Max was a highschool student with interests strange.

On a typical weekday, during his English lesson, he reached with his quill into his inkwell to draw up some ink, and record something of particular importance in his teacher’s lecture. When he mechanically drew the quill back, it still would not write. He tried again, but when he looked at the well, he could see that there was very little ink remaining. In an instant he recalled something his grandfather told him to remedy such a situation, should it ever arise. He nudged the student sitting to his left.

‘Hi, Tim,’ he whispered, ‘do you have any charcoal?’

Tim looked at him with a confused expression.

‘Charcoal?’ he asked, reaching into his bag, ‘what do you need charcoal for?—Here.’ And he gave Max the charcoal.

Max, upon receiving his desired item, began to crush one end of it with the length of his pencil.

‘Don’t wreck it,’ entreatied Tim.

Max removed the very tip of the stick of charcoal, and gave the rest back to its owner. With the piece he crushed, he granulated it as finely as possible by the help of a mortar and pestle he kept in his bag. He then carefully poured the powder he had created into his inkwell, and mixed thoroughly, till the resulting mixture of ink and charcoal powder was homogeneous. Contented with his solution, he attempted to return to his writing. He submerged the tip of his quill, and put it to the page.

‘H…’

But the instant the quill touched the paper, the tiny point that began the H started to grow. Max lifted the quill. The ink spread and spread, and quickly the whole letter expanded to a giant ink blot that consumed his page. Max regarded mournfully as the growing blackness consumed what he had already written.

I must have added too much charcoal, he thought to himself, and Tim’s empathy was no lesser when he saw what had afflicted his friend.

‘Here,’ he eased, ‘have a pen,’ passing Max one of the many pens he kept in his bag.

The disgruntled Max, whose strange interests had cost him dearly, wished only to return to writing, and recover what little of the English lesson that remained. He moved the inkwell to the side in an attempt to try to clear his failure from his mind, but in the careless movement of his hand, he did not sense the end of the desk, and sent the well of ink falling to the floor, where it crashed and spilled all over the place.

‘Max! What have I said about inkwells in class!’ vociferated the teacher.

But Max was little concerned with his teacher’s cries. He watched the place where the ink spilled, and like the point on his writing paper, the black puddle spread from underneath the well, and propagated in every direction. When the blackness spread enough to reach the far legs of Max’s desk, it acted as though it were not ink, but a growing and spreading hole, and the entire desk tipped and plummeted into the growing darkness. Max could not hear or see it hit a bottom, and he quickly jumped back from his chair to avoid being caught himself.

Everyone saw what happened to the desk, and those closest to the door ran out of the classroom. Those behind Max were not as fortunate. The puddle had spread rapidly, and was cutting the room in two, dividing the students trapped behind it by a large gap from the exit they desired. The teacher was the only one to stay on the hopeful side of the bottomless pit.

‘What did you do Max?’ he asked.

Max did not know. It was meant to be a trick to help save the ink.

Some of the trapped students yelled. One girl screamed. There seemed to be little remedy to the situation they were in, apart from attempting to jump the gap. The void was swiftly growing; there was no time to think. One student attempted the jump.

A few others protested, but only a moment was allowed before the jumper was in the air. He fell a few metres short; there was never any hope of making it: the chasm had grown too wide.

Some final tears and lamentations could be heard before the ledge supporting the huddling students was eroded to nothing, and all of them fell.

The spreading ink stopped once it reached the walls.

30.IX.2021