098 - Ninety-Eight

[TRANSCRIPT]

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I was writing a postcard from the Grand Canyon to Harry and my pen exploded. My fingers are covered in ink and it made me think—

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Harry’s hands always had something on them. Paint usually, or dirt from the garden…ink even. She found this old typewriter in the house and got me to fix it up for her despite the fact that I knew nothing about typewriters. I was able to figure it out—you work on enough mechanics, including really tiny ones, like the electrical wiring for the miniatures, and you can figure out pretty much anything that’s designed well. 

And typewriters are beautiful machines it turns out. I hadn’t used one very much before then—it’s not like I ever needed to for my job and I never took typing classes or anything—but I fell in love with this one. It was an old model—from the thirties, if I had to guess—and the design was both beautiful and complex. Intricate but obvious. 

(huff of laughter) God, what a metaphor that is, huh? (mumbling) Harry sure knew how to pick interests that perfectly reflected her. 

But anyway, Harry spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to refill the ink reel. It had obviously dried out long ago, but she was convinced she could resoak it in ink and it would work again. Turns out, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. But she kept at it, trying paint, ink from the pens we had, whatever she could. After the first few attempts, it was something she only ever worked on when she was particularly angry with me. 

That’s how I knew we couldn’t repair what got broken in that last big argument. Every day, she had ink on her hands. 

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