Monday’s Finish the Story – “Relationship Secrets” – Flash Fiction

This is my story for Barbara Beacham’s Monday Finish the Story weekly challenge.  Each week, Barbara provides an image and a first sentence, and the task is to complete the story in 100-150 words.  Click on the InLinkz frog below to read others’ stories and, if you’d like, to add your own!

Photo by Barbara W. Beacham

Relationship Secrets

(1^st sentence + 150 words)

The old typewriter had a mind of its own.  It refused to produce the stories she wanted.

She tried to sneak up on it, typing at odd times of day and switching between poetry and prose.

She tried to placate it, having it serviced by a technician who specialized in such things.  She whispered compliments about the delicate look of the keys and the sonorous “bring” at the ends of lines.

The machine would not be appeased.  It wrote drivel.  She thought maybe it laughed at her when she turned her back—a subtle sound—a settling of the keys.

Before long, she was begging.  The typewriter should have known that desperation is dangerous.  When it failed to respond to her pleas and stood unyielding under her tears, her desperation hardened into anger.

The typewriter found itself in the trash bin.  There, in the dark, among the coffee grounds and crumpled tissues, it told its secret stories to itself.