Then one evening, as the room's newest attendees arrived, the pencil noticed a strange young man accompanying the evening's beauty. His eyes seemed to wander idly about the room, distracted by some inner turmoil. Until they alighted on the pencil and immediately burned with the same passion usually reserved for the lady of the night.
The young man grabbed the pencil from its resting place on the bedside table and was immediately fascinated by the unique gash in its side, running his fingers incessantly along its edge. Mumbling something incomprehensible to both the pencil and his compatriot, the man rushed out of the room, down the hall, and into the night without a second thought to his previous plans for the evening.
Upon arriving in his study at home, the young man pulled out all manner of strange contraptions. There were big beakers and frothy phials of strange liquids; great globes and odd oblongs of blown glass; twisted tweezers and crooked calipers of shiny metal. There were compasses and sextants and squares; levels and protractors and plumb-bobs. Every manner of instrument cluttered the young scientist's study, each precisely calibrated to aid him in measuring the forces of his world.
After arranging several of these instruments on his sizable desk, the young scientist pulled out the pencil which had piqued his curiosity so virulently that evening and began his inspection. He measured its length, width, breadth, and depth. He measured the circumference at various points, from tip to tail. He weighed it and balanced it and appraised it, using every device at his disposal. Each time he completed a measurement of some aspect of the pencil, the scientist would pause to make a note in his meticulously organized notebook which sat in a place of honor at the center of his desk.
Finally the scientist picked up the pencil in earnest and began to add new notes into his book. This writing was like nothing the pencil had ever seen before. There was a whole new alphabet of strange symbols; mixing letters and numbers from many different alphabets together to form whole sentences without words. There were carefully annotated sketches and strictly regimented lines, short defining sentences and long paragraphs of explanations. Each line of text seemed to build upon the conclusions of the last line, leading to some unknown ultimate epiphany.
Until suddenly, "Eureka!", the young man cried into the glowing light of the pre-dawn. The pencil was startled by the sudden outburst of its new owner. But the pencil barely had time to catch its breath as the scientist began furiously writing with it again. Only now the once tidy, well organized lines of symbols careened wildly all over the page. Letters and numbers came streaming out of the pencil's quickly dulling tip into the scientist's notebook faster than ever. Page after page was filled with these strange equations. Until the scientist, spent from his evening's exertions, finally completed the solution to his problem and marked his finale with three simple letters: Q.E.D.
Satisfied with the evening's progress, the scientist lovingly ran his fingers along the pencil's scar one last time before putting it away for the day. The pencil sat quietly in the darkened study after the scientist left. It was completely worn out from all the furious scribblings it had created. But still the pencil sat pondering this new language it had inscribed into the scientist's notebook and was satisfied with a good days work.
The next morning the scientist arrived in his study and again examined the pencil's ominous defect. He glanced at his notebook with the extraordinary new ideas that the blemish had inspired. It was while he was reviewing the notes from his previous nights' efforts that he discovered yet another solution. The pencil need not be permanently scarred. In fact, the very formulas created from the gash's inspiration could be used to alter and repair the flaw. Immediately the scientist set to work renewing the life of the pencil which had given him the gift of insight.
He calculated the angles, measured the lengths, and figured the exact plane that could remove the defect without permanently damaging the innate beauty of the pencil. After finding the solution, the scientist immediately set to work gently whittling the pencil down to its new dimensions. He scraped and scratched and scuffed, pausing frequently to check his measurements all along the way. Until finally, the scientist lifted the pencil from his workbench to inspect the product of his labor and wept with pride to see the last vestiges of the old scar removed. Satisfied at having solved the problem of the disfigured pencil, the scientist tucked the pencil safely into an old book and promptly forgot about it.
The pencil didn't mind having a nice quiet book wrapped safely around its new form. In fact, with its newly acquired flattened side, it found that it fit quite nicely between the pages of the stuffy volume. And it gave the pencil some time to look back over its life and stunning journey that had brought it this far. The pencil had pondered the mysteries of the existence in the hands of the monk, seen the wonders of the world in the hands of the composer, and plunged through the depths of humanity in the hands of the artist. But in the hands of the scientist it had comprehended the workings of the universe. It knew that it was a very lucky pencil to have been chosen to record such wondrous proofs. And if it never got a chance to formulate another argument, then it would consider itself to have lived a long and fruitful life.
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