Aditya

-The Swing-

It was a chilly winter evening and the darkness had almost settled in. The boy was reading quietly in his room. The aureate light from his table lamp illuminated his table splendidly. On the table lay some books and a few blank sheets of paper. Besides the books, in a corner was a pen stand that housed numerous pens and pencils. It was extremely quiet and one could hear the crickets chirping outside. The silence was broken by a call from the boy’s mother for dinner. He kept his book aside and proceeded downstairs closing the door behind him.

Now the room was empty and dark except for the table. It appeared like a pitch black theatre with a lit-up stage. The calm did not last long as the pen stand shuddered momentarily and a long and sharp pencil jumped out. She shook her body free as if she was warming up. She was quite glad that the boy had left the room and that now she was no longer confined to the likes of the pen stand. Suddenly she noticed the blank sheets of paper lying next to her. Beyond the sheets lay an iPod which gave her a brilliant idea. She hopped over to the iPod and turned on a cheesy number. As the music started rising, she stepped on the blank paper and started zooming around with the grace of an ice skater. While dancing she was simultaneously tracing beautiful curves on the paper. She stopped momentarily to admire the abstract picture created by her and went on waltzing happily.

Meanwhile, all the music and dancing reached the ears of an eraser who was sleeping peacefully in a pocket of the pen stand. He had been working the entire day and his body was aching badly due to all the rubbing and scrubbing. In addition to the pain, now he had to endure the noise originating from the table. Initially he ignored the disquiet and tried to sleep but it was too irritating. So, he got up sluggishly and dragged himself out of the pocket to investigate the source of all the commotion. He tries to yell his protest but the music drowns his voice completely. By now, his tiredness was replaced by irritation and he decided to teach the pencil a lesson. He silently sneaked from the back of a book and unnoticed by the pencil, lurked behind another notebook near the blank sheets. The pencil being engaged in her trance failed to notice anything.

The eraser very quietly jumped behind the pencil and started following her path, undoing her creation on his way. Soon the pencil realized that her sketch had been vanishing and she stopped in her path abruptly. The eraser, not anticipating this, ran headlong into her and both of them tumbled together on the paper. Realising that the culprit of the cunning mischief was the eraser, she got up and angrily rapped him on his head. The eraser did not hold back his anger as well and lodged his head in her stomach leaving her gasping for breath. Their scuffling continued and within sometime, most of the objects on the table were shaken from their sleep and they started watching this tussle. The presence of onlookers encouraged the brawling further. The eraser head butted the pencil and started running away. But the pencil using her length to her advantage, easily caught the eraser and pulled off his cover. This disrobing left the crowd in a fit of laughter and the eraser turned red with embarrassment. The pencil sneered at the flustered eraser and then waved triumphantly at the cheering spectators.

All of a sudden, there was a huge blast of air and both the eraser and the pencil were blown off the table. Everyone turned around and found the old table fan smirking from the corner. The eraser was rubbing his head after falling from such a great height. Luckily, his chubby body absorbed the shock and he was unhurt. However, the pencil fell hard on the floor and broke her point. By now, both realized that none of them was on the victorious side. At that moment, the door creaked open and the boy returned. He was surprised to see the pencil and the eraser lying on the ground. Shaking his head, he relocated them to their stations. He failed to notice that the eraser no longer had its cover and was deaf to the giggling in the background. Entertained for quite some time, one by one all the items drifted back to sleep except for the pencil and the eraser. The pencil was wounded and the eraser helplessly stared at his cover lying far away on the floor.

THE END