He sits down at his desk. He picks up a long, yellow pencil and starts to write on a pad. The lead point breaks.
The end of his lips turn down. The eye pupils grow small in the hard mask of his face. Quietly, mouth pressed into an ugly, lipless gash, he picks up the pencil sharpener.
He grinds off the shavings and tosses the sharpener back in the drawer. Once more he starts to write. As he does so, the point snaps again and the lead rolls across the paper.
Suddenly his face becomes livid. Wild rage clamps the muscles of his body. He yells at the pencil, curses it with a stream of outrage. He glares at it with actual hate. He breaks it in two with a brutal snap and flings it into the wastebasket with a triumphant, "There! See how you like it in there!"
He sits tensely on the chair, his eyes wide, his lips trembling. He shakes with frenzied wrath; it sprays his insides with acid.
The pencil lies in the wastebasket, broken and still. It is wood, lead, metal, rubber; all dead, without the appreciation of the burning fury it has caused.
And yet...
