onecheapdate

LJ IDOL - WEEK 16
PROMPT - INKLING


It happened when I wasn’t expecting it. Not that one is ever really prepared for such an odd, whimsical occurrence, but at that time my mood was especially sour and I was stressed out. I’d had a rough day filled with missteps and mishaps and so when evening hit I tucked myself into the corner of the couch with a warm mug of tea and my journal. I intended to distract myself by working on the outline for my perpetually unfinished book. Most people had moved to doing such planning and preparations on their computers, but I enjoyed the slow, calming pace of writing it out freehand. I liked to draw little doodles in the margins as I thought or underline particularly important passages on the fly.

Of course, the day had been defined by Murphy’s Law and so it was really no surprise that once I’d found a most comfortable position and sat poised with my favorite ballpoint pen against a crisp, empty sheet of journal paper, I discovered no ink flowing freely from the tip. I glared down at the pen. How could this be? It wasn’t brand new, but it certainly wasn’t empty. I was a responsible pen owner and always made sure to cap it so it wouldn’t dry out. And yet…

I scribbled angrily across the paper, trying to coax out some ink. Nothing. The day’s frustrations were really beginning to get to me. I stared at the tip, picking at it with my nail, trying to see if something had perhaps been lodged against the ball. Nothing. With a cry of dramatic despair, I started shaking the pen vigorously towards the paper.

There was the sound of something wet, but weighted hitting against the paper. I looked down and… screamed. I tossed the journal to the floor and skittered backwards, climbing up on the arm of the couch and then promptly toppling over the side. From my place on the carpet, out of view, I tried to catch my breath. A bug? A large splatter of ink that had surprised me? I peeked around the couch to the place where I had tossed my notebook. It lay open, still flipped to an empty page, but nestled in the spine break was something black and round - about the size of a marble. I crawled closer and watched in absolute shock as it pushed itself up onto two tiny black feet, by two tiny black arms. What in the…? Curiosity got the better of me and so I inched even closer. It didn’t look like any bug I’d ever seen, but it was clearly sentient. I watched as it started to hop around the blank page, it’s little feet leaving behind thin, black marks.

I’m not a particularly courageous woman, but I know the dire peril of removing a stain from a beige carpet (curse you previous owners!) and so it was a move of pure reflex when I realized the little creature was about to hop-hop-hop right off the journal page. I dove forward to catch him, clasping him gently between both hands and yelping in surprise at my own impulsive act of bravery. My heart was racing and my brain was twisting in on itself trying to comprehend what was going on. Now what did I do?

I slowly stood up and walked to the kitchen. I could feel the little thing rolling back and forth between my hands. It tickled. When I’d made it to the sink, I gently deposited the tiny guy onto the bottom of the basin and then peered down. He wasn’t perfectly round or smooth - his shape was something amorphous. He did have a set of little feet and arms, but I could discern no kinds of facial features. Every part of him was the color of… black ink. I held my hands out in front of me and sure enough my palms were stained in onyx blotches. Bizarre. This creature had most definitely shot out of the end of my pen, unbelievable as it sounded.

“What are you?” I whispered.

He’d been standing quite still at the bottom of the sink, but the moment I spoke he began to vibrate with what I could only describe as excitement. He began hopping up and down, dirtying the bottom of the basin.

“You like being talked to?” I asked, to which I received even more vigorous bouncing.

And that was how I became the owner of an inkling.

I kept him in a shallow, rectangle tupperware, lined with sheets of paper. He seemed unable to climb or get any real height with his jumping so I was able to keep the lid off most of the time. He liked when I spoke to him. He seemed to soak up my words, bouncing around happily in his little makeshift habitat. I would tell him plot points I was brainstorming for my book and if he liked them, he’d hop with a little extra enthusiasm. I’d read to him the things I scribbled out into my journal - settings and character descriptions and lines of dialogue. I found that it amped up my own excitement and the validation of my thoughts being well-received pushed me to keep working. I was still just conceptualizing and creating outlines, but I was making progress at a faster pace than I had in years. He was my writing wingman and I found myself growing quite fond of the little creature.

But being the owner of an inkling is a fleeting thing.

One day, as I sat scribbling ideas on the last few empty pages of my writing journal, I noticed that he was not acting like his normal self. This was an absurd thought, of course, because what is ‘normal’ for a sentient ball of ink? But somehow I could tell something was off. He seemed sluggish and tired. His little legs seemed to wobble under the weight of his body. He wasn’t nearly as responsive to the sound of my voice.

“You okay in there, little dude?”

I didn’t usually take him out of his makeshift home as he was quite messy and left a trail of ink wherever he went, but I was concerned. I pulled the tupperware onto the desk and flipped to the last empty page of my journal. Then I scooped him out and gently placed him down onto the lined paper. For a moment, he didn’t move and I held my breath. Could inklings die?

“Hey? You okay?”

He wobbled back and forth a bit, but then seemed to steady. His whole body began to vibrate intensely and I found myself leaning back, afraid he was about to explode and splatter ink in every direction. But then he started hopping. He quickly made his way up to the top of the page. I watched him bounce across the paper, only this time, instead of leaving behind abstract black markings, his tiny feet imprinted… words. I gasped and jumped up. It didn’t take long for him to fill the entire page and as I looked down I saw that they were my thoughts, my words, my book. I pulled open a large drawer to my left and scooped out three empty notebooks. I laid them out open on the desk, one by one, flipping to a fresh new sheet as necessary while my tiny inkling bounced happily along, spilling out my story. It took hours - into the night and then past dawn - and little by little my inkling shrank until all that was left of him was a dark, round period pressed into the very last page of the final notebook. I rubbed my eyes, looking down at all of his hard work. My book.

“Thanks, little guy.”

Everyone says it was all in my head. They say there’s no possible way such a fantastical thing could exist. They say the handwriting, the phrasing, the word choices are all mine, but I know the truth. I know that I never could’ve completed such a work without a little help. These days, I shake out all my pens, wondering, and maybe even hoping, that another little inkling may be lodged up there waiting to be freed.