BE CAREFUL WHO YOU DON'T GIVE A PENCIL TO

It all began when I was a wee lad, traversing the tides of the white water rapids of elementary school life - waves breasting the edges of the seashore and tides crashing against the Cliffs of Dover. As a swab'bie given the degrading job of swabbing the deck, it was in my best interest to reclaim my honorable position as seadog by taking the reigns from a wee lass. Thus, I asked her for a pencil in the form of a helm; alas, she would not give it to me. From that day onwards, I vowed to get my revenge on all pirates by overfishing the entire ocean's resources of sea life, or more specifically, the pirates' primary source of sustenance, catfish. Indeed, I embarked on a perilous journey of genocidal proportions through the money earned from a recent business excursion on an isolated island.

First, I would need to take my ambitions elsewhere: onshore to the outer regions of the mainland. I created a FarmersOnly.com account and made my profile picture my dad's tractor. That was all I needed to start reeling them in, the catfish. One after the other, interested fishies hooked on to the bait and messaged me one-by-one: "Hey, couldn't help but notice that hot rod you got there, " or, "Hey twinkle eyes, where you headin' in that fine hunk-a-metal?".

It took merely a day, and the Gulf Coast was already mine, but there was a catch, and not the kind I desired! The NSA or Oceanic Patrol Unit caught on to my dastardly scheme, although they were too late; with the use of my Tor Browser and multiple servers distributing IP addresses from the farthest reaches of the Mariana Trench, I was untouchable. From there, my influence spread to the Pacific Islands, then the Japanese Coast... then to the Indian Ocean. People began taking notice; the multitudes of fake accounts spread by me were beginning to be unraveled, like the myriads of Russian propaganda spreading governmental workers that were oh-so despised. One-by-one, accounts were shut down and my operation reached a terminal road block.

Political debates lit up on TV about my recent exploits, questioning the true motives of my masterful scheme. Little did they know, I merely wanted the helm of a ship, a pencil. Therefore, we reached a compromise and arranged for a national broadcast of the original lackey that denied me my true desire: the pencil. She proclaimed through the TV screen, "You can have it! You can have your stupid pencil," but it was too late. The pencil had decreased by two inches over the extended period of her use, the sides of the helm were gnawed by her scurvy ridden teeth. Indeed, it was too late; the only thing that could be done was revenge. At that time, a hook reached down from the boom microphone, catching her on the sleeve and yanking her into firmament; from there, my revenge was complete.

Little is known about my whereabouts now. Some say I moved on from my miserable state of being and achieved a new stage of enlightenment. Other say that I still broad over the time the pencil was not given to me, never truly moving on from the traumatizing incident.