Pencil

"In spite of everything I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing."—Vincent Van Gogh A missile is shaped like a pencil— its long, slender body and pointed end creates history. A girl walking down the street a few steps ahead of her sister and friend, two medics who were trying to help injured people, the parked ambulance— all were annihilated by the same weapon. Above, drones—silent, unmanned planes. A metal, predatory bird that shoots a missile with precision, identifying the colors of a shirt, the features on a face—the shape of a nose, the color and length of a mustache. In a room far away, in another country, a man sits at a desk and looks at a screen; he strokes his thick, dark mustache as he carefully contemplates, then pushes a button. There is a charred hole in the ground where the girl once stood. There are pencils that write and erase, write and erase, so that there is nothing to be read on the page. The page blank as the desert sky, blank as the smooth shell of a drone. There is a family drinking mint tea in a living room. The man holds a cup to his lips, the glass touches his mustache. A silent bird hovers above. In a split second, everyone is dead, the house is in rubbles—arms, legs, splattered organs among broken concrete. Soon, there will be no trace.