The Typewriter Repairer – Part 1: Sticky Keys

The letter e stuck, as it always did, and Lena took the typewriter back for the third time.

"It's the slug," said Stefan, turning the heavy machine on his workbench. "The metal bar. It catches."

"You fixed it on Tuesday."

"And Thursday."

"And now it's Saturday."

"Then it likes my company." He glanced up, amused. He was thirty-three, a typewriter repairer, tall and thin, with tousled brown hair, ink-stained fingers and round tortoiseshell glasses, in a shop on a quiet Vienna side street that smelled of oil and old paper. Shelves held hundreds of machines, black and green and cream, like a library of silent voices.

Lena was twenty-nine, a novelist, mostly in theory. Her debut had sold well. Her second had refused, for two years, to exist. She'd bought the typewriter on impulse, hoping the clatter would shake loose something. Instead she'd sat in front of it, staring at a blank page.

"What are you writing?" asked Stefan.

"Nothing."

"Nothing is hard to type."

"It's very hard."

He smiled and took the machine apart with deft, loving fingers, speaking softly to it in German. She watched his hands. They were long and quick. He cleaned each key with a tiny brush, replaced a spring, wound a fresh ribbon.

"There," he said. "Try."

She sat. She touched a key. It struck, crisp and bright, leaving a clean black e on the page. Her heart gave a little jump. She typed another. And another.

It was a morning in March, and the letter had not come.

She stopped, startled. Stefan had gone very still.

"That's good," he said, quietly.

"It's just a sentence."

"It's the first."

"Can I ask you something?" said Lena.

"Yes."

"Will it stick again?"

"I hope so," said Stefan. "I'd like to see you."

"Green?" she said, a ribbon, a leaf.

"Green," said Stefan, going pink. "Very green. Type the second sentence."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Carriage Return.