Student’s favourite pen runs out of ink

A UCC student has released a statement following the decommissioning of her favourite pen, which ran out of ink last weekend.Alice McGrath, a second-year Law student, was writing study notes in the Boole library on Saturday afternoon when the unfortunate event occurred. Prior to the tragedy, Miss McGrath’s pen had performed its task dutifully for well over a year.“It was a Bic biro. It was blue, and the lid was missing. It wasn’t perfect, but it was mine, damn it!” Alice sobbed while speaking to reporters at the scene.The pen in question had originally been purchased from a corner shop near Neptune Stadium in the minutes prior to an important exam in the winter of 2015. Alice is convinced that the pen worked as a lucky charm in getting her a passing grade, and she has made exclusive use of it ever since.“We’ve been through a lot, this pen and I,” Alice claimed, in an emotional statement, while holding up what can only be described as an empty shell of what the pen once was. “Monday lectures, Tuesday lectures - heck, even some Wednesday, Thursday and Friday lectures. Then there was the study. How I miss those halcyon days: unfortunately I had those lectures, but my pen was there with me through it all.”Witnesses of the pen’s final moments gave harrowing accounts of what it was like to witness such a disheartening event, with one anonymous commentator going so far as to call it “an almost religious experience.”“It was really awful. [Alice] didn’t want to believe it at first, I don’t think. She started shaking the pen about, but we all knew it was done for. I had to walk over and gently pull her hand away from the desk, she was scribbling so hard trying to get it to work. It was pretty depressing. A lot of people cried. It really has made me appreciate my favourite pen all the more.” With this, they hugged a black pen to their cheek, leaving a line of ink beside their nose that reporters were too polite to point out.More recent reports indicate that Miss McGrath has attempted to move on with her life, even purchasing a new biro from the Student Centre. In a recent blog post, she wrote that “it doesn’t get easier, because the old pen had slightly moulded around my hand due to overuse, so it was pretty easy to write with, but I’m getting used to this new pen, I guess.”