Alone - at dawn, he awoke, arose. He opened the drawer gently, took in his hand the black penholder. No doubt he had roused it, torn it from one of those delicate dreams that penholders dream, at night, when no one is watching. The stories that no one writes.
The penholder quivered for a moment, pleased to regain its blood : it had felt its body open, felt it flowing with the precious ink of a smile. It never could penetrate the mystery, never could divine from whence the bottle came. But from the first drop it recognised those headnotes, where desire merged with bergamot, a tender exhalation of vanilla, the distinctive fragrance of regret.
The ink of a smile is a delicate perfume. And words have exactly that scent. We are like that. We can write only with the ink of a smile.
