Celluloid Dreams...

This happens to only addicts…when you need that regular dose for that periodic high…ha ha ha…what to do? I’ve been angling for a marbled celluloid FP for a long time…I saw these pens at Deccan Pen Stores in Hyderabad, but what they showed me were all with gold nibs and I couldn’t afford them…I then asked for steel nib celluloid FPs and there was a lot of dilly dallying…and ‘no stocks now’… and ‘will let you know’…and so on and so forth…and one day, I was in Abids, and had no business with Deccan Pen Stores and buying FPs was not even a speck of thought on my mental horizon…without my knowledge, my feet led me to the shop and I kind of lazily shuffled around…and suddenly remembered my marbled celluloid longing and shakily asked Mr Wasim if he could offer me a steel nib celluloid…he gave me a smile and a laugh and took out a pen case and offered me a beautiful red marbled celluloid FP…a Leader…he said the clip and band were gold filled…the pen is so beautiful that I felt strange emotions…honestly…the marbling, and the different effects at different light angles…I had to have this pen…I immediately decided to own this one…Mr Wasim then took out another pen…a marbled gray Brahmam…what was happening? I had asked for one and was now getting two…and the clip and band were not gold filled, and so the pen was within my range…I couldn’t resist…the addict was getting excited…two shots…I was beginning to float…and then, Mr Wasim took out another celluloid FP…a marbled green celluloid similar to the marbled red…a Leader…I was going bonkers…I would hit the roof anytime now…I was kind of mentally paralysed…I couldn’t even calculate how much money I had in my account and whether I could afford all three…reason went for a toss…my ‘celluloid’ dreams were coming true in the most unexpected manner… But reason triumphed…only for a brief while though…I could afford to buy the red and the gray pens, without seriously compromising my wallet…and I bought them, with my heart and mind still stuck on the green that I was leaving behind…I felt I was leaving something personal and precious behind…and I knew that I’d come back to claim it…and it was soon enough…and this ‘soon enough’ happened soon enough because through sheer luck, I got some unexpected money for some extra job that I did at my college, just about enough to pay for the green and claim it…and I acted frantically, calling up the Secunderabad branch of Deccan Pen Stores and asking them to get in touch with the Abids branch to get the green over to Secunderabad, so that I could pick it up on my way back home from college…within two days, I had the green also with me…it was then that I could breathe easily…