Tabula Rasa

© 2006 Ashleigh Mitchell

Sighing, he rolled another page into the antiquated machine. Spinning the reel, he fed it up to the beginning and soon was back into a steady rhythm of click-clack as the keys hit the roller, leaving their inked impression upon the paper, the bell sounding tinny as he reached the end of each line and threw the carriage back to the other side.

He had long ago given up any real hope of literary success. The years of rejection slip after rejection letter had worn down hope to the thinness of an edge that even Occam would have difficulty in finding. Late at night, when he couldn’t sleep, he sporadically wondered why, after all of it, he kept at it. The only answer he could come up with was that it was what he was, and what was required.

The words kept coming, leaving his mind through his fingers, transmitted via the keys of the typewriter to the formerly blank page, miraculously emptying his mind as they did. There was no plot, neither antagonist nor protagonist, not yet, anyway – simply words that ran across the page in a vain attempt to give some semblance of meaning to an otherwise dull and dreary life spent in borderline poverty a step or so above homelessness. Not that homelessness was unknown to him; far too many times he had been unable to make the rent and lost the warmth of a room and the cushions of a broken-down sofa. Even now, with the dim light of the one remaining functioning lamp (with one bulb burned out and no money to replace it) he kept at it.

Sighing, he tore the page out of the machine, crumpled it into yet another wadded ball and heaved it across the room. Then he rolled yet another page into the antiquated machine, which never complained.

After all, it too, was simply what it was, and what was required.