WARNING: This is dark and depressing.

Shar couldn't watch the 4th Of July fireworks anymore. None of the machines in the library of Accquaville High School could. (That is not an error; in the 34 years since h' summer in St. Peters' Parts Shop, Shar had been moved from the middle school to the high school).

I am not saying that they lacked the opportunity; excited young adults and older teenagers would launch illegally-acquired fireworks on the most convenient of the school's many baseball fields, which happened to be the one in plain view of the library's giant glass windows. In fact, appliances from all over the school would gather to watch what many considered the highlight of the summer.
But this July 4th, the mood inside Accquaville High was somber. And this was for a simple reason: In Accquaville, and especially to the machines that dwelled within the school's respectably-sized library, the fourth day of the month named after Julius Caesar had become the anniversary of something far more sinister than the signing of the Declaration Of Independence. (Although the beginning of a war that lasted seven long years and caused the deaths of anywhere between 25,000 and 70,000 soldiers might be considered worse than a single death, Independence Day isn't usually thought of that way).
That's not to say the humans weren't enjoying themselves. The party on the baseball field was in full swing, although its attendance was a bit lower than usual. And even some of the school's appliances had gathered at classroom windows to watch.

The school machines -the teacher's computers and desk lamps; the old tube TVs and VHSes that were spending what might be their last summer in Accquaville High; and the other odds and ends- did not gather at the library windows, however. The few that had hopped through the hallways to reach the repository of books had come to grieve Michael T. Platte.

Who is Michael T. Platte, I hear you ask? It is obvious that he is the boy who died on July 4th 2021, but why and how did that happen? And who was he before that fateful night?

That last question, I can answer straight away. Michael was a gifted writer and a poet who could make even the most frivolous of love poems directed at a boy he had a crush on (again that is not an error; Mike was gay) seem deep and meaningful. He was a melancholy boy who spent his free periods (at least once he had finished his homework) in the library, reading or writing. Shar had always been a big fan (pardon the expression) of the Young Master's creative writings, partially because Mike had used Shar a great deal but mostly because his stories were just that good.

Shar had wondered why, one rainy day in the middle of April, Michael had stopped coming to the library. 'E hoped perhaps that there was some class assignment or project keeping Michael busy, or that the boy was merely trying something new and would soon return to a comfortable schedule of composing tales and sharpening pencils.

But, as the year dragged on, it seemed less and less likely that Mike would ever return to the room he once felt so comfortable in. Shar was a bit worried and slightly annoyed, but did what all great writers (and artists, too, in a visual medium) did: Wrote a story about it.

Shar had actually had a bit of a writing career going at Accwuaville Junior High and later Accquaville High School. After some stories 'e'd never meant for humans to find were published in a magazine dedicated to speculative fiction, the pencil sharpener had attempted damage control by sending the magazine editors a note that, while technically not untruthful, was written in such a way to deceive the writers into believing a complex backstory as for why the stories were written the way they were - a backstory designed to keep The Secret secret. But then the pencil sharpener had noticed how popular h' stories were, and decided to write a few more less Secret-busting ones and leave them for the Junior High librarians to find. 33 years later, Shar was district-famous as "the person who keeps leaving these really well-written stories lying around" and the subject of many an urban legend.

Then, after school let out that year, Shar wondered if Michael would be back to his old writer self again when he came back for the next. But the poor boy would come sooner than expected…

It was the night of July 4th, 2021. Shar and the library's other machines were watching the unofficial fireworks display when they heard the sound of the library door opening. They just barely managed to make it back to their places before Michael flipped on the light switch.
He looked around the room for a few seconds before spotting Shar and striding towards the stock-still appliance. He bent down in front of h'

Elmo St. Peters pried open the pencil sharpener's casing and plucked out h' two razor-sharp blades. Turning, the electrician left the still-conscious machine on his workbench as he faced a pair of electrical cables. He took one and sliced the rubber sheathing that surrounded the copper wire, doing so lengthwise because that way was unfixable. As electric sparks poured out of the first wound like rain from a hurricane, he turned his attention to the second, cutting it likewise. Then power went out, and everything went dark,

Shar came back to reality. Was repaired. Had h' blades replaced. And 'e listened as the details unfolded.

That silly little love poem, which had never been meant to be read by anyone, had been the cause of Michael Platte's death. Someone found it, unfolded it, shared it with the world. Whether this outing was malicious or simply done out of ignorance of the potential (and in this case very real) dangers was unknown. But it had given the bullies at Accquaville a new target, one they hit with all the ferocity of a hurricane's gale. And it seemed that Michael's parents had spent much of their time bemoaning some issue or other that prevented them from disowning him.

One curious detail had emerged: Mike had chosen July 4th as his last day on Earth because, 13 years earlier, Thomas M. Disch had done the same.

Disch had been Michael's idol almost since day one. In a younger, happier time, Mike had loved the author so because his first and middle names, Thomas and Michael, were a reverse of the Platte boy's. Growing older, Mike had found Disch's stories intriguing, engaging, and just his kind of intellectual. As his ability to enjoy life was beaten out of him by bullies both teen and adult, Disch was the last pleasure he lost.

And Shar stopped writing. While that summer in the old Parts Shop had altered the pencil sharpener's creative spark, turning his tales from wonder-filled and humorous sci-fi adventures to dark and disturbing stories of death and tragedy, July 4th 2021 had banished it altogether. How could any machine create or imagine when the parts that gave it function had been used as instruments of death, the death of a loyal and beloved user?

