The Pencil

The sharpener bites, and you feel the first catch of the blade through your fingertips before you hear it. Then the turn: steady, unhurried, and the long shaving curls away in a single ribbon, pale wood on one edge and a thin painted skin on the other, until it drops. And there it is: the point. Perfect, faceted, faintly warm, smelling of cedar.

You have just made something.

The pleasure is the friction. The pencil demanded a small effort and repaid it at once, in the hand and in the nose, and gave you a clean point that you recognise was earned.

An idea: buy one good wooden pencil and one metal sharpener that fits the palm.