“Better than walking in the rain and the mud all night.”Ĭlarissa turned her pointed nose at the ceiling. “You think sitting there at a typewriter trying to write something is fun?” “Anyway, it was a real white hot experience.” “I don’t go to pawn shops. They are beneath me.” “I know that, but I was downtown running errands and saw a pawn shop. I had never been in one and saw this typewriter with a box of paper for ten dollars. “Writing? You aren’t an English major you’re a nursing student.” “I can’t believe tonight. Stan’s hunk of junk stalled in the pouring rain and we were forced to walk for miles - me in my high heels through the mud. We didn’t even get to the ball. I am so mad at him right now that he’s lucky I’m still his girl.”īetsy smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Next to the typewriter was a stack of neatly arranged sheets of paper. She finished the story at about the time her roommate Clarissa Schultz came home from the ball, soaked to the skin, the eye makeup running down making the girl look like a clown and the usual carefully coiffured hair a frizzy, disappointing mess. The fingers moved across the typewriter as if they were pushed by some unforeseen force. One page led into another and soon the first chapter was done. The pile of pages began to accumulate and only encouraged the budding writer to push on. “One day, it began to rain hard and the college students ran for cover. It was a driving downpour that was very cold. As soon as it started the toads emerged. Some were no bigger than a regular sized thumb, while others bulged like grapefruits.īut it wasn’t the size that was intimidating it was the sheer number of the creepy amphibians. There were tens of thousands of them spread across campus like it was a plague. Nobody dared to go outside and didn’t know that they had already claimed their first victims.” The lightning was a real bully that night flashing its power all over the campus and the city. Just as an explosion of quick light punched the darkness, Betsy looked out the window and saw a toad sitting on the grass. It wasn’t very appealing with warts spread across like a serious case of acne and its face bloated like a corpse. But the eyes were hypnotic, almost bewitching. That faithful day, she took the typewriter back to her dorm room with the box of paper and set it down on the desk. She fixed a cup of tea and then started to type. It was raining outside and just a really dreadful night. Her roommate and most of the other girls had gone to some ball and wouldn’t be home for hours. The dorm was empty, quiet, perfect for a night of writing. She was a student then, studying to be a nurse and out of the blue had decided one day after the pressure and anxiety of mid-terms were over to write a story. Of course, the young woman had composed essays for some courses especially English, but had never attempted any creative writing. The heavy course load curtailed most outside adventures. It was a writer’s night. Every surface was slick and it didn’t look like the rain was done dancing. The thunder rolled through like a war machine. The fog was creepy delicious and the interspersing flashes of lightning only intensified mother nature’s power.Ī chill ran through Betsy Monroe. She carefully removed the relic typewriter from the back of the closet and blew the dust off it. The woman, mousy, petite with an additional couple of pounds smiled and remembered purchasing the machine for twenty dollars and a box full of blank paper almost forty years before.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |