Today starts a new and exciting journey where I’m holding myself accountable to write at least 15 minutes a day. What a great way to start the day!
Writing prompt #1: Close your eyes briefly. Think of one object in the room and focus on it without opening your eyes. Recall as much as you can. Then write as much as you can about the object.
The Result: Grandfather’s Typewriter
My grandfather’s typewriter: my mother’s father. The doctor. The man I’ve never met because of a motorcycle accident that left him alive but with a steel plate in his head and is somehow correlated to his death in a car accident. An untimely stroke perhaps. And as a result my mother detests motorcycles.
Well, it was his typewriter. I’m not sure whether it was used to write letters, poems or prose. Or maybe my mother, younger then, pounded on the keys.
Its certainly seen better days. My grandfather’s typewriter is green, as I mentioned, but not a proud, royal forest green. A phlegmy, sickly faded green. Faded as if it was forgotten for several decades.
But the base is more indicative of its neglect. A cardboard base that the typewriter appears to be glued on, is crumbling in places and in others the dust is melded in to the lovely piece of machinery.
My grandfather’s typewriter certainly doesn’t work — the keys stick to themselves and if a letter is pressed the leg that would have come rushing down on paper now emerges hesitantly.
I don’t recall how I know about my grandfather’s typewriter. I never saw it on display in Abuela’s house. Maybe it lived with Tia Ana. However I do recall when my mother called to tell me the typewriter was found and would I want it?
A typewriter is a relic that all writers should have in their office. But add the enigma of my grandfather, who he was and how he might have used the typewriter — yes, yes, I must have it.
