Last night, I was clearing out my uncle's attic, for he had passed away just recently, and as I set into motion locking the door completely, shutting the space away for good, I saw, tucked towards the back, an old wooden box, perfectly camouflaged by the dust of fallen decades. I threw the door open again thinking nothing of it, more annoyed at having to climb back into the small recess; barely spacious enough to fit a body. I took my annoyance out on the box and kicked it, only to be engulfed by a whirlwind of dust that flew from the blasted thing! My impulse to kick out had somehow managed to shift the lid clean off the top and there in front of me, lying destitute and as appearance would denote, forgotten, was the body of a typewriter. 'Good Lord’, I said aloud, not believing luck could present itself in such a willing way. For luck of this magnitude was never afforded to ordinary people like myself. ‘This must be worth a fortune’, I calculated, inspecting every lever on its fascinatingly polished design, stopping only to rub the ache from my foot. I must have indulged in a little more alcohol than I had imagined, and so out of sheer sake of usage I liberated the typewriter; fitting the machine with the paper that was next to it and thought it appropriate, to begin typing away. This was when the night turned harrowing for as I tore my eyes away from what I presumed to be mindless scrawling, I noticed that the attic in which I was in, had somehow transformed. The world in which I had neatened to paper had started to materialise in front of me. Such vivid things I could create without knowing! The room fell to a darkness one could have knitted the end of the world from. In a panic, I tried to void what I had written, hoping I could erase the present. But even setting fire to the paper with a lighter I carried in my shirt pocket, proved impossible in ridding such mistakes. 'Damn my stupid curiosities’, I cursed. 'Why do you curse’? Spoke the man, stepping into view from the nothing. A man who I had unwittingly forced into existence, evidently as confused as I. The man now standing directly in front of me was dressed from head to toe in an all-black suit, trouser and shoe combination with a bowler hat placed handsomely on the top of his head. Exactly how I had envisaged. He had the aesthetic composition of some nobleman, or one with a higher yield of intelligence, or craft and the presence he facilitated suggested so as well. 'You’re not real. This is surely some elaborate hoax. Christ, how much did I really drink’? I said in a confused state; aware of my ever-shrinking presence before the man's overarching aura. 'I am only as real as your conviction’, the man insisted, making subtle insinuation at a madness he accused me of. 'And what if I just write you away? I shall be gone with you’. The man stopped in his tracks and leaned towards me. I felt the entire weight of the room collapsing in on me. 'To write from want is a fickle art. Simply try, I will not vanish'. And just as the man predicted, taking trembling hands to the typewriter on consecutive attempts, I couldn't muster anything worthwhile. Nothing that would make this world I had ushered, conveniently disappear. The words, they just sat, nonchalant, burrowing themselves between the space of each line. They would rather die than be seen. Would rather suffocate than come up for a solitary breath of air.

© SM