A month ago saw me standing in my bedroom, weeping.

I’d lost it, I was certain, it was gone. My fountain pen. My only fountain pen. And hence my favourite fountain pen in the world. I was looking for it that evening not because I needed it (let’s be honest, how often do we need pens any more?), but because I wanted to know where it was. To check on it, as it were. That it was in one of many designated “pen places” dotting my barsaati . The coffee table in the living room, the bedside table next to a tattered Moleskine, zipped pockets in handbags (having more than one is hazardous to your sanity because that necessitates shifting your belongings from one to another depending on mood and attire), or an odds-and-ends box on the dressing table that held, well, everything I didn’t know where else to place.

That evening, I looked everywhere.

In all of the above, about a hundred times or more, because who knows what you might have missed, and maybe by magic it would materialise in the spot where it wasn’t two minutes ago.

I’m not attached to things.

An ex-boyfriend once told me (and for this piece of wisdom alone I’m grateful we dated for six months) that things are replaceable, people aren’t. No, that wasn’t it. He said things would get broken, they would tear, shatter to the ground and be misplaced. And hence, our attachment to them must be lightest, freest. What mattered were the people who gifted us those items, the ones we were with when we bought them perhaps. It’s a thought I’ve tried always to put into practice. A lovely tea-light holder smashed while dusting. No matter. A vintage dress that mysteriously vanishes. I do not care (or at least, eventually don’t). A rare hardcover left on a bus by a friend. The friend lives; we’re still friends.

But this was my pen.

And try as I might to exercise the same nonchalance, I couldn’t.

First, it was a pen.

And pens to writers are wings to birds. Or something like that. You get the idea. Even if “writing” these days mostly entails banging away at some computer keys, there is still a connection between us. Something primeval, I guess. That thrill of being a child and discovering writing, and hence always associating the act with newness and potency. Even now, I scribble.

The pen had a history.

And as ridiculously idyllic as this might sound, I bought it in a small northern Italian town, from a pen shop that had been run by the same family for generations. The elderly gentleman there helped the pen choose me (yes, Potter fans, like a wand). Because I’m left-handed, he picked out special nibs, and made me try each one until I picked the nib I liked, and found comfortable.

The pen had travelled with me.

And also mostly lain in my bag capped and untouched as my “travel diary” usually took the form of (quick, convenient) social media posts. But I used it too. To write a poem during a flight. To put down a conversation in a dream. To make new-book notes.

The pen signed my first book.

I used it for every single launch event. Signing my name and “best wishes”, judiciously writing out names of friends and family and strangers between the covers. My pen has a record of everyone who stood before me, book in hand, in support and love. The pen signed my second book, and I’d hoped every subsequent book I would write. (In case you can’t tell, I’m sentimental about these things.)

Now, it was lost.

I ran countless scenarios in my head. Perhaps it fell out of a jute bag I’d carried (more for style than practicality), with large gaps between the weaves. Perhaps it had rolled under table, bed, cupboard, and would remain out of sight, and reach, for years to come. Maybe a visitor had mistakenly walked away with it. I tried the “backtrack” strategy: When had I last used it? When had I last seen it? Someone told me I should think about finding it and I would. That didn’t work. Or employ the “18-inch-rule”, whereby missing objects are supposedly lying less than two feet away from you. I inside-outed my barsaati , 18 inches be damned: nothing. Then I resorted to that most efficacious of plans: I wept. Headache, stuffy nose, no pen.

Eventually, I resigned. I told myself it was alright; that it was a replaceable thing. And I attempted to carry on with my life (which is largely pen-free, anyway, but when it’s gone, it’s different). Strangely enough, a few mornings later, as soon as I awoke, I knew where it was. I rushed to the cupboard, rummaged in a (new) bag I hadn’t checked before, and there it was, lying in the inner pocket. Like a truant pet, when I’d given up hope, it came back. Now, it’s been lovingly refilled with ink, and it lies safely in one of its designated pen places. At least it should be. Let me go check.

Janice Pariat is the author of Seahorse; @janicepariat

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