The Mighty Pen

The pen is mightier than the sword…the pen is mightier than the sword….

Eman had never really registered the expression’s meaning, on a deeper level, beyond the obvious at least; mostly, she associated it with a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It wasn't until she wielded a fountain pen for the first time that she truly understood. She had, on a whim, bought herself a luxury black and gold, extra fine point, British brand pen—fresh from the land of the colonizers—no matter, the nib was made in Germany and the rest, like almost everything, China.

The thing was Eman was a writer in search of motivation; every time she opened her laptop these days, all she saw was the world falling apart. We’re always losing, was the common refrain rising to her mind, as she scanned the day’s headlines—the we stood for Muslims, Arabs, Latinas, all of humanity really. In short, she was discouraged—but the pen, well, it changed everything. When she took its cap off, it truly felt like she was unsheathing a sword—its stainless steel tip shimmered in the light. Yes, with this pen in her hand, she could destroy an empire—it had been done before; with this pen she could knock a tyrant off his throne—that too had been done before. This must be why they work so hard to silence us.

And so, Eman wrote, her pen, aptly named Zulfiqar, gliding across the page, stabbing, slicing, seething. She felt it now, the might, and there would be hell to pay.