The Pen Here is what I have. It is not much. It draws lines that do not yet mean anything. You could hold it the wrong way. You could put it in your mouth. You could drop it and I would pick it up again. This is the whole of my offer: a thing that makes marks, held out across a table where the coffee is getting cold and the morning has no plans. You shake your head. Your hand says stop. Your mouth is open like a door to a country I used to know. I wait. There is no trick. The pen is just a pen. But the space between your hand and mine— that slim, charged inch of air— is the most interesting negotiation I have entered in years. I have all morning. I have all morning. You will reach for it when you are ready, or you won't, and either way the grey light will keep softening the wood, the window, the quiet booth where we are learning each other's terms.