The Typewriter

Looking through the junk in the house clearance, he wondered what it was. The only keyboard he had ever seen was virtual, on his phone, tablet and computer. He had never seen or even been aware of physical keys but this was an odd contraption with physical keys and he set it on a table.

The old man had had a reputation as a loner and kept himself to himself, right up til the time he died. In fact, there were rumours that those who crossed usually ended up in a very bad way, sometimes it was said that he actually offed people, though the method was very unspecific. They crossed him and then in a few weeks they were on the receiving end of a clergyman’s eulogy. That was the rumour but there were no specific ones.

Now he had the typewriter in front of him and he used Google Lens to find out what it was and this is one of the definitions that came back:

“A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a person who used such a device”

So it’s an analogue mechanical version of a computer keyboard.

The typewriter had been well looked after and it had a blank sheet of paper in as well as an inked ribbon. He pressed a key and it lifted halfway up to the ribbon and then he let it fall back. He wondered why the old man had kept it in good working order, but couldn’t see any typewritten letters or sheets about.

He looked a little further and then found a ring binder with some typewritten sheets in it.

What he read disturbed him greatly.

The first one said “Drown Mrs Smith at Number 24 in her bath”. It was also dated 20th April 2020. He did a Google search on his phone and found a Mrs Smith at Number 24 had drowned in a freak accident in her bath on the 23rd of April 2020. Had the old man killed her or was there something more sinister here? Foul play was not suspected and although the sheet was dated the 20th it could have been written after the accident took place.

The second one said “Mr Jones at Number 26 is decapitated in a freak car accident” This was dated June 1st 2019. Again a Google search and it provided details of the accident on the 5th of June 2019. Thank God for modern technology.

There were more than twenty sheets of paper and they were not all about people getting seen off, a few were positive events. “Let Ms Smalls get her Masters in Architecture at The University Of Bolton” dated 3rd June 2018. This one took longer and was announced on the 20th of July 2018.

So here is the thing. Was the old man just recording these events on single pieces of paper, or was the typewriter actually causing these events to happen? It was unlikely that the old man could have effected the events himself, especially not the degree results.

So how could he test if this was a “magic” typewriter? He looked in his wallet and saw he had a lottery ticket for the coming Saturday. He began to type.

“The Winning Lottery Numbers For December 17rh 2022 are:

6 13 19 25 38 57”

If they come up, he will be keeping that typewriter, if not he will drop it into his local antique dealers. It is in excellent condition, but if those numbers do come up, who knows what he may do next.

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