Hachet - from Will Macmillan Jones
West Coast Eisteddfod Short Story Competition 2014
Hachet
Type, type, type. That’s all she seemed to do. All day long, Type, type, type, bloody type. What she found to type about, I’ve no idea. I suppose someone had an idea because she kept on blathering some rubbish about a hachette and a contract, but it didn’t mean much to me.
You see I’m a chippie. By that I don’t mean I have a fish and chip shop, I’m a chippie – a carpenter. A proper trade: making things, things you can touch, stroke, admire. What was it she did? Nothing. Just bloody type, type, type all day long. Her keyboard would rattle all day long, sometimes into the evening, too. Even in the middle of the night I’ve been woken up by the sound of her tapping at the keys. Type, type, type. I mean not even paper came out of it, paper with words written on it, you know? Nothing. Just letters on a screen, which always faded when I went to look at them over her shoulder. Nothing there.
I asked her, I did. I almost begged her. Get a job, a proper job, and stop all this rubbish. Do you know what answer I got? I’ve got a contract she said. Well I know about contracts. You get them: you go to work: you get paid every week, or sometimes monthly. Contract? We never saw any money coming in from a contract: just type, type, type, bloody type.
I’d had enough that night. It was long after ten o’clock at night and I’d been up since five am working my backside off to bring in some money, because she didn’t. I came home late, I was exhausted that day. There was no tea ready, no food prepared, she was just sat at her desk going type, type, type. I shouldn’t have done it. I know I shouldn’t have done it. But I just cracked, and the hatchet was in my work belt. It was so easy, just to bring it down in anger. Well, I was sorry at once, and bound her wrists up, put her hands in ice, and got her to the hospital as fast as I could. They’ve sewn her hands back on, got to wait and see.
Then it happened. She was in the hospital, not at home and every time I went to bed, do you know what I could hear? Type, type, type from her study. And I knew I was alone in the house. But as soon as the lights went out, type, type, type.
After the third night I couldn’t stand it any more. So I had the biggest drink I could, and went in to the room she used as a study. The computer was turned on even though I had taken all the plugs out of the wall that first night. I was fair shaking, I tell you, as I walked across to her desk. I looked at the keyboard, but it was silent and still. Then the letters started to appear on the screen. How could it do that? It was unplugged, no one was typing! I bent forward to read the screen because I can be a bit short sighted after peering at the numbers on rulers for work for thirty years.
My hands fell onto the keyboard as I leant forward and then I couldn’t move them away. What was that message on the screen? C O M E I N S I D E. The letters blurred, and then suddenly I was looking at the keyboard from the wrong side. The inside of the screen. How do I get out? HOW DO I GET OUT?
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updated by @will-macmillan-jones: 02/13/16 01:46:00AM
