The Little Muse who Lives in The Typewriter

The Little Muse who Lives in The Typewriter - Image courtesy of Fiddle Oak

Master had instructed me to never enter his study. 

The day I first showed up for work at the manor, he said I was to clean and tidy up the whole house everyday but that his study was strictly out of bounds.

And that of course means I have snooped around the study on every occasion that has since presented itself to me innocuously.

My first few visits were mostly uneventful. It is a lovely study, no doubt. Shelves of beautiful books run up the walls. The French windows on the far end open onto a vast garden that gives way to sprawling meadows cloaked in a million shades of green, unfolding lazily to kiss the horizon. 

Master’s desk sits in the centre of the room, buried under reams of paper, holding a typewriter, an eclectic collection of pens and pencils scattered haphazardly on the desk, and sundry other items. I sometimes read through the pages and wonder aloud how such lousy prose could earn Master his reputation as a famed connoisseur of tales.

It was only on my fourth or fifth visit did I discover the little muse who lives in the typewriter. She thinks my name is Psst because that is how she addresses me whenever she wants to grab my attention. I correct her each time but to no avail. 

Often she asks me to fetch her a cup of lavender tea, and I do. It usually makes her happy. In return, she shows me a few tricks. My favourite is the one in which she snaps her fingers and dances on the keys. And when she does that, the words on the pages on the desk start to tremble as if they are in an attempt to break free from the story that binds them. And she shuffles and reshuffles and rearranges the words so that when I read Master’s story again, it is no longer his because it is no longer a story and instead, it is now a tale converted into magic. Just as how his publisher would like it, she says.

I tell her he never acknowledges her contribution to his work. And she nods in understanding and says that that is quite alright. As long as her stories are alive and well for all to savour, she says, it does not matter who claims to have written them.