Lines, as taught by Ms. Summer

In the blank sheet of paper when I was in preschool, I tried to draw a line.

 I moved my hand, still hardly skillful, across the broad sheet for paper where traces of lead followed every motion of my little hand, erasing the bareness of the it. My classmates and I used to write with fat yellow pencils that we routinely get from the pink cabinet at the side of the chalkboard at the start of every class. My teacher, Ms. Summer, who always wore a smile and a printed floral Sunday dress at most days, explained that we should use pencils so that we could easily erase our less beautiful drawings and re-create them again to our heart’s content.

To much frustration, I had trouble drawing the perfect straight line that extended at both ends ad infinitum without deviating from the point source. Often, the should-be straight lines I drew turned out to be either squiggly or broken ones. I was frustrated in drawing in my paper, now bearing helpless pencil marks. I was so irritated with my unskilled hands. The annoyance grew every day until it got to the point when I, out of impulsivity, repeatedly banged my clasped hands on my little yellow desk and my own head. It was such a quiet and frantic day when I cried without a sound as I didn’t want the entire class’ or Ms. Summer’s attention drawn to myself. Yet, my teacher seemed to notice. She always does sense when someone in class is not in their prime mood.

As a result of that incident, Ms. Summer instantly made up an on-the-spot puppet show. She set all the tables together to form a stage and used the class’ writing materials as her characters. She spoke the lines of the characters while trying her best to hide under the set of tables which I allayed by frustration and caused me to laugh at my teacher’s ridiculousness. The puppet show miserably failed in terms of technicalities. Yet my beloved teacher succeeded in introducing us to Sera the Eraser, who was at that time felt like my fictional soul mate. I carried a replica of her around and she became my best friend who corrected every deviation from the lines that I make. She offers a chance for me to better my skill of drawing lines with less obvious marks or wasted sheets of paper. I hope you don’t find me weird carrying a rubber eraser around.

After much practice in drawing lines as a child, I grew up drawing near perfect lines even without an aid of Sera the Eraser and Tracy the Tracing Instrument (another character in Ms.Summer’s puppet show). Ms. Summer, who obviously noticed the change, told me to use a ballpoint pen starting today. It is one of those kinds of writing materials that leave a permanent mark.

“No room for mistakes now, Andrew”, she said as she handed me my first pen which haven’t lived long enough to write the last sentence in my essay. I tried to draw another line with it. It was perfect as the last time I drew one with a pencil.

As I went into my older years and experienced a lot of loses and undeserved hurting, I tried to draw lines again, bold and straight. But this time, I had no writing instrument at hand and drew permanent lines not to test the skill of my hands but to draw a line to demarcate from people.

I heard Ms.Summer that day when she handed me a ballpoint pen telling me again “No room for mistakes now, Andrew.”