The ballpoint nib enters the pad of cheap, grey-lined paper with a wet drag, …

The ballpoint nib enters the pad of cheap, grey-lined paper with a wet drag, leaving a black smear that blooms into the fiber before the tip can find purchase. I write *I’m sorry* but the letters are faint ghosts because the ink in the barrel has already migrated backward, pushed by the vibration of the bus tires on uneven asphalt. The first attempt yields only a blue-gray impression, dry and skeletal, while the second requires pressing hard enough to tear the top layer of pulp, carving a shallow trench that catches light. Around us, the fluorescent lights hum at a frequency that seems to vibrate the teeth in my jaw, and the air smells of wet wool and old rubber seat covers. My thumb prints a smudge on the margin where I leaned for balance, a grease stain that turns the paper translucent under the overhead glare. The pen stutters again as we hit a pothole; the metal tip skips across the fiber, creating two distinct dots instead of an *o*, and then catches on a rough patch where a previous writer’s pressure had crushed the cellulose. The blue ink runs thin, turning into a scratched whisper of *sorry* that looks more like debris than language. I try to lift the pen to reformat the word, but the tip is coated in a tiny sphere of viscous liquid that refuses to fall, hanging like a blister from the metal point. The bus lurches forward again, and the pen drags through this excess ink, pulling it into a long, wet thread that bridges the gap between two lines before snapping. The final word is barely visible now, just a series of indentations in the damaged paper, readable only by holding it up to the window where the passing streetlights cast shadows into the grooves. The ink has run out completely, not with a flourish, but with a dry scratch that sounds like a fingernail against chalkboard, leaving nothing behind but the physical memory of pressure and the crumbling edge where the tip finally gave up.