Yellow Sheaffer Pen

When I was nine years old, my family presented me with a yellow thick-nibbed Sheaffer pen on my birthday. For me, the pen symbolized several rites of passage. It was the first 'adult' present I ever received. It was the first present to codify my decision that yellow, not red, was my favorite color. The pen came at the perfect time, as I was transitioning from using pencils to ink in school and was the only kid in class to have a "real" pen, not the disposable Dollar ink pens handed to most young Pakistani students (for that reason, I credit the pen for instilling some long-standing intellectual pretensions and predelictions in me). I developed my signature as it currently is using that pen. I wrote my first 'A' grade essay using that pen. I signed off on my first Valentine's Day card using that pen. I literally wrote myself into existence using that pen. And then, in 1993, just before leaving for a summer vacation, I stowed the pen away safely, somewhere, perhaps in a drawer, or a shoe box, or my father's filing cabinet, or a carton, or perhaps even an empty tin of Quality Street chocolates. I never saw my yellow Sheaffer again.

Last seen in Karachi, Pakistan, 1993.

Huma, Cambridge, MA