For three years now, a little broken green typewriter has sat on the table in the middle of The Central Trend room. 

The top half of the case is missing. 

A few of the keys are cracked.

A layer of dust has settled like the first fall of snow.

The typewriter is no longer a conduit through which stories are created.

No longer does the clack ring out from the keyboard,

or the ding of a line finishing fills a room.

I almost feel sad, looking at the typewriter sitting lifeless in our room.

 

There was a time when I had a cover.

A soft wooden cover,

taunt leather nicked with age.

Rubbed smooth in places.

Scratched in others.

Now, there is only the half that I rest on,

That I’ve rested on for ages.

 

The soft green metal body fits with our room’s soft blue walls.

The forlorn look of a dispirited typewriter matching our rooms collection of misfits.

 

There was a time when beautiful hands used me to make beautiful stories.

Through me, worlds came alive. 

People came alive.

Both those in the stories, and those who had the stories in them.

I was a creator. A maker of life. 

I traversed worlds with literature’s greatest.

Those priceless hands would cast me into darkness; my wooden cover, now lost to time, closing over me.

And when the sun broke into my life again, worlds not yet written about would unfurl before me. 

I spent years stationary in rooms with nameless faceless storytellers.

Only I will ever know their names, their faces, and their stories.

And I will never share them; I will only tell you that those stories saved them.

A place of light in the darkness.

Purpose. I had purpose. Virility. Life. 

 

That is likely why the typewriter came to live with us,

on that table in the middle of our room,

because it was so unable to fit anywhere else; it would only ever fit in a place where nothing did.

I looked at the lifeless typewriter and saw it much as one sees an elderly dog, no longer full of bounding life; now, all that’s left is to give it peace in its final days. 

Over the years, a few attempted to revive the typewriter–they all failed.

Too many pieces were missing.

Too much was lost to time.

 

Now, I reside in a room of storytellers.

 

I wish I knew where the typewriter lived before us.

 

No longer do I tell their stories for them.

 

I am so sure it would be able to regale us with tales from every corner of the earth.

 

But, I still see them all. Sitting here, watching these writers grow, I see their stories.

 

For now, though, until the day the typewriter speaks again, I suppose it will only serve as a reminder of our journalistic history.

 

For now, until the day they learn to truly listen, I suppose I will have to hold their stories, waiting, in my heart.