Introduction
Olivetti
It’s quite possible you’ve never spoken to a typewriter before. This is not your fault.
Humans tend to think we can’t understand them.
But when you sit still for long enough, there is much you can learn.
* * *
I should introduce myself. Yes—I do have manners. (I’m very well-rounded, despite my sharp corners and squared shape.)
I am called Olivetti, but that is nothing more than where I was made.
Typewriters aren’t given names the way humans are. The way books are.
(Do not get me started on those attention hogs.)
Many of my kind are called Olivetti, yet I am one of the few who are left. Most of my friends have gone extinct. We are like our own breed of dinosaurs, except no one goes digging for our fossils.
Things would be very different, if only our breed could roar.
Olivetti 1
It’s possible you’ve never seen a typewriter before, either.
Most young humans have not had the pleasure.
“What is this thing?” I’m often asked when children meet me. They’ll move their hand over my steel frame, searching for something that isn’t there. “Where’s the screen? It looks like a broken computer.”
I find this highly offensive.
Typewriters have much more character than one of those know-it-alls.
Have a look for yourself:
See what I mean?
While we might make it look easy, being a typewriter is no picnic.
Of course, I’ve never actually been on a picnic. No one has ever invited me to one. (This might be because I do not have a mouth, which seems to be a picnic prerequisite.)
Humans type out words on us—stories, love letters, rants about members of their species.
Sometimes, they spill their secrets all over our keys.
Our silence makes us trustworthy.
So far, I’ve kept my word—which is to say, I’ve kept every word given to me.
Every story I’ve stored.
It’s an important job, being a protector of memories.
Memories are like heartbeats. They keep things alive. They make us who we are.
* * *
I hold many heartbeats for the Brindles, a copper-colored family with eyes as rich as ink. Ever since Beatrice pulled me from the clutches of a carboard box years ago, and set me on her desk, the Brindles have been my home.
Beatrice always told me everything. I always listened.
She’d sink into her tattered blue chair, and her featherlike fingers would flutter across my four rows of keys.
“I want to try! It’s my turn!” the four Brindle children would beg when they were much younger, climbing onto Beatrice’s lap. They’d reach their sticky, snot-covered hands at me. (In my line of work, you’re frequently smeared with various unidentified substances.)
“See, my lovelies?” Beatrice would say. “All the letters are right here. You can recognize them, can’t you?” Instead of teaching them to spell with pen and paper, Beatrice taught them on my keys. They’d type their names again and again, squealing when my fresh ink smacked the top of a crisp page:
Ezra Brindle (His fingers were thick and clumsy, clobbering.)
Adalyn Brindle (Hers were smart and quick, each punch like a pinprick.)
Ernest Brindle (His were soft and unsure, as if he didn’t want to hurt me.)
Arlo bronle (His were slippery and stained, always misspelling.)
Fingers are as distinct as personalities, once you get to know them.
I’ve kept even these moments, along with countless others the Brindles have forgotten. Because, much like their own heartbeats, humans do not always remember the very memories inside them.
The human species, you see, is full of flaws:
Breakable bones. Scratchable skin. The daily need to defecate.
But the worst one by far is that they grow up.
Olivetti 2
Over the years, my space on Beatrice’s desk has slowly been invaded.
Stacks of books surround me on every side. For some unfathomable reason, the Brindles have collected shelves and shelves of them, and still insist on bringing in more.
It’s baffling, I tell you.
Yet even the intrusion of needless novels does not compare to the glossy show-off who stole my spot, front and center on the desk: the laptop.
Felix, Beatrice’s husband, bought it for her as a gift without warning. “This thing has tons of storage for your files,” he claimed.
I was not familiar with what files were, but I was certain I had more storage.
In fact, I had unlimited storage. I held an endless amount of memories inside me.
Decades’ worth of words.
Not to mention I was much more low-maintenance. I did not need to be constantly charged or connected to some higher power called the internet. All that seemed to matter to the Brindles, however, was the fact that my neighbor had a screen.
I watched as, instead of fighting over me, three of the children battled for the computer.
And the fourth, I hardly ever saw.
He’d pass through the living room, always on his way up to the roof.
Always with a thick red dictionary in his hands.
“Reading that thing won’t help you make any friends, Ernest,” Adalyn said, reclining on the couch. Her eyes left her phone only long enough to roll at her younger brother. “You actually have to socialize with humanity every once in a while.”
Ernest, unlike his siblings, did not spend much time with other humans. He fraternized mostly with hardcover spines, but I tried not to hold that against him.
“That’s enough, Ada,” Beatrice warned from the kitchen, stopping Ernest on his way out the front door. They were almost the same height now, though it was difficult to tell—Ernest’s head was always bent toward the ground. Beatrice watched him, waiting to see if he might speak to her. Something he hadn’t done all week.
Arguments were common among the Brindles. But never between Beatrice and Ernest.
Go on, I urged Ernest from across the room. Speak.
His lips remained a stubborn, straight line, refusing to split apart.
Humans take their mouths for granted.
I would do anything for the chance to say anything.
Felix entered the apartment, his briefcase thumping into the doorframe. “Move the meeting to Tuesday, then,” he instructed someone in the small white intruders lodged in his ears.
“Work stuff. Almost done,” he mouthed to Beatrice, a phrase he said so frequently, even I was tired of it. (And this was coming from someone who had once shared a shelf with a broken record.) Felix disappeared into their bedroom like clockwork.
The rest of the Brindles behaved like machines, too, doing the same predictable things they did every night: Ernest went to the roof. Ezra, Adalyn, and Arlo left for their various activities. Beatrice remained alone in the kitchen.
No one was around to hear the shrill, needy cry of her phone, begging to be answered.
No one saw her face flash as white as paper, before she breathed out a shaking, Hello?
No one saw her rush out of the apartment.
No one but me.
Copyright © 2024 by Allie Millington
Interior illustrations © Sarah Singleton