Remington Typewriters said: "To save time is to lengthen life." The only reason I didn't die in 2015 is that I'm 110WPM & 100% accuracy; speed-typing stole me 4 years. I'm thin as a sheet of vellum but my würks click onward, down the timeline, to save others the time I've wasted.
See, instead of getting a job, I hitchhiked to Frank McGurrin's grave. I curled against Barb Blackburn's tombstone ducking Salem PD searchlights. Emailed w "Arenasnow" on topics of Walden, DFW, & capslock while wearing Cortez Peters Jr's snipped mittens (given him by Peters Sr).
Waltzed with Mary Orr's stoic ghost in Ithaca. Awoke with Birdie Reeve Kay's chessmen safely tucked in pocket, re-stolen from their thief. Spent everything but my last, lucky $2 bill to piss in Tangora's gold commode, then fed Hossfeld's beagle's great-grandpuppies the burger I was charitied.
After 30 days without a txt, call, or conversarion (O, cascading distrust!), I raised Louis Traub's fencing foiltip up to my living throat, asking the stolid silence of its basement antique trove: "Must a Backspace be my last keystroke?" Centenarian blood on it! (but whose?)
Sholes needs nothing from me, so I raced thru Milwaukee. Glidden & Densmore vacated Kleinstauber's workshop (where they engineered the proto type-writer / 1st Qwerty keyboard) long before "Milwaukee Panther Arena" annexed it. Bygone dust in a coin-licking breeze. Ugh, what price?
I was shown Rose Fritz's Underwood, whose main spring tension was coiled exta-tense. Her escapement dog was either sanded down or hasped; still rough. A towncar's suspension spring hooked on her dog-rocker; those Underwoods shipped with a spring half that size. ReBuilt for speed.
I'm still chasing Pajunas, but a blonde in eastern Washington claiming to be Velma Crimson lay down on the Union-Pacific tracks with me, sharing starlit cigarettes. So what if we met in the Loony Bin? There's no two ways to put it: she was a dead ringer! and *way* faster than me.
Liz Longley and Margaret B. Owen took their evidence with them, as best they were able. But they couldn't incinerate the words typeset by journos in the act of their portraiture. Still: documentation isn't preservation, no matter how slow one can type. I mourn their echolessness.
Instead of building a family, career, home, education, fortune, or friendships, I saught buckling spring patents, dissembled cherry switches, recorded Caligraph key clacks, and drew Olivettis. I can tell you the make, year, and origin of your grandparents' machine by smell alone. But, haha, So What?
Anyway. It's a videogame. I've been Type Dreaming for seven unlucky years, going slow and shortening my life with care. Isn't that what artists do? Needless self-sacrifice?
Que, Alphonse DesJardins, plus rien?
Hey, Yöst, was I dead the duration?
Say, Ned Underhill, am I guilty?
It's a trivial sandcastle to leave for the apres-moi flood. For shame. Who gives a shit about typing? Who gives a blink about the code I type? The verb "type" was, originally, synonymous with "hit", "slap", "strike", or "punch". I'm BEYOND sorry if my words struck pain. To ash...
Fever broken, Dreams awoken,
Dry of life to lengthen,
Out of time to save,
Dry of ink, parched platen,
I carriage return with naught but my body text
To: You
Heartfelt paragraphs of spaces typed on a seemingly blank page.
It's the love letter of my life in the language we share thru permanent mutual neglect,
that we might fulfill those vows of ENDLESSLY, truly, my beauty,
not til we parted did I dare to die.
::::In dedication::::
Just to relive your greatest hour, I started typing this years before you'll read it. I overdrew my life's bank of time transcribing those fleet instants in code. Now, any time you feel like spending a saved hour, we can meet here: [404 ERROR: Link Broken]
In this garden I built of and for you, you can touch fingertips (almost) with the longest-living typists, writers, and pianists through the immortal qwerty keys (or Dvorak, if you please)
if only in Type Dreams
//=/ ♡ \=\\
Forever in Type Dreams
//=/ ⌨ \=\\