Inkpen

I’m not a genealogist, but I do love a good mystery, so every once in awhile I go through family history websites, trying to track down a few relatives. While scrolling through generations the other day, I stumbled on a distant relation with the surname, “Inkpen.” And instantly I started thinking of all sorts of stories for Inkpen, imagining his quirks (cowlicks), his qualities (punctuality) and his shortcomings (leaving almost empty bottles of milk in the icebox). He eats a cheese and pickle sandwich for lunch every day, once received a red ribbon at the county fair for his parsnips and still secretly pines after the trapeze artist who visited town thirty years ago.

And then there’s the matter of that beetle. The beetle the size of a cow, that rose up out of the barley field one night. Inkpen regrets that he did not have his camera with him that evening. Had he been in possession of said camera, he might have gone on to tour the country giving talks about giant insects, rather than typesetting agricultural advertisements.

And maybe Inkpen would have crossed paths with that trapeze artist again. Maybe.