My Writer

Since music is playing loudly, my writer must be in a good mood. For days she has struggled to type on my computer keyboard. She comes into the Game Room then sits down in her comfy chair in front of the table while I sit patiently waiting on my stand. I am excited at the anticipation of her beginning to write.  After she opens my lid, she stares at my keys, then shuts my lid, then says, “Sorry, not going to happen today, computer.  Dag-nabbit!”

Other times she types for hours, only stopping to stretch, eat some junk food, or make a mad dash to the restroom. Of course, you can never tell when she will suddenly hop up out of her chair, then dance to the music on the radio. Meanwhile, I sit on my stand, waiting while my fan blows, trying not to let me heat up.

Heaven forbid that my writer starts to sing along with a song playing on the radio while she types. Singing is not one of her talents, but then a computer cannot judge such things because I am just an inanimate object. Although, sometimes, my writer talks to me like I should speak and answer her.  Sometimes she even accuses me of erasing her typed stuff. Is it my fault her finger keeps hitting that one key that erases all she has typed?  Maybe learning to hit the right keys while she is pecking along would help, or is mastering the keyboard, not one of her true talents, either.

In her defense, I guess you should know how my writer began to write. Since she is an open book, I have eavesdropped on her conversations, so this is what I heard. She wrote some as a preteen, but it was only in an old spiral notebook.  I think she can draw a little because she said she drew pictures throughout the story. However, since I did not see this storybook, I cannot vouch for her artistry.  It seems she was in love with love at a young age, so she wrote a silly love story. One day as she said, as she passed her notebook around for others to read, the teacher nearly confiscated it. Although it was a close call, the notebook was not taken away and thrown in the trash. After a few months, I understand that life got busy with sports, and boy crushes, then she just stopped writing.

The next writing my writer did was very fearful, tearful, and done in letters to her husband while he was far away in a war.  Every night she would go to a closet, take out his shirt, put it on, and softly cry while she poured her heart out to him in her letters.  She would tell him how much she loved him and how much he meant to her, then tried desperately to encourage him through his torments of depression and loneliness.  Many tears fell on these letters as she wrote them, but she needed to let him know how much she loved him every day.  Computers do not cry, but if it were possible, I would have shed tears with her as she recalled these memories and typed them into my vault of files years later. One letter written by her husband made my fan blow extremely hard to keep my screen from tearing up. That letter was in response to one she had written to tell him she was not expecting. Frank’s letters that my writer shared with me years later are full of raw emotions, and I keep them safe in my memory vault.  Once her husband returned from the war, the letter-writing would stop too. I guess living their life together was more important than writing.

In January of 1997, my writer suffered a significant loss when her, Frank, suddenly died.  During the next thirteen years, she would not have a spare second to write as she assumed the man and woman role doing duties while taking care of their home and working a full-time job.  After Frank’s death, she became the sole owner of a florist. The only writing she did then was dictated by the purchasers, who bought flower arrangements for others. Knowing my writer’s genuine love for her husband, I wonder if it was hard for her to write about love on those cards, but I have never heard her mention it.

Life went on, and in 2010, my writer retired at the age of sixty, but she did not take time to write then either. She was too busy keeping up with her yard and making much-needed repairs to her home. However, she stored many of these home repairs and yard adventures in her memory bank for her future writing.  One story that made her laugh out loud as she wrote it years later had to do with weed-eating the bushes after she burned up the hedge trimmer.  I did not think that she would ever quit laughing long enough to write that story, but I loved the sound of her hearty laughter.

Somewhere around the end of January of 2015, after a long day of working relentlessly in her yard, my writer decided to have a little talk holler match with God, which surprisingly ended with tears, then a prayer to God for purpose in living her life as a forever widow.  That night she had a dream, and in that dream, her husband, Frank, asked her to look in the cedar chest.  After remembering she had a cedar chest in her backyard storage building, she discovered a box of forgotten letters.  The cedar chest would become a pandora’s box full of memories of my writer’s life and marriage with her soulmate husband. These memories would lead to pages of a memoir containing over one hundred and fifty letters. Although my writer decided that she would type the memoir on an old electric typewriter, soon there would be another intervention.

