The Last Letter Typed

I was a simple man. I had just a few simple dreams; I didn’t need or want a lot. . I had a roof over my head and a car in the garage. A satellite dish made my television viewing time more enjoyable and kept me up to date with the world’s happenings. Running water, gas and electricity made my morning ritual wet, warm and with lights. I had a stereo and a collection of Soft Rock CD’s for music. I am a modern man; I live in a modern world. What could I have possibly wanted that I didn’t already have?

Computers, I managed to elude owning one for most of my life. Not that I didn’t use them in my daily life, keyboards, mice and monitors plague the modern man like the flea’s plagued Londontown. My lack of typing skills was the main reason Bill Gates was not welcome in my home. This all changed when I purchased a boxed set of CD’s for the electronic, plastic, glass and metal boxes I had sitting on my desk. Those were the days of my freedom, the days before I began my typing lessons. Now, at least, I’m free: I am free to use my two finger typing method on this government owned computer. I, single-handedly, spared the world from another “Great typist” from entering the world.

Even though my lawyer has advised me otherwise, I have this need to write my story. This narration will not be typed with my left hand on a bible or my right hand in the air. This story may be one hundred percent true or it may all be made up, but I write these words with a clear conscience.

“Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing” did every thing the box said it would do. I learned the correct finger position, I built skills while having fun playing the typing games, and I was able to type faster even though most of my finished writing looked like my dog chased my cat across my keyboard. I set a moderate goal of 40 words per minute. I never reached it and I grew more frustrated after each lesson when I received a verbal pat on the shoulder. I wasn’t some kid who just brought home his art project for the refrigerator door. This disembodied woman’s voice would say, “Look out world… here comes another great typist.”

Computer generated or not, false praise was just too much for this struggling simple person, who wasn’t a child, to absorb. This simple man had some basic computer skills. Thanks to Mavis Beacon teaching me how to locate the home keys I was able to type the names of my favorite travel planning websites with ease. In a matter of minutes I had a map to this lovely typing teachers home thanks to “get your directions.com”. Here I also booked a flight, reserved a hotel room and had a car waiting on my arrival.

Six hours later, I crumpled up a wrapper from a fast-food restaurant and threw it on the floorboards of my little red rental car. The well-done burger with the spicy brown mustard and extra onions did nothing for my mood. I sipped the last of my chocolate shake through the straw as I was parked outside of a large Tudor house. There was a wrought iron gate protecting the Beacon’s from people like me, or so they assumed it would. This gate was designed as a QWERTY keyboard in a wave pattern. The white letters on the black ironwork made typing look like so much fun. I wondered if Mavis praised the welder who installed this on her property for his typing accuracy. Seeing this iron work, and with my typing lessons still etched into my brain I entered into a trancelike state, put my hands on the dashboard of this economy car and put my fingers through the motions of typing. If the dashboard were actually a keyboard connected to a word processing device, the sentence I motioned would read, “ The quick brown fox (me) jumps over the lazy dog (Mavis Beacon)”.

I gathered my thoughts, which led me to action. This initiative I showed at this moment shocked everyone I knew because I was the world’s worst procrastinator. At times even setting my toes on fire wasn’t enough to get me out of my chair to take charge of the situation. Imagine watching CNN Headline News for hours on end because you wouldn’t reach for the remote control on the table at the other end of the couch you were sitting at. I didn’t know where my impulses would take me next.

The car door must have opened by itself. I don’t remember moving a finger to grasp the door handle. My body found its way across the street and to the brick posts of Mavis’ keyboard-style gate. I found and pressed a button on a call box. My ears listened for a voice on the small speaker.

“Hello,” said a too familiar voice. I waited for more. I wanted more of her famous script. “Welcome to typing. Choose your username and let’s start your typing lesson” never came.

“Hello?” the familiar disembodied woman’s voice said with more volume.

It was this second hello that brought me to the curbside of my emotions. I spoke into this silver box as my right hand pressed down the talk button.

“Mrs. Beacon,” I started, “I was wondering if I… if you would… oh just forget it. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

“Wait one moment.”

The world’s famous typing teacher walked down her long driveway wearing a blue business suit and black stiletto shoes. She smiled; her perfectly straight, white teeth made her mocha colored skin seem to glow. There was a spring in her step, even at this early morning hour.

I hated her. She was always so pleasant, even if you only typed one correct letter out a series of twenty. She was to quick to point out the positive of your performance. My judgment was clouded. My process of reasoning slowed. My unrequited anger was beyond impulse levels. I needed some action. I needed a plan. I had a plan. Mavis was in my sights. She was at the end of her typing teaching life.

“How may I help you?” she said. She was too friendly and trusting because as she spoke she started opening up the wrought iron gate. My rage boiled over. Instead of speaking the nonsense of a crazed fan I jumped through the opening and grabbed Mrs. Beacon by the arm and led her back towards her house.

