Free to Write

The keys made an ominous tapping sound, “Clang, gonk, dah-dong!” I somehow knew it was him at the keyboard, aggressively knocking at the keys, and not the wind shaking the windowpanes.

“Why did I agree to this assignment,” I questioned myself. The answer was more than the need for money. It was curiosity that had urged me to Amity Street in Baltimore to take up the night watchman’s duties.

Same as each night, I had expected I would find him at his desk, but no more. So, I proceeded to the supervisor’s office, as the sounds were coming from that room.

Ahha! There he was, banging on the keys and watching the words take shape on a note-book file on the screen. His curly longish hair was flailing over his ample forehead, for he was concentrating very hard.

Sensing my presence, he uttered, “A dream within a dream. My heart is touched. In this contraption, I could so madly indulge. Far superior than my paper scroll and quill pens.”

I bent gently to see what he was writing.

"'Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door-
Only this, and nothing more."

“Repeat performance,“ he explained. “Learning this contraption. All my soul within me burning, I shall not say nevermore, I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing—Tell me, I implore, how this can outpour on scroll?“

I turned on the printer and handed him a copy of his writing.

“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “You sainted man! There is balm in Gilead.”

Ever since that time, my nightly association with Mr. Poe put in me the exhilarating effect of wanting to write.