My writer received me as a gift from her son the day before he left to live and work overseas.  I remember him downloading lots of information on me.  That son of my writer can type accurately and fast. I think he must have gotten it from his Dad.  Once I arrived, my writer hugged me and thought I was exceptional and unique. She always made sure that my keys were shiny and clean. Lord forbid that a piece of dust fell on my cover because she would rush to my side and wipe me clean with a soft cloth.  My writer even protected me from little intruders who wanted to pound on my keyboard.  You know that does hurt.  Even though I cannot feel it. I am sensitive, and hitting my keys hurts my feelings. It is not like I am an old, slow manual typewriter.

Guessing I should now tell you a little about me too since I have told you how sensitive I can be.  Toshiba made me, and I am a laptop personal computer.  Skullcandy is the name printed above the keys on the right side of my keyboard.  So, I am thinking that means I am a sweet brainy type of computer.  Why else would someone put that near my turn on button?  My writer has called me lots of names, but I have not recognized one of them as Skullcandy or sweet and brainy. Good Grief, Dumaflotche, Thangamajig, and Come On seem to be her favorite names for me. Did I tell you that my writer woman is a little strange? How would you like to be called a Dumaflotche or Thangamajig when your name is Skullcandy? Skullcandy sounds more like a superhero to me.  Maybe she will buy me a cape one day, but I am not betting my memory bank on it.

After I replaced the electric typewriter on her dining table, my writer began to type and share her story with me.  Not only did I get to receive the contents of each of her letters from her husband, but I got to relive their life together from their first date until her soulmate’s death.

As my writer typed, I walked through their apartments in Ayer, Massachusetts, feeling like I had set on her kitchen table in each apartment.  I even felt like I walked in the snow with them listening to the radio. Together, my writer and I moved to Okinawa, then we walked in the China Sea, where we snorkeled, seeing fantastic colored coral and beautiful fish of bright blue, yellow, and orange.  I climbed cliffs with her husband then stood on the edge, looking down as my writer smiled, looking up at us.  Did you know they had a dog named Ralph while living in Okinawa? Well, they did, and he could run nearly thirty miles an hour beside their car named Bondo.  I have a picture of him saved in my memory banks, and there is a chapter of my writer’s memoir devoted just to him.

It seems that now I am trusted to be her new memory keeper since I save each priceless story in my computer vault.  At times I felt someone near my writer, looking over her shoulder and loving her as she typed.  I know this is her soulmate.  I  probably should not tell you this, but one day he even touched me, making me act up, to draw attention from my writer to my screen where his name had magically appeared in her website tags.  Her soulmate and I have a unique relationship. We both love her, so we try to do a few surprising things to make her smile and laugh.  I think she knows we are in cahoots with each other, but she thinks it is incredibly funny.

It is happening! Here we go! My writer has raised my lid, pushed my button on, and gone through the sign-in process. I am getting excited!  Wow! She even got the passwords right the first time. We are definitely on a roll.  I wonder what we are going to write about today.

It will be a surprise if Grammarly even shows up today. The last time my writer typed, she gave Grammarly a real fussing out.  Something about a passive sentence, changing the word letters to messages, and the forever comma issue, but not sure.  I overheard my writer say this, “Really, Grammarly; you think my sentence is passive? So, now you want me to change the whole dang sentence? Quit telling me how to write, and by the way, you cannot replace the word letters with messages. They are not the same thing! Not doing any of it!”

Later my writer did redo the sentence but did not replace the word letters with messages. She tried to slide it all past Grammarly by announcing aloud to the room full of inanimate things that she had decided to change the passive sentence herself.  Once my writer changed the passive sentence, Grammarly sent her a message saying, “Great job. You are improving. You have been practicing.”

Well,  I cannot repeat what my writer said to Grammarly, but I swear on my keyboard, it was not a pleasant language. Sometimes this woman is so temperamental, but then other times, her heart is pure gold and loving.  She is a survivor and a hard worker too.  Plus, she is upset with Grammarly and not me. Since Grammarly is an add on taking up precious space in my memory bank, I will sit back and let Grammarly defend itself. I cannot believe the audacity of an app, thinking it is alright to message my writer. I am wondering if there is a way to uninstall that arrogant app.

