredible tale that he ever had the joy of writing. At the end of the day he flipped through the pages he had filled out. With a nod of his head, he twisted the pen in his fingertips one last time, closed the book and set the pen down lovingly across the cover as he left to get some rest.

The following morning he returned, eager to see what else this purple pen could do. He sat down and went to reach for the pen, but it was gone. In its place was a black pen. Terrified, he lifted up the book and flipped through the pages, frantically searching for the purple pen. He looked under his desk, all around his work station, everywhere in the little grey room but found nothing. Looking up he saw the metal tube the pen came from and began to get angry. 

 In a fit of rage, he stood on his chair and shook the tube, beating on it,  pulling it, and cursing at it, wanting to know why the pen was gone. Finally he sat defeated.  He was angry and felt betrayed but sat down and reluctantly grabbed the black pen. 

  Opening the book to the fresh new page he noticed something different. The ink from the purple pen had bled through. He slammed the pen down, picked up the book and flipped through the remainder of the pages. Each and every one had purple markings. Some with just a bit of a line, some with small blotches,and some with the entire page tinted purple. A laugh erupted from him that bordered on maniacal as he smiled at the book, flipping the pages back and forth. He stood up and spun around holding the book outstretched. When he finally stopped moving he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Something purple was laying on the top of the box of old pens. Slowly he reached down and picked up the old pen, smiling and cuddling it against his face. He sat it down at the top of his desk where he could always see it, and began to write.  Though the stories weren’t the same as the ones written with the purple pen, they had left an imprint on the remaining pages. In place of his once dull empty expression was instead a tiny smirk. No matter what was written in the story for that day, he would laugh at the stained pages with hope in his eyes and the memories of the purple-scribbled words from before.