The Dharmasekar ficcione

When asked
why he had followed
this
particular pursuit, Sunil
Dharmasekar, pre-
eminent amongst
modern Tantric sages,
attributed it to
the invention & subsequent
mass production
of the ballpoint pen.

"I was young &
naif," he said. "Until
the age of twenty-
three I did not know
that the appendage be-
tween my legs had a
purpose beyond
exuding fluids. I
taught myself
to curl it over a
quill to write my
poetry, & then,
through exercise
& the attachment of
weights, extended it
to also hold
an inkpot. Finally
more exercise, a
further extension &
eventually I could bend
the quill back
& dip it in the ink.

"There were problems. Mind control stopped the fluid flow; but since poetry would never pay the bills, I set up in the market as a scribe. Most of the time fine, but several times a day, sometimes a customer, sometimes a passerby, someone would set something off inside me & my appendage would uncoil & send ink everywhere. Once or twice the quill almost took an eye out. I thought my business would be ruined, but instead it blossomed. Parents would bring their children in, ask me to write something trite, but they seemed more interested in the spring in my, by now, instep. They called me lingam, though I never knew why. At least not then.

"& then, the ballpoint pen came along. I found it was much easier to hold it in my hand, &, of course, there was no need to carry an inkpot round with me. I put my appendage away at first, but use had left it as a helix that still uncoiled & had a tendency to flee the nest. & the parents demanded me naked when I wrote, muttering something about how they had to be sure I was not a fakir practicing some kind of rope trick. Then the Socialists brought in universal education & everybody learned how to read & write. & again I thought I would once more be a poet with a starving garrotte, & again I was wrong. Only now they didn't bother to have me write anything, jusr asked to see what they were now calling my dowry dowsing rod..

"Eventually one of the mothers stayed behind &, you might say, took me in hand. & a few other places as well. She taught me a few tricks, how to control the uncoiling, how to increase the reaction. Explained to me that the more intense the spring, the more money I was likely to get from grateful parents. Which was becoming necessary, because I had almost exhausted that demographic. I began giving lessons, private sessions. I franchised my technique.

"I wrote the first of what would become many books. For the title page, I always returned to my early ways though now with a goose-feather quill & an alabaster inkpot. But the body of the book was always written longhand, in ballpoint of course.

"As
they say,
life's a Bic."