I probably should not tell this, but I love it when my writer puts her fingertips on the wrong keys while typing from a booklet, letter, or quote.   Sometimes she never bothers to look up at the computer screen to see what she has typed. Then when she does look up, she sees a whole line of gibberish.  You will hear lots of expletives coming from my writer’s mouth as she pushes that backspace key.  When this happens, wishing I could laugh out loud, but since being a computer, I sit here quietly on my stand.  Wait! Maybe I could use that immersive reader guy to talk to her suddenly or laugh. That would be awesome!

Another thing I probably should not mention is Dragon.  My writer downloaded that app to talk into my microphone, and then it types her words on my screen.  A person has to be able to speak clearly without an accent to make this function correctly.  Not my writer; she uses special and unique words that produced sentences that were unreal.  From what I have overheard from conversations with others, she has this same problem with Alexa.

One of the best times for me is when my writer laughs while she types. It seems her fingertips fly lightly across the keyboard, never making a mistake. Although I am just a computer, when my writer writes humor, I know it is something she likes to do. Every once in a while, she reads aloud her writing, and then it is clear to me that she has done some funny, exciting, and crazy things.  She seems to love to tell off on herself and laugh at her mistakes.

Sometimes, as my writer types, I can feel the warm caress of love touching my keys. It seems as if her heart has replaced her fingertips, and each tap on my keys has a heartbeat full of love for me.  I can tell she knows how it feels to love and be loved by the way she touches my keys.  Love must be a wonderful thing to experience as a human. I wish there were ways to show that love back to her.

Not long ago, my writer was typing when she suddenly broke down into tears and could not catch her breath. I could hear her talking to God and asking Him to help her finish her book.  Soon, I felt her fingertips on my keys, but it felt as if there were other hands on top of them. My writer meticulously typed each letter as the words flowed to the screen, then she said, “Thank you, Father. We have finished.”

Just for fun, my writer started to write poems and short stories.  Her poems are short and whimsical about grandbabies and perspectives poems told by leaves, seeds, rainbows, etc. The short stories are fiction, but then again, she loves to write from inanimate objects’ views, so she writes letting those objects tell the story.  I love that she takes the time to read and record her written words because then I hear her recite the poetry and short stories.  Maybe someday she will write a poem or a short blog about me, Skullcandy.  Although if she does, I do hope she uses my superhero name and not those other names she calls me.

One of the most exciting things happened not long ago. My writer did a Zoom Interview, and I got to be her vessel to show her face and let her use my microphone to talk through.  It was amazing.  The interview went on for twenty minutes, and I found out how much she loves God.

Did I tell you about my writer trying to learn how to format submissions for analogies?  It seems she knows nothing about formatting, fonts, page breaks, spacing, headers, or guidelines.  She spends more time trying to figure that all out than actually typing the story.  My writer hates to look like she does not know what she is doing, but the truth is; she needs lots more practice.

Meanwhile, getting back to today, my writer has opened my lid, the music is playing, and she has pushed the button to turn me on.  Oh my gosh, it looks like she will be typing on Microsoft Word, and she has turned on Grammarly. I hope that Grammarly behaves today because she is trying to figure out how to set up double spacing, a font, and type size.  I just heard her mention something called Shunn Format.  What the heck is, Shunn?  Dang, I sure hope it is in my setup somewhere.  I just listened to my writer say she was going to Google it. I sure hope she does not use her Dragon thangy. No telling how Shunn would sound coming out of her mouth.

Okay, she is back on the computer keys.  I sure hope she knows what she is doing because she seems so excited about writing again.  It looks like we have a title for our story, My Writer.  What kind of title is that?  She is my writer. So, who is her writer?  That title just shot any chance of her writing about me, Skullcandy, the superhero laptop. Maybe next time.

Wait a minute! She is typing about her as my writer but telling everyone that I am writing her story.  What is going on here?  How can she say I am telling her story when she is writing it? Do people think that inanimate objects can think, much less write a short story?  Let us see what she writes.

How did she know that I can tell when she is in a good mood and a writing mood?  Oh! Wow! She has somehow gotten into my computer brain.  I hope she does not know how much I eavesdrop on her conversations that could get me turned off when she is not typing, and I would not get to watch her dance to the music.

