A Pen to Purify

The pen fell down into the shit-pot. He got hold of a toilet brush and tried to manoeuvre it out. He could not. He tried several more times, poking about with the brush. The pen would come up for a while, and then fall down again with a splash into the shitty water. He shied from using his own hand to remove the object. The mere idea made him nauseous. His hands continued to work the long-handled brush as his mind dwelt on the undoable act of removing the pen with his hand.
He cursed himself for his fondness to solve Times crosswords on shit-pot. He cursed himself for his carelessness in letting the pen slip his fingers.
Lo! The pen had disappeared! His lapse in attention had caused the brush to make a few random strokes. The pen had been accidently pushed into the hole where potty goes when you flush.

He was dismayed. Uff! What will happen now? The pen would travel up...then down....then down again. Down, down, down, down. Into the bowels of the earth. The pen! Into the bowels of the earth. The pen soiled with shit and urine. The pen that could have signed names. That could have written poetry..prose...newspaper reports...school exercises...competitive examinations....
The pen that would have made persons out of people.

That pen now lay embroiled in muck. Every pressing of the flush button caused jets of water and human refuse to push the pen further toward the chambers.
His brain refused to cease thinking about the pen. He couldn’t consume his breakfast for the thought of it. The journey of the pen began to haunt him. Finally, he walked up to the Municipal Corporate Office and demanded he be given a map of the city’s sewers. The officers were astounded. They asked him why. He could yield no answer. All he could do was to reiterate that he wanted...no...needed the map.
They thought he had a nut or two loose in the head. They decided to humour him. So they asked him to wait. He waited. Hours ticked away. He grew impatient, but the thought of tracing the pen spurred him...kept him sitting at the municipality office as it he had grown roots there.

They took pity on him. The map was found for him. He was asked to Xerox it and to return the original to them. He did what he was asked. His feeling of utter dejection that had been increasing ever since he had lost his pen appeased a little. He was doing something to get it!

He went home and spread the map before him. With trouble, he located his area on the map. He wasn’t much of a map-reader. He rued having wasted away his geography classes in school, then realized his geography classes had little or nothing to do with the present map study. He continued to pour over it.

He found the point where the sewer pipe of his building met the street pipe. He traced the pipeline with his finger, for he had no pen. He used a pencil to mark the point where the street pipe became narrow. Too narrow for his pen to travel transversely. He wondered if his pen had passed that point – it could have, if it had been oriented properly. He saw that near this point, a manhole was positioned.
He rushed back to the municipality office.

“I need to know the name of people in this area who are in your employ to clean the manholes. I have lost something valuable.”

“What?”

There was no mistaking the municipality officer’s avarice.

“A pen.”

The officer was disappointed, nay disgusted. He gave him the names and addresses he wanted without further interest.

He sped out of the office. He was afraid if his pen had not been stuck inside the pipeline, it would be well inside the river near his city where all municipality pipes drained. He did not want that to happen.

He found the manhole cleaner at home. He was not very keen on opening the manhole when his job clearly didn’t require him to. The drain-cleaner wanted a bribe. The pen-owner didn’t want to give it, but wanted his pen back. So, he bribed the cleaner.
The manhole was opened. The cleaner went down inside it, grumbling. He struck his hand inside the pipe where the pen-owner thought his pen might be. His hand came out holding nothing. He groped again. Nothing. He was impatient. He insisted that the idea be given up. The pen-owner insisted. He was frantic.

“Search inside the manhole, too, if you please.”

More groping, probing, searching, sifting. No finding.

At last. “There it is.”

He forgot it was mucky, shitty water. He nearly snatched the pen out of the startled cleaner’s hands.

He had work to do.

He had a pen to purify.