In the present, July 4th 2022, Shar heard the sound of the library door opening. A male figure stood in the doorway, illuminated from behind by the motion-activated lights in the hallway.

The pencil sharpener's long-dead spark of creativity flashed to life again, constructing the return of Michael's ghost. But this was quickly disproven when the person in the doorway spoke. "Hey, hurry up!", the bully (Shar did not know his name, but could recognize the sound of his voice) shouted, turning back to the hallway behind him.
"I'm trying!" a female voice shouted back, "This is heavy you know!" Shar knew their name: Petra.

Approximately thirty seconds later, Petra dragged a large metal stand that looked equipped to hold a trifold board into the library. While the unnamed boy searched around for a light switch, she dragged it over to the table that held the library's other pencil sharpener -which was right in Shar's field of view- before running back out into the hallway and returning with a trifold board. She placed it atop the stand at the very second the male bully switched on the lights.

I will spare you the details of what, exactly, was written and depicted on Petra's board, but let it suffice to say that it contained the most disrespectful, demeaning, and outright dangerous (not to mention, as this extreme homophobia had already killed Michael, demonstrably deadly) language possible. It called his death deserved, and a blessing to the world because "there's one less f in it".

Shar started shaking with rage. H' mind conjured up images of those four brave appliances -the lamp, toaster, vacuum, and blanket- that had chased away St. Peters, and 'e wished they would manifest and chase away these two… monsters. There was no other word for it.
The machine for sharpening pencils wished, with a fervor unmatched by anyone to have escaped from St. Peters save only Cassy the cassette recorder, that 'e could break the 2nd Rule, spring to life and scream, attack the two abusers, send them running from the school. But 'e stood still, and watched as they laughed and then left the library, returning to the throng of 4th Of July partygoers.

The person in charge of maintaining the school over the summer was, as a rule, lazy. They had only ever set foot in the library once, when the disgusting odor of death and decay coming from Michael Platte alerted them to a problem that wouldn't simply go away if ignored. So, of course, they never saw Petra's display. Petra and the nameless boy had actually known of their habits, and fully expected the little display to last until school began. They just weren't expecting actually-secretly-alive appliances to do something about it.

"What should we do?" asked Lampy the desk lamp. (This is not the same Lampy that languished for years in a cottage in the woods picking fights with a radio before setting out on a journey with a toaster, vacuum, electric blanket, and that annoying radio. As you might expect, "Lampy" is a rather common name for lamps to have.)

"Take it down." commanded Shar.
Some appliances turned in surprise. The pencil sharpener was normally the quiet type, expressing h'self with beautifully crafted tales written on paper instead of ordinary words spoken aloud.

They did as Shar said, ripping the trifold board to pieces and scattering them on the floor. (Actually, that last sentence would imply that Shar watched but did not participate. 'E did, in fact, help tear down the awful board.)
One of the library's other pencil sharpeners even left to see if the drills in the Wood Shop classroom would like to help disassemble the metal stand. (Those drills were nice enough, but Shar liked to avoid them due to painful memories.)

Boy, were the school librarians surprised when, returning to prepare the library for the beginning of school, they found a half-taken apart and much-dented metal stand with pieces of a torn trifold neatly stacked on top of it, along with a note explaining what Petra and Brady (that was the name of the other boy) had done and a few stapled-together sheets of paper -a story from the Author of Accquaville High.

Shar had decided that it was time to reboot the story of Lance Markov in a less Secret-revealing way, crafting a tale of a metal shapeshifter who sought vengeance on two bullies -no, they were murderers, even though they were not the ones who slit his wrists- who striped all sense of pleasure and joy out of the life of a young gay writer. The metal stand that they'd used to dishonor his death had unfolded itself into a humanoid figure (Shar had felt the strange urge to reference Transformers in this scene, but resisted it; this was a serious story and not a pop-culture reference-fest) that was dedicated on destroying Peter and Brenda -but not before it had exposed their crimes to the world and made sure people listened. That last part had kept the bullies alive 'til the end of the story, but that would be rectified in a sequel.

Only time can tell what reaction Shar's story would cause, but the very news that the Author of Accquaville was back sent the students -and some of the teachers- into a buzz of most widespread one was that the Author was a legacy position, passed down from student to student, and that someone else had finally resumed the "job" after Michael, almost certainly the last Author, had died.

Under happier circumstances, these false beliefs would've made Shar laugh, but now all they did was bring the tiniest twings of a smile to the pencil sharpener's face.
But in time the pencil sharpener's laughter might return. Until then, Shar would keep on writing with a purpose more than just h' personal amusement and the gratification of being locally famous. The terror thst had been woven into all the tales the pencil sharpener had crafted in and after escaping from the parts shop of Elmo St. Peters has been joined by rage.

One quiet September night a flicker of doubt crept into the machine's mind. How much impact could one appliance have?
'E brushed it aside. Better to write and barely affect anything than to not write and not have any impact at all.

Note: I was going for a sad story, but this one turned out way too depressing in the first draft. I ended up having to go back and lighten it up a bit.
Also, Shar's new brand of violent stories will get h' writings banned by the school principal, but that will just end up making them more popular and [SPOILERS].