The room was completely silent, except for the quiet scratching noise of a quill on paper. Bent over a massive wooden table sat an old man, carefully tracing line after line on a sheet of finest paper.
With endless patience, his fingers drew continents and islands, rivers and lakes on the map. Line by line, stroke by stroke, countries started taking shape, each of their jagged borders a piece of art in itself.
He gently put the pigeon feather down, reached out and got another one, sharp and small, a tool of perfect cartography. He loved them, their comfortable size, their sharpness, their straight lines. Holding a small drip of ink in its tip, it touched the paper, going on where its predecessor had left off. More lines appeared on the paper, shadows of reality. The cartographer started labelling the fruits of his labour, one by one, never making an error, never hesitating.
Finally, he signed his work, sat back and carefully stretched his arms.