Quill

 

[For Amanda Witt] The twilight of the typewriter has made way for inkblack shutdown. Their trusty carriages settle in rusty garages. Keystrokes that felled a city are now as one with Nineveh. Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for the end of the present line. Ping pulped the polysyllables in half. It made a phenomen of phenomenology, likewise left in the dark. And anyway, phenomenology has trouble explaining things it cannot see. Now the printer manual is a blank about margins of error. The dependence of computers on printers for hard copy is a universal truth. It’s a truth universally knowledge, that compatibility reliance is incompatible with time’s winged chariot. The reader cannot read the page the printer cannot read, due to dysfunction with connected software. Only connect, not. The blank page reflects a blank look. Ditto the half-life of the biro, which is the whole-life of a biro. The ballpoint leads a merry dance but too soon all good things come to an end. As Baron Bic said, though in impeccable French: profits are the mother of invention. Hence, they are only in it for the money, those microchips off the old block. If the mouse cannot dot its i’s, the keyboard has lost the plot, qwerty’s gone on holidays. That said, do not cook the goose. First, catch your goose. A bird in the hand is worth a complete corpus. Several feathers from the leftwing fit well in the right hand, rightwing feathers likewise in the left hand. Find the compatible feather. Leftwingers are usually in the majority. Where there is a quill there is a way. Ask your grandmother about inkwells. Ink is fluid and leaves large stains. Therefore, pour ink from jar with care to avoid Lake Titicaca. Well levels are dark and hard to distinguish, leading to prominent overflow. A well-lit environment promises gleam and shimmer upon the flowing ink. Dip the nib as though your life depended on it. Every word could be a last will and testament. The dark lady leaves a fine trail drying in the sun. However, if ink is unavailable, unnavigable, gouge the ground with the quill. Etch the wall with the thoughts of flight. Faster than a speeding stylus, more powerful than a reed in the wind, the Quill. The biographer’s weapon of choice using oozing ink of blood, sweat and tears. Underlinings in cacophonies of caca. Until something else comes along. The paperless artifice. Artificial interpretation that will beam neural waves quicker than light. Super-fingernails that inscribe into eternity every sentence as it is thunk. Unforgiving brain chips off the old block. Chat post-it notes reminding us we are alive. And other collectibles in the large clearance sale catalogue of future redundancies.