Potential

I remember the day he brought me home from the store. He talked about the new story he was preparing to write. And I was going to be the home for all the ideas for this new world….

He sets me down on his desk and pulls out a brand-new pen. He sits down and stares at my cover for a while. “I’m really doing this…” He runs his hand over the texture of my cover. He slowly opens my cover and stares at my first page. He lifts the pen a few times but never lets the ink touch my pages.

After an eternity, he closes my cover and lifts me onto a shelf above his desk, with several other books. “I’ll start tomorrow.” He flips on his computer and loads up a game.

After a while, he leaves the office and the room goes dark. “Good luck, kid,” a sketchbook nearby snickers. “He goes through hobbies like crazy. I have one drawing in here. One!”

“He wrote three journal entries in me before he quit,” another notebook on the shelf points out.

“Well, maybe I’ll be different,” I huff. Although…deep down I worry - what if they are right?

The next day he pulls me off the shelf and puts me in his backpack. It’s dark; I get jostled around. I’m not a fan, but I hope this trip will lead to words on the pages. When the bag opens and the darkness is chased away by the light, I feel creative energy flow into the space.

I hear the clinking of cups and the murmurs of idle chatter. “Jackson! You're here early!” Someone greets him from the counter.

“Yeah, I got a notebook to write down that story I was telling you about last shift.” He sets me down on a table.

“Sick, man! Your usual?” the coworker calls from behind the coffee machine.

“That would be great!” Jackson pulls out the same pen from last night and once again stares at my cover. He opens my cover slightly faster than the night before. He stares at my first page again, clicking the pen a few times, but never touches the page.

He stares out the window instead. His coworker drops off the coffee, they chat for a bit, and then his coworker returns to work. Jackson once again stares back at the page and looks back to the window. He lets everything distract him - coffee shop regulars, cars outside, everything and anything is more interesting than my pages.

His coworker comes by again. “Dude, have you put ink on paper yet?”

“No, I just want it to be perfect,” Jackson sighs.

“Isn’t that the point of brainstorming? To get everything on paper?” The coworker leans on the table.

“Well yeah, but I don’t want to waste any pages!” Jackson shifts in his seat. Suddenly the table tilts and I slide off to the floor. The coffee cup is also gliding. Before anyone can do anything, the table is on its side, there is a loud crash and I am drenched in coffee.

“Woah!” The coworker leaps back.

“You good, man?” Jackson pushed his chair back.

“I think so.” He looks around. “I’ll get the mop!”

Jackson carefully picks me up and brushes off the pieces of broken mug. He shakes his head and lets out a long, low breath. “Maybe it’s a sign that I’m not meant to be a writer.”

Is he going to give up after two days of trying? Maybe the other books were right. He can’t commit.

“Lay it out in the sun, might be worth saving for another project,” his coworker suggests.

I am plopped on the window sill. I can’t help but feel defeated. As my pages dry they also become stained. I feel like my very life is being drained from me.

The sun sets and Jackson grabs me and tosses me in his bag. He chucks the bag on the ground when he gets home. I wonder if my cover is bent. I don’t know how long he keeps me in his bag. But I get new stains from melting candy and spilt water.

Then one day, a bunch of clothes get tossed into the bag and I hear him greet someone I don’t recognize. “Your room is this way, little brother. Cece is so glad you could come to visit!”

“Me too! It’s been a minute. Glad my days off worked out.” I think he tosses his bag on the bed. I think he’s forgotten about me.

A bit later he pulls his clothes out of the bag and plops it on the floor. The room is quiet; I’m not sure if it’s nighttime or he’s just left the room. I have no sense of time anymore. Suddenly the bag is opened and a small hand reaches in.

It removes me from the prison that the bag has become. “Woah! This looks like a pirate book!” A little girl's voice giggles as she flips through the pages. “There isn’t a story in here! I should fix that!” She grips me tightly in her little hands and races out of the room.

“Uncle Jac Jac! Can I have this notebook I found in your bag?” She pauses as she runs by the kitchen.

“Cece, you shouldn’t go through people's bags! It’s rude,” Cece’s mother reprimands.

“It’s fine, Sis. Honestly, I forgot it was even in there. So go ahead, kid.” He smiles at Cece and she takes off running. “I can’t believe you taught her to call me Uncle Jac Jac,” I hear him say as she leaves the room.

Cece takes me to her room, plops me on her desk and pulls out all kinds of coloured pencils and a box of regular pencils. And she writes on my pages!

Over the weekend she spends hours filling my pages with her pirate story. Her writing isn’t pretty and it’s way too big for my lines, but she has a good idea. She even adds pictures. At the end of the weekend, as Jackson is getting ready to leave, she comes running with me in her hands. “Uncle Jac Jac! Here!” She trips and I go flying in the air.

Somehow Jackson catches me, and Cece’s mom catches her. “Woah! Easy there, kid.” Jackson looks down at the label stuck on my cover. “Jac Jac and Cece’s great pirate adventure? What’s this, kiddo?”

“I wrote you a pirate story for your pirate book!” She beams between deep breaths.

Jackson flips through my pages. “Woah… You did this over the weekend?”

She nods. “Yea, it was easy.” She shrugs.

“When you’re not worried about perfection you get a lot further, brother,” his sister teases.

“Yeah… Maybe.” He kneels down. “Thank you, Cece; this is a great gift. You know what? I think I have time to sit and read it with you before I leave.” The two of them sit on the couch and read Cece’s silly little story.

When he heads home, he sets me in his passenger seat, talking to himself the whole way home. He talks about the story he had wanted to write. And all the other hobbies he had left behind. When we reach his home, he walks towards the bookshelf and he slides me into a place between some other well-loved books.

After a beat, he pulls me off the shelf again, brings me back to his office, and sets me next to his computer. “Alright no notebook this time, I’m just gonna start jotting my ideas down here.”

For the next few months, I watched him create the world he’d been dreaming about. And the day he finished his first draft, I’d never been so proud.