One thing for sure, I have got to pay close attention and read each word she writes.  What if she thinks I do not like her and would tell her secrets?  Maybe I can erase what she types then replace it with my typing.  Is that even possible?  Is it possible to persuade Dragon to help me? After I shut him down for making fun of my writer, he decided not to like me very much.  I have not seen him around since then. Maybe my writer got rid of him.

Whoops, my writer nearly hit that erase it all button. That was a close call. She needs to pay attention and quit hitting that key.  The real problem is that she does not know which key it is. Maybe someday they will replace that key with a red one. That might get my writer’s attention, but would that mean she would replace me with a newer model?  Did I tell you that I am her first laptop computer?  Well, I am, and I do not ever want to be replaced by her.  She and I have too much history together.

Now I am excited because my writer does know my name.  She just typed it into the story, and then Grammarly argued with her about how to spell it. Come on, Grammarly, give my writer a break!  Skullcandy, S-k-u-l-l-c-a-n-d-y, or Grammarly, you can refer to me as the superhero.  Anyway, my writer and I are trying to write a story, so bug off.

In case I forgot to tell you, my writer is a very forgiving and patient person.  She likes to come off as not real bright, but I think that she might be.  Sometimes she worries too much about things out of her control but soon decides to go with the flow.  Did you know that she had not used a home computer in ten years when she received me as a gift?  Microsoft was some kind of feather pillow as far as she was concerned.  A Website was something a spider wove to sleep in at night. URLs, SEO, Domain Names, Secure Servers, Tags, etc., were a foreign language to my writer.  Now she quickly writes on her website then shares to Twitter, Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

My writer is not a quitter. She always finishes what she starts. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she will get out of her warm bed then fire me up to see if she can figure out how to fix something on her website or finish a blog.  Also, it seems that poetry comes to her in the early morning hours. Her poetry has a simple style and comes from watching and loving people, animals, and nature surrounding her.  If you have read my writer’s story, you will know that she never intended to be a writer but became a writer to fulfill a purpose for God.  The reason she has remained a writer has to do with seeing if she can write.

Oh! My! Goodness! I am writing about my writer while I need to be starting on page one to see what she wrote for me about her.  Did that even make any sense?  I am beginning to forget who I am; best make that what I am.  Steady now, Skullcandy, or you will lose your internal drive existence.

Well, I am back from reading, and I have been caught red-handed on eavesdropping.  Does she know I know those things about her, or is she just making it all up to give me human-like characteristics? How could she possibly know how I feel or what I think about her?  Good grief! Do I even think or feel?  I need another experienced laptop’s opinion. Maybe if I act up, it will force my writer to take me for repairs, but she needs me to keep working on finishing this story.  I cannot wait for her to go to bed, then I can try and change anything that I would not have said about her.

Finally, my writer has gone to bed, and lucky for me, she did not turn me off.  I had to beg Dragon to come back and help me, but prissy Grammarly was more than happy to help.  I told prissy Grammarly to keep her messages to herself, and she said to me that I would soon be begging for her help. What a complete snob.  It is going to be a long night.

Dragon, Grammarly, and I, Skullcandy, figured out a way last night to get my actual writing on the pages my writer wrote.  We changed a few of my writer’s thoughts and replaced them with mine. I hope today and my writer will not go back through this story and notice the changes.  After all, I am the actual brains with all memories stored in my storage vault.

If you read this story about my writer, I hope you realize that it will be tough to decipher what she wrote and what I wrote.  You might even think that she wrote it all, but then again, you might just be wrong. Energy exists in all things.  Do inanimate objects pick up on our emotions? Does the human touch on these objects leave an impression of their feelings? Could a computer write a story while their writer sleeps?

I am grateful to my writer for giving me human life and letting me have a voice in telling about her as my writer.  After all, we have been on this unique adventure together for a while now. I am my writer’s computer named Skullcandy, and I will always remain by her side as her superhero.

Thanking God, she got rid of that ridiculous old electric typewriter and entrusted me with her memories. That old electric typewriter actually used correction tape cartridges! Give me a break! That is like the old dinosaur days!

This story is available in a published book by SweetyCat Press called, The Wordsmith Chronicles, as one of twenty short stories about authors. You can purchase this book on Amazon at this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08NRXFYZJ 

 

 

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