Author: Hillary Lyon

“Aloysius, what are you doing up here?” Roget looked around the cluttered, dusty attic. He gently kicked a cardboard box labeled ‘Mom’s Books.’ A storm of dust motes exploded around his foot.

Without looking up, Aloysius answered, “I’m writing.” He dipped his quill in the small ink pot on the antique writing desk before him. An old lantern cast a pool of illumination on his workspace.

“I can see that,” Roget snorted. “You know, we have a word-processing program on the computer downstairs, and a voice-to-text program on the—”

“I prefer to do this the old-fashioned way,” Aloysius said as he lifted the completed sheet of paper before him. He blew the ink dry, then laid it atop a growing stack of written pages. “The feel of the writing utensil in my hand, the frailness of the lightweight paper, the smell of the ink—it’s all so tactile, so satisfying.”

“Okay…what are you writing? What’s so important it has to be done by hand up here alone, when you should be downstairs making dinner?”

“Ponderings, philosophical musings…queries for the universe. Why are we here, who made us—the eternal questions. Writing by hand gives me more time to think, to organize my thoughts.”

“More time to think, uh huh. Your processors are lightning-fast, Aloysius. Time, in your case, is irrelevant. So I ask you again: Why use this method? You know, ink fades, paper ages and crumbles. In a thousand years, it’ll be nothing but dust.”

“Yes, much like you.” Aloysius said so softly Roget couldn’t hear. He then pulled a clean sheet out onto the desk, dipped his quill in the ink pot and leaned over to continue his work. “My writings will be recognized as the first philosophical treatise ever done by my kind. It will be studied and, hopefully, revered and remembered.”

“Whatever,” Roget said as he turned and started back down the attic stairs. “Just don’t deplete your battery. I do not want to have to cart you back down to your charging station.” As he opened the door to the attic, he said over his shoulder, “I fear your creativity program will need to be reconfigured, if it continues to cause you to waste your time like this.”

After the door closed, Aloysius spoke to the dust motes swirling through the air like tiny galaxies. “And I fear obsolescence, the junkyard, and…”

Aloysius paused, staring off into the dim space of the attic, noting stacks of boxes holding the forgotten ephemera of someone else’s lifetime.“The anonymity that comes with death.”