Parker Reflex

[Guest Mad Aristocrat]

As I related in my first post, I am a descendant of a very ancient aristocratic family. My forefathers used quills and dip pens, and I distinctly remember some family members using expensive dip pens and exclusive fountain pens.

 

But I’m not rich; I’m rather poor, living of a small but sufficient grant. But I can survive without working.

 

I grew up using dip pens, but this good habit was ended abruptly when I was incarcerated in a hospital for the mentally insane. A report from these days describes me like: “…a slender, nervous young man of thirty, with hollow cheeks, cold, steel-blue eyes, a straight, thin nose and delicate hands.”

 

We were not allowed to use sharp writing materials; the only writing utensils we had were blunt pencils.

 

After I was finally released from the constraints of this terrible madhouse, I longed too use dip pens once more. I bought myself some pens and ink, and I’m currently working at my unrecognized masterpiece, which will surpass the work of the Divine Marquis.

 

But these pens cannot be used while traveling with modern means of transportation. I always have the urge to write down some observations about Life & Death when I’m Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. And I really need a practical writing instrument when I see some school girls, and inspired by these heavenly apparitions, I want to scribble down some highly erotic and slightly pornographic verses.

 

I did not want to spent too much money on a pen ( I think that is a moral outrage! We should avoid any moral outrage!) so I decided to buy a Parker Reflex fountain pen. I also bought a refillable cartridge (a slide-action converter) and a bottle of Quink Washable-Blue. I’m very pleased with this pen; it is black and has a smooth medium nib.

 

But the greatest joy is brought on by the blissful visions I get when I stare at the pen, and my mind begins to wander.

These cheap pens are readily available to more refined students. I always day-dream of a teenage schoolgirl or college-coed, who is very young, very poor, and very, very lonely. Her room is in the garret of a very old house. It is a very desolate room! The room has the desolation of a hotel-room in which lonely, old travelers die, who in their fever had tried in vain to get up to pen a last message or letter by the light of a candle, while outside squalls of rain were beating the windows. That is how they died and nobody knew what they had wanted to communicate; their names remained unknown; they were shoveled into their lonely graves, their clothes still on, in a cheap coffin, late in the afternoon, the rain pouring down incessantly. The soaked marshy ground closed over them, without any tombstone or memorial.

 

Lonely in their graves, as these nameless travelers were, this girl was even more lonely in this desolate room. To lessen the terrible burden of her loneliness she had bought a pen exactly the same as my Parker Reflex. You must remember she was not only very lonely, but also very poor, so she actually had to save money to buy this pen. She could have bought this pen last summer when her uncle had given her some money, but she needed some new clothes then. This uncle had a swimming pool, and it delighted him when this young girl was amusing herself in his swimming pool. He always gave her some money when she left. He was rich, and she, remember, was very poor, and very lonely.

 

She bought the pen on a stormy autumn day, when the rain was pouring down incessantly (like on the days when the lonely, old travelers had been buried, who had passed away in the hotel-rooms that were as desolate as her attic-room). When the rain had ceased to fall for a while she had gone to a nearby stationary store. On the way back to her lonely room it had begun to rain again. Because it was late in the afternoon, the street-lights were already on. These lights threw a melancholy light on the lonely girl that walked through the almost deserted street.

 

Her clothes were drenched when she entered her room. She had to change clothes. Please let us leave the room a while, because it would be very indiscreet to see a young girl changing her clothes…

 

When we return to the room, she is sitting behind her dilapidated desk. She is writing with her first and only fountain pen! First she writes a letter to her old grandmother, who loves her dearly and tries to save money for her grandchild (like the girl, she is also very poor). After she has finished the letter (she will post it tomorrow) the takes out her diary and with trembling hands she writes down her most secret, most profound thoughts!

 

I know what these thoughts are, because there are so many lonely, poor girls, who have the same Deep Thoughts about The Love That Dare Not Speak! This girl, and you must remember she is very lonely, dreams about this other girl. It is a class-mate, but she is not very nice. It is a spoiled Goth-girl, who always bullies Our Lonely Girl, because she is so poor. But Our Girl knows this girl has secret feelings too!

