The Gilded Sword

It strange to think in this age of information that there was a time when pens were scarce. Valuable tools belonging only to the rich literate. The poor might have pencils or quills, but a true mechanical pen was only for the wealthy. You don’t often hear of writers who grew up in poverty before Mr. Bic created true human equality with his disposable pens. Most in “poor” authors I know of were actually middle class authors whose parents lived beyond their means. One couldn’t move through the social classes easily. Either into them or out of them. The pen is the key to movement between them.
How many times in my life have I found myself in a department store or office supply store staring through the glass case, wondering who can afford to spend $100 on a pen? Surely never I. Perhaps 100 years ago I would have stood at a shop window and wondered the same thing. What an enormous sum. Yet 100 years ago I wouldn’t have had my extravagant $5 Pilot to fall back on. I would have been pen-less. So I find myself staring into a brightly lit glass box. A cage that is meant to keep me out. A wall between myself and the upper class.
The glass ceiling has been broken. We as women try to climb through it and are still trying to find our footing, but who notices the glass walls? Who notices that the glass walls separate the proletariat from the aristocracy. The glass walls that keep us from the gold pens. The glass walls at Macy’s that protect the face paint of the rich from the grimy hands of the social climber. The glass walls that enclose the showrooms full of the vehicles that set the successful apart from the unsuccessful at just a glance.
These symbols of success take on a glow when removed from their boxes and put to their purpose. The glow attracts us, sets apart the user. It lets us know where we stand. I have always wanted that glow. In some base, primal part of my soul I long for that glow. My egalitarian consciousness abhors it. I put those things in their proper place. And yet I find myself staring into those glass boxes. Time falls away as I wonder if I shall ever have that glorious writing instrument that I covet.