The Typewriter

February 2009

It is nice of you to think of my health, friend. God knows I have been writing for far too long. Perhaps I will be afforded some rest for a moment, and I will explain to you my trouble. I shall start from the beginning, so that you may understand everything as fully as possible, and so that I may not seem mad myself.

My parents had divorced when I was four or five, over my father's having caught mother in a tryst with another man, and I lived with my father for a while. I think he went a little bit mad after the divorce, though, because he'd shut himself up in his office and just write letters all day, tapping on his typewriter until the bell sounded, pushing it back over, and tapping again. He'd only ever come out for food and trips to the bathroom. He had everything delivered by post: the milk, the bread, the meats and cheeses... He'd make breakfast, eat it up quickly, and then run back to his room and write more. He must have written thousands of pages of letters, stuffing them into envelopes and jamming their bulk into the post box every day, mumbling to himself.

I never found out to whom he was writing until a decade after he died, and the owners of the house he used to occupy contacted me about the enormous stack of mail that had come in for my father. He had written all of those letters to a single place, every single one of them addressed to P____ avenue, number 447, to one mister Graves. All of the letters were marked “return to sender,” and had never been opened, though the postmarks were from some eleven, twelve years ago. The family wrote in their letter to me that the postmaster had pulled up, unloaded some ten boxes of old letters at their door, and then promptly left to go to the next house on the route, as though there were nothing unusual about such a volume of letters being delivered all at once.

What I have neglected to tell you, dear friend, is that while I lived with my father, I saw a great many things I could only explain as fancy, as my mother had often conditioned me to think. Attached to every letter he wrote I saw what I can describe only as an amorphous shadow, a mist or smoke that surrounded the envelope and flowed as though somehow, even being mist, it had some semblance of life in its form. The more he wrote, the darker they became, and the more I questioned my own eyes as I saw him drag that spectral fog to the door and push it into the post box.

His health, too, diminished as the shadows grew darker, until one morning I awoke to find him laying over his typewriter, his face drawn back and pale, and his eyes turned a milky grey colour, as though he had poured ink into them. The moment I saw this disfigured farce of my father, I was immediately struck with a fever, and had to be taken to a hospital. The whole while that I was in the doctors' care, I could see a dark, shimmering figure that reminded me vaguely of that terrifying visage my father wore on his dying breath.

Sometimes it would whisper in my ear, such terrible but yet unintelligible words as to make me shudder for minutes at a time. Sometimes it would touch my head, and I would be wracked with ache until the morning. This apparition was malevolent, cruel, and unrelenting, even until the end of my stay at the hospital.

I lived with my mother after this, until I was able enough to work, and afford a place of my own. Still, no matter where I went, I could not escape the figure that followed me. My work was disturbed from time to time, but I told the manager that it was anemia, and that I would be fine given a few moments. It was in this state of ill-being that I continued for some years before I was made aware of the letters returning to the tenants of my father's old house.

With reluctance, I went to the house and took the boxes from them. As I did so, I could not help but notice the two children of the house, twins with blonde curls reaching their shoulders and nary more than four or five years old, staring intently at the boxes as I took them away, almost with a look of fear. I brought the letters back to my own house, and stowed them in my basement for lack of something better to do with them. I would attend to them later, but for then, I had not the time to meddle in my father's old letters.

Less than a week after I retrieved the boxes I received a message from the coroner's office, saying that my mother had passed away. Now both of my parents had died, and so it was my own burden to deal with the family matters such as my mother's burial. At the funeral, the figure that followed me everywhere even was silent and stood still at the side of the hole wherein the coffin was lowered, and then covered up. As the last shovel of dirt was replaced on the top, however, I swear I detected a hint of a sinister smile on the barely-distinguishable face of the spectre.

A month passed before I was finished with the familial duties. I had sold my mother's house to some new tenants, I had seen to her proper burial, I had made sure that her will was carried out as she wished. Only then was I granted some time to deal with those curious boxes of letters in my basement.

The first letter I opened was the earliest one, perhaps his first letter written in his madness. Both sides of the paper were covered from edge to edge with the same words, those of my mother's name. Seven pages of the same behaviour accompanied the first. The second letter was exactly the same as the first one, and the third, and the fourth. Gradually as the letters progressed, however, there were mistakes in the lettering, the spacing, smearing of text, and a general disorderly feeling about them, until I reached nearly the last letter.

As I opened it, the spirit behind me gave a loud screeching sound, so loud and shrill that I was forced to cover my ears with my hands to preserve my hearing. My first thought was, “The neighbors will hear! Surely this will amount to trouble,” but a minute later the spectre stopped its wail, and traversed to the typewriter I had inherited.

The letter I held said only two words: “Kill her.”

My eyes swam for a moment. To what manner of madness had my father been subject? Why had he written these hundreds of letters? What did he wish to accomplish? To whom did he try to send them?

The last letter lay unopened on the table. My father was mad from the moment he and mother separated, I had no doubt. With a trembling hand, I picked up the last letter, broke the seal, and opened it. This was written by hand, in the looping script I was certain was my father's, but also in those lines was betrayed tension, fear, anger, and remorse. It said:

“You may take my son as payment.”

I was mortified, sickened at this letter's content. Immediately I resolved to ascertain to whom these letters had been sent. This mister Graves would meet with the authorities, I would make certain. I traveled to the place the address indicated, my revolver in my pocket and my cane in my hand. When my carriage pulled up to the place, however, I lost all resolve to descend from it, and instead beckoned my driver to return home.

The address indicated was that of an old, burned-out and abandoned building that once housed the Graves and Fate Typewriter company. It had burned down nearly three decades ago, according to the newspapers. Some of the less respectable sources say that the company was a ruse and that the building was actually a mob front business, and that everyone who was in the building when it caught fire mysteriously disappeared.

So I have been at this for nearly three weeks now. Since I opened that letter I can barely stop typing on this infernal machine without the spectre wailing again. Tap tap tap tap ding, tap tap tap tap ding. The very machine upon which my father died is drawing the life from me with each keystroke. I know not what has happened to me, but only that I, too, will perish on this machine, thanks to my father's insane desire for revenge. Every day I type page upon page, slip them into envelopes, and put them in the post box. The address remains the same, P____ avenue number 477, to one Mr. Graves. I cannot bring myself to leave this room, to stop my typing, to dash this vile contraption to pieces for the wailing. I only know that the typewriter is their tool, and that when they are finished with me I should join my father. Over and over again I type my name on the pages, over and over again. When I finally am told to type those two words, friend, you'll see no more of me.