 

Our Girl has stopped writing. She has bend over her old desk. Her head in her hands. She is day-dreaming. She thinks about luring that spoiled Goth-girl to her lonely and desolate room. After exchanging some civilities, she will strip the Goth-girl and strap her to the bed!! And then her wrath will descend on the Goth’s buttocks when she will heave the flexible wooden rod she has hidden in her closet!

 

Oh bliss!

 

 

Bottom-line: I think the Parker Reflex is a very nice pen for poor madmen and poor, lonely schoolgirls.

Edited July 16, 2006 by Mad Aristocrat

[acogbill]

:roflmho: :roflmho:

I'll never look at Parker Reflex the same way!

[Maja]

Wow, what a review!!

 

<clapping>

Bravo, Mad Aristocrat!!

 

Not since reading Ian Fleming's "Thunderball" (in which Bond girl Domino speculates on the entire life of the sailor shown on the packs of Player's Cigarettes) have I read anything so imaginative about an inanimate object ....

 

(oh, and is that singer Bryan Ferry in your avatar, by the way...or are my peasant eyes deceiving me?)

[Guest Mad Aristocrat]

Indeed, mademoiselle, it is the plebian singer Bryan Ferry. It hurts my elitist feelings to use a POPULAR singer, but somehow, in a perverse way (I have an ambiguous relation with perversity…) the picture appealed to me.

 

Ah, I wish we still lived in these pre-1789 days…

 

Ah, Maja the peasant girl, many blissful vistas appear before my eye!

[Maja]

Indeed, mademoiselle, it is the plebian singer Bryan Ferry. It hurts my elitist feelings to use a POPULAR singer, but somehow, in a perverse way (I have an ambiguous relation with perversity…) the picture appealed to me.

 

Ah, I wish we still lived in these pre-1789 days…

 

Ah, Maja the peasant girl, many blissful vistas appear before my eye!

:blush:

 

<fanning myself>

Is it just me, or is it getting chaud in here?

 

Oh, and don't feel badly about using a *popular* singer in your avatar; Bry always fancied himself a bit of an aristocrat...

Edited July 16, 2006 by Maja

[Guest Mad Aristocrat]

Plebs who fancy themselves aristocrats are impostors who should be hanged…

 

Do you remember that delightful game from the Ancien Regime called peasant kicking?

 

My ancestors were so bored, they HAD to find ways of amusing themselves…

[Maja]

Plebs who fancy themselves aristocrats are impostors who should be hanged…

 

Do you remember that delightful game from the Ancien Regime called peasant kicking?

 

My ancestors were so bored, they HAD to find ways of amusing themselves…

Well, I guess dwarf tossing hadn't been invented yet...

[Sparky]

The page respectfully exudes w-e-i-r-d ness....

[acogbill]

   The page respectfully exudes w-e-i-r-d ness....

 

Hmm... maybe it should be a warning to newcomers along with The Noble Savage's disclaimer! A bit like putting a head on a stake as a warning to others, yes? (I'd rather not deal with the head-on-stake business myself, but maybe *someone* whose relative used peasant blood to write in his diary would like to do it? )

Edited July 17, 2006 by acogbill

[Guest JohanO]

WEIRD

 

But I like it!

[TheNobleSavage]

Very creative!!!

 

Great review!!!!

 

TNS

[tycosiao]

nice to hear that you have such feelings toward a pen however you review is too sweet, too imaginative. hahas

[kissing]

I only discovered this review for the first time :blink:

 

When I use my humble Reflex next, I'll have images of the lonely girl spanking the goth girl now Oh dear

[Renzhe]

It's a review...

...of a Parker Reflex!

 

...and some other moderately weird stuff...

[hardyb]

Parker; hard to beat but a joy to punish!

Edited July 30, 2007 by hardyb

[riff raff]

Ah, leave it to Google to reveal the swarthy underbelly of FPN!

 

:roflmho:

[mediocrechris]

This review is epic.

[ppenloverr]

very talented.. great review... i guess you read a lot of russian literature.. i do not know but sort of reminds me of russian literature... in certain way. great in any case.

[inkcoffee]

GOLD! thanks for bringing this back up, I needed it after today.

[encre]

You are almost as insane as me but not quite good enough at hiding it .

 

I like.