“What a firm grip you have. The world should be so lucky to have a typist with a firm grasp on their keyboard. You do type don’t you?” Again, the meaningless platitudes and praise for a simple modern man.

I remained speechless. I wanted her to let her typing keys in her head to type out on her brain my intentions. What good is it to move your fingers to press letters in a sequence if you don’t have an imagination to put with them?

“Are you going to kill me?” she questioned. For the first time I felt Mavis being negative. Her positive world has been coated in Wite-Out. I was showing Mavis the keystrokes of life and they aren’t always happy. I might not have to kill her after all.

She opened the front door and I was immediately confronted with the love of this woman’s chosen profession. In the room of the left side of the foyer she had framed mouse pads from different periods of her life. Some of them even sported autographs from famous authors like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. In one large mahogany frame I saw the items of my discontentment; 12 cardboard CD cases and the plastic, highly polished CD’s of the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing software. They hung on the wall like Elvis’ gold records except these ones had pictures of the typing teacher smiling. She was always so damn positive. “Smile and the world smiles with you” and all that the other happy crap.

An idea came to mind and I spoke for the first time in hours. “Computer,” I mumbled. Mavis Beacon, the typing teacher understood; she knew that I was here to give her a typing lesson. Within a few minutes I was led down the tiled floor of the foyer, up a set of stairs and into beige carpeted room with a large corner fireplace. The walls were adorned with still life paintings, which reflected the simpler things in life; fruit bowls, flower vases and a lawn chair with an idle drink a top a small round table. In a far corner, between a window and a wall of shelves was the most organized desk I ever saw. Across her monitor danced little winged letters, the letters that weren’t angels to me, the letters of the home keys.

I pulled out her high-backed, black leather chair from the desk and forced her to sit down.

I knew her lessons by rote, pop-quiz time Ms. Beacon. “Type this,” I said without even moving my lips. She didn’t look at me as she sat down and reached for the mouse. “A, S, D, F, J, K, L, semi-colon”. Mavis’ fingers moved flawlessly over the keys even as her hands shook. Both of her feet were flat on the floor, her back was board straight and her face was the proper distance from the computer monitor.

“Very good,” I said in my most condescending manner, “now let’s move onto the next lesson. Type G, H, Y, T, U, ID, E, A, T, H and remember your home keys Mavis”. The world famous typing instructor had veered off my lesson plan; she was on the Internet typing a distress message to all of her previous and current typing students.

In my fear of being found out of my unplanned plot to rid the world of a great typing teacher I grabbed her mouse. Without a right click or any other movement besides a tug on the cord. With the computer aid in my hand and I was quick to wrap the thin plastic coated wire around her exposed neck. The cord easily wrapped around Mrs. Beacon’s neck three times. The constant smile on her face turned into a blank expression as I pulled tighter on the wire. I had most of my weight pressing down on her shoulder. She couldn’t move from under her desk. She tried to fend me off with her manicured fingers, she gave me a good comma shaped scar on my left arm. The world’s neatest desk was thrown into the hurricane of her struggles; there were tying manuals and word usage books, CD-ROMs and blank paper strewn everywhere. Not the happy looking piece of office furniture any more. The battle raged on for longer than I would have thought. I felt the last of her stored air escape in her last desperate cry for help. The large egg-shaped device rested on her shoulder as she was slumped in her chair. Her business suit ceased its rhythmic in and out movement and the teacher’s voice was silenced.

The world was a better place to live for the hen peckers and the two-finger typists. I was reveling in my success when I heard the bells from YaHoo Messenger. The bottom part of her screen had a little yellow bar flashing. The mouse, my weapon of convenience, dangled from Mavis’ motionless body, I couldn’t move the cursor to open up the messenger even if I wanted to.

I left the screen flash as I took my last stroll out of the house. I made sure I stopped in the mouse pad museum room and destroyed the shrine to the typing instructions. What a pleasant mood I was in after I saw the ripped cardboard and metallic plastic strewn all over the large room.

It was while I was smashing the frame when a man walked in on me and restrained me from behind. There was no struggle in me; I did what I wanted to do. This man said something about rights but it didn’t sound like the speech as the television police said.

“You have the right to type with an slump in your posture. You have the right to place your head nearer than one and a half feet from the monitor, and you have the right not to use the ‘home keys’.”

I’m sure there was the right for silence, a lawyer, and an Internet free phone call in this man’s voice but I was focused on the last letters typed by Mavis Beacon. Dead woman don’t type, even if they were typing teachers, so I grabbed her arm by the sleeve and with one of her hands I typed the last letters that this typing teacher will ever type… “The End of the lesson”.

Word Count: 2171