14You laugh at me. ‘Choose your weapons’ someone said. And we did. You, you chose the sword, I the pen. You didn’t see it. You didn’t see it then and you don’t see it now. It’s as if you are blind to it.
‘Only the strong have enough power to use the sword,’ you said. You didn’t see that you had to be stronger still to use the pen.
You felt the sword to be superior, as do many, and I can’t blame you for it but, now, even after all this time you still don’t see. You still don’t understand.
‘The sword draws blood effortlessly,’ you said. That’s true, I suppose, but the pen can do worse. The pen can maim and leave its victims to die with no hope of cure or mercy. Sword wounds which were not enough to become deadly will fade and whither into pale, forgotten about scars. Words wont. They can’t. Not even the most highly skilled physicians can sew up the injuries left by an angry manuscript.
‘Well, the sword can be merciful,’ you said. ‘It can put an invalid or a casualty out of pain.’ You’re right. There the sword’s powers end and disintegrate back into the nothingness from which they came. But the mightiness of the sword comes back with renewed strength. The pen can heal, give hope and remind lost souls that they are not lost, that someone is thinking about them. That someone cares. Your sword cannot do this. Your metal, gleaming in the perfect sunshine brings only death, and in it’s zenith, a quick execution. That is all. The pen holds so much more with in it that you, who have fought under the sword for so long, cannot begin to comprehend. The pen is double sided. Unlike your sword it can bring happiness, unlike your sword wounds, it’s inflictions will not fade or heal until the pen dictates it to be so. The sword is no match against a livid pen, which, in the flick of a wrist, could snap your precious metal in two, rendering it useless as a defence against it’s attacks. After all, the Pen is mightier than the Sword. But you still don’t see that, do you?