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No story to be told.

The ribbon is failing. The letters barely register on the paper despite the reassuring click-clack of the keys. The metal grinds and creaks. The letters are ghosts on my canvas, faint echoes of ideas and words struggling to overcome age and inherent neglect. Click-clack. The paper travels steadily across my field of view, accelerated by dedication and patience and a strange willingness to sort through feelings and thoughts. Two of the keys stick. I reach in and flip the arms back. Click-clack. Writing with a purpose.

Ding.

I push the carriage back and continue typing. It takes effort to press the keys down, there's a greater distance to travel before the letters swing up and strike the paper. You really have to want to write. The ribbon refuses to stay in place for any useful period of time. Most of what I write is lost as faint blemishes on the page. It does not discourage me. The sun sets quietly outside of my window but I am preoccupied. I am collected and focused. Finally, I finish. I pull the sheet away and hold it up. A masterpiece. A beautiful, honest work. The page is mostly blank. Only a handful of words can be discerned. Run. Heart. Music. Lost. I crumple it and toss it into the wastebasket. I behold my typewriter. It stands out to me in this house. This house of so many things and thoughts and ideas. It does not belong here. It is an anachronism. It is a foreign object. I return it, delicately, to its box and place it next to my bag.

My lovely typewriter.

It's been a long time since I've been home. It's a strange feeling, almost. I don't belong here. I am a stranger in this house. Everything looks just as I left it, but it's different. There's a different atmosphere. Not necessarily a bad thing, this just isn't my home anymore. There's distance that I'm not crossing. Sometimes you have to want to be home. And I do. And this isn't it. I need to take my typewriter and go home.

I also need to find my despair bracelet, which has disappeared. The threat of crippling depression looms over me every time I glance at my wrist and am not immediately comforted by the black shackle of despair.

Comments

Carolynn said…
"I also need to find my despair bracelet, which has disappeared. The threat of crippling depression looms over me every time I glance at my wrist and am not immediately comforted by the black shackle of despair"

What a strange juxtaposition, a weird literal metaphor.
October 26, 2011 at 9:16 AM
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