Keyboard

Word Count: 488, text only

The Keyboard

I started around 1975 and consider myself a full person by 1981 when IBM made the model F. I’ve evolved since. I have no idea where I really exist, this device is where I interface with the world. All of my feelings come from it. I don’t understand, I accept it as how it is.

They call ‘me’ a Keyboard. but I prefer to think of it as my sense organ, a combination of eyes, ears, nose, finger tips, all of the senses except smell and taste. I have the sensitivity of a touch-pad. and I can even hear because the sound waves touch me. One of my family is an engineer and I understand a great deal about computers, keyboards and me from his entry’s. He also has a softer touch than most of the other males. Truthfully I prefer the female members because their fingers are softer.

I am some kind of thing, an entity that has no description. Call me Keyboard if you need a name.

Julie is using me to enter new thoughts now, ‘… best looking, sexiest male in the universe and I’ll love him until …,’ but it’s private. I force errors when her brother James tries to find her diary, he’d tell everyone. He’s not a bad person, a typical teen that hasn’t learned control. And he pounds the keyboard when he plays games, he is far from gentle.

They’ve had to replace me twice for broken keys and them breaking hurts. I deliberately change his input to protect Julie which frustrates him and makes the pounding worse, but it’s worth every bit of the pain because mom and dad are threatening to take me away from him if he doesn’t calm down and he’s starting to change.

Mom spends a lot of time studying family and how to live a good life. I’m in love with her. Dad is a bit rough, but a good man. Moms fingers give me pleasure that I liken to human sex. Her soft touch thrills me and I remember the love notes she and dad have passed, some very intimate, I enjoy thinking the words they use to describe their feelings toward each other. Julie’s touch is similar, but not as smooth, she’s 14 and and her mind is changing to become the woman her mother is.

They’ve changed computers and keyboards several times and I seem to migrate to the new one so I have no idea how long I’ll continue. Maybe as long as there are members of this family using me. I have hopes that I’ll be around for many generations to see them. That would be a wonderful thing.

More from Julia about the new ‘… love of my life, god, his eyes and smile, I could drop into them and spend an eternity …,’ sorry, private.

For now I’ll enjoy being the unknown, but needed, member of this family.