[ EU ] This is the story of a man named Michael . Michael worked for a company in a big building where he was employee number 432 . Employee Number 432 's job was simple : he sat at his desk and sharpened pencils ... .

6.45. The number of seconds it takes to sharpen a brand new pencil to the perfect point. The tip sharp enough to draw blood, the wood shaved to an even circle below the graphite, and the weight perfectly balanced on one finger placed three quarters of the way between the tip and the ferrule. Any longer and the graphite tip becomes uneven; any shorter and the tip fails to produce a crisp mark on the page. 
 
 4, 465. The amount of pencils I can sharpen in one workday at maximum efficiency. Every single day I send out over 4000 messages in a bottle. To some that message stays contained inside that bottle for its entire existence. But to those with the right tools, the message is carefully extracted onto paper or canvas and spread to hundreds, even thousands more. 
 
 “ 432! ” He yells out my call number every morning at exactly 8:13 when he drops off the shipment of newly minted pencils at my post. He doesn ’ t bother to use my real name. As if saying “ Michael ” would be such a commitment of breath and brain energy that it could upset his output of delivered pencils for the day. He has become lost in his designated career, another pawn of the oligarchy, his mind tortured by years of performing a mindless task. 
 
 My craft, the sharpening of pencils, is much more important. I am not a cog in the machine of our corrupt system like the poor soul who delivers my pencils. I am the foundation of the resistance. Without a sharpened pencil, the artists, and poets, and authors of this world are nothing. They can not sketch a marvelous landscape or craft an enchanting novel or transpose a moving symphony or even scrawl a humorous haiku in the margins of a notebook. It is these men who will challenge the authority of our repressive regime. It is they who spread our ideals to the masses and like Solzhenitsyn before them, inspire the downtrodden to rise up against the system that has robbed us of liberty! 
 
 I too dreamed of being one of the brave artists before the military coup and “ Proletariat ” revolution. But as the years have gone on, I have realized at my desk with my sharpener just how integral my position is to the success of rebellion. Like the blacksmith, I sharpen the weapons of our creative geniuses so they may do battle with the army that has invaded our land. Without me their proverbial bite is toothless. When I slip the virgin pencil inside the waiting hole and release the shavings inside the sharpener, upon withdrawal I have birthed to a seed of revolution. I am the father of change. Why waste my energy or these precious pencils attempting to draft my own creations? I can not risk arrest, or worse, abandoning artists from a conduit of creation. Instead I will toil away with my sharpener, eyes strained, ears buzzing, and bones vibrating so that others may stand on my shoulders and reach for change. 
 
 12,775. The number of days until my term at the sharpening desk will be terminated. And I will spend every single one in quiet resistance. 
 

