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1. The Typewriter

Chapter One

By Anna BoisvertPublished 11 months ago 4 min read
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1. The Typewriter
Photo by Andrew Seaman on Unsplash

I sat at my desk for the millionth time, staring at the keys of the old Smith and Corona. I had just finished my coffee and usually took the morning to write but this morning, I was in a ponderous state of mind.

As improbable as it may seem, the typewriter gleamed as if newly made. It was about 80 years old or so and had had no other assistance from me since the day I found it, not even a new ink cartridge.

I looked up and out the window at the sun coming up over the city. I still could not believe how this all came to be. I closed my eyes, and smiled.

The past came back in pictures projected on the screen of my mind, just behind and above my eyes.

I was at the end of my running loop, where a blocked dirt road opened back up, when I happened to look to the left in the bushes by the side of the road where it turned back to pavement. There was where I saw it.

The typewriter was sitting there as if someone had placed it deliberately for me to find. I was delighted. Finding it too heavy to carry home, which was still half a mile away, I sprinted home to get my car.

I had once found a 20 dollar bill while out running, but this seemed like a priceless treasure to me. I cleaned it up and put it on the old desk I had picked up and carried home from a neighbor's lawn, who had put it out with a sign on it reading "free".

The typewriter seemed at home on the desk. I rooted around for some paper and put a sheet in. The keys were unbelievably smooth and the ink actually full. Words flowed out of my fingers as if by magic.

By the time I was done, I had been typing over an hour and had a quite well written story in my hands. I put it in a folder in the desk drawer and slowly closed it. It was as if I was still in the other world, the one I was just creating on paper.

The sweat from my run had turned cold and I was shivering now. It was time for a hot shower and food.

The next week, as I was out in the little town I lived in running errands, I overheard two shoppers talking about something that had happened that very morning. My ears perked up at the details and I quickly checked out and went home.

I went straight to my desk and read the story I had written.

My eyes opened. I will never forget that day of discovery. That day, you see, I became aware of just what I had found by the side of the road. It was not a priceless antique, it was an unfathomable arifact of magic. The words that had come out of my brain through that typewriter had come to be.

It must be a coincidence, I thought. Surely, that was an impossibility. Then again, I was a person who believed anything was possible. I decided to put it to the test. On myself this time, not a random person or thing.

I sat for a bit. What would I like to be, what would I change if I could? The morality of it all rushing in like a floodgate was opened. Who was I to change anything? Was fate not the holder of the paths we all walk? Did I even believe in fate?

What if I change something I think would make life greater only to find out it doesn't? I did not think at the time that it would be such a challenge to choose something! It was as if my mind had inserted itself into the conversation without invitation to halt the greatness that was surely coming, as if it valued fear over possibility.

What if I had been chosen? What if I had been given the power to create my life as I saw fit to do so?

I opened up a drawer and drew out a stack of paper. I took a sheet and wound it into the typewriter and laid my fingers on the keys.

Fantasy
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About the Creator

Anna Boisvert

Life is beautiful.

Be you. Be weird.

Musings and imaginings from the brain of a fifty something year old Gemini who sold everything and moved to Los Angeles in 2018.

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  • Donna Renee6 months ago

    Oooh what a fun and inviting story!! I love the idea of this kind of treasure ☺️

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