A Typewriter's Tale

One hundred years old

All it would type at first was rust

Brown colored letters

That expressed a lifetime of neglect

First in an office typing pool

Located on the tenth floor of the Empire State Building

Where a different person every day laid their unique fingers upon it

Stroking and hammering

Clacking and pressing

Sometimes too fast

And tangling the arms in a sudden jarring jam

Sounding like a small matchbox filled with clock gears being shaken

To be carefully pulled apart

Transferring some ink onto fingers every time

With a different accompanying curse to match the mark

Who says ladies didn't swear?

Now the rust is mostly worn away

But dirt still covers the nooks and crannies 

Blurring the letters as they are struck

Marking out a sad mud covered tale

As it tells of transitioning to government service

Being dragged through wet trenches

Tapping out orders and dispatches

The center of a mobile command bunker

Surrounded by croissants and cigarette smoke

Ashes lubricating the mechanism

Both from tobacco and the soldiers

Remains floated upon the winds

Dirt falling away revealing a coating of oil

As a story of storage is the game of the day

Wiped down and spritzed with preservative

Packed carefully in a crate with others just like it

Typewriters all

Marked as fragile then thrown around with abandon

Chassis cracking on the side

Stored upside down in an endless government warehouse

Just around the corner from the golden ark

Forgotten and timeless

Until yet another cold war had ended

Finally flowing with ink

The letters mark clear and concise

The result of being taken into the light

Unpacked with care

A metal strap binding the crack

With four shiny brass screws

Trucked to the flea market 

Inserted into the "Typewriter World!!" tent

In location 5F

There I found it 

Paying in cash I took it home

I asked it to tell me a story

So that's what it did