Pen's Messy Bedroom

Pen's Messy Bedroom - A Writing Refuge

No matter how hard she tried – which wasn’t really all that hard to begin with – Pen could never keep this room clean. The only way a person could tell there was a sky blue carpet under all those clothes and books and other various whatnots was by the three-foot square just inside the bedroom doorway and in patched around the room. Her light wood dresser against the wall by the door is just as cluttered as the floor, but instead of clothes, the dresser is full of books and writing notebooks, pens and pencils. A similar, much smaller pile rests on the matching nightstand by her bed on the opposite wall. The bed, covered in forest green sheets, faced the left wall, the pillows at the foot of the bed where Pen normally sleeps. Don’t ask me why she does it. She’s odd that way. Or unique, however you want to put it. The bed, really, is the only clear thing in the room, though she does tend to forget to make it in the mornings. This is one of the many places of refuge she lounges in after school to let the writing muse speak to her in its frequently flowing, ofttimes stubborn, occasionally silent voice, as she records it words into her data pad for the school column she writes, or for the various stories she creates. The lower half of the left wall has nearly disappeared behind the bookcases containing the majority of Pen’s books. The rest are scattered throughout her room and the rest of the house, some even lent out to friends.

Through both of the large, always-open-except-in-winter-and-really-bad-storms windows on either side of the bed, we can hear quick buzz-hum of the hover-boards, speeders and DNA-controlled biodarters as they rush by the Sorenson home. The numbers on the laser chronometer on Pen’s wall signal that it’s time for her mother to be returning home – singing as she always does – from her work as Associate Head Librarian of the Greens City Public Library. The wind rustles the leaves in the trees and the sky blue curtains, momentarily drowning out the singing, bringing with them the smell of moist air after that morning’s rain. By this time whoever is home first has set the cleaning bots about their business. Most of the time Pen is able to ignore the unfortunately strong scent of the cleaning solution the bots use. Today though, the solution seems stronger, burning her nostrils as if there’s been a spill. But the bots never spill a drop. That’s how they’re programmed. Maybe she should have started on something for dinner to drown out the smell. At least she had her bottle of blue Star Soda to keep it from bothering her taste buds. The Soda even tasted blue as it bubbled down her throat. This stuff could be addictive if she wasn’t careful.