Work Text:
...the search for young Amanda Bean's murderer persists. e ish w w w W W W WWW
The "w" key always got jammed on his typewriter. That stupid little "w" key. Any sentence revolving around wishes or wholeness or women was a complete nightmare. Reese would jam the key as hard as he could, clink clink clink and yet still no "w" would emerge.
Although, he had many problems with his typewriter. Most of the black keys were horribly smudged over, their letters either faded, or gone altogether. "A" had been the first to go. Its ink was dark and illustrious as smoky ash, yet the measly white letter pasted on the key barely lasted a year. Slowly, most of the vowels dropped out. "E" followed "A", "I" soon was incorporated in this group, and so on and so forth. Soon, over half of Reese's keys were completely incomprehensible.
The other writers at the Rainy Day Paper didn't understand why he continued to use the thing, and were very vocal about his irrationality in the matter. But they didn't understand. It really didn't matter if the letters were visible or not, Reese knew each key by heart anyways.
"Just get a computer, everyone's got one." The writers would say.
"What for?" Reese would reply.
"You're incorrigible." They'd say. Then they'd swivel back around with their oval glasses and go-ts and partially unbuttoned button up shirts thinking themselves as the second Jesus Christ because their writing was just so inciteful.
Reese rubbed his temples.
"Rough day, son?" The ravenette glanced up from his typewriter, peering out the punctured window screen to see a grey-mustachioed man delivering the mail. He was rather reedy, with a large aquiline nose and a narrow face, though his long sideburns filled out his hollowed cheeks. His royal blue mailman uniform was pressed without a single stitch out of line, and only a small, yellow daffodil sat in his breast pocket.
"Not particularly." Reese responded plainly. The man only nodded his head and returned his gaze to the mailbox. After another minute, the mailman still lingered on the rickety porch. He seemed to be digging for something, another bill or letter perhaps.
The ravenette returned his gaze to the bloody black splotches of "W"s on his paper. A soft wrapping pittered on the punctured window frame. Reese raised his focus once more. A singular veiny, liver spotted hand was holding a tiny piece of candy wrapped in golden paper. His hand shook a little bit, causing the golden paper to reflect and dance in the rays of sunlight peeking through the porch's holey roof.
"Have a piece of candy kid, th' always make me smile." His smile made the wee ends of his grey mustache perk up. It created a curve in itself, like a harrier, much more inviting version of the Cheshire Cat's open grin.
Reese quickly opened the shoddy screen and delicately pinched the tiny candy from his hand. The screen slanted slightly, and forced Reese to keep it up by his forearm as the mailman's hand slowly retracted.
"Thank you." He said quietly. The old man readjusted his royal blue uniform, and tucked a few loose letters into his patchy brown satchel.
"You take care now son, God bless." He called over his shoulder, onto the next dozen houses looping around the tiny strip.The little white mail truck he had driven up in loitered on the street, partially on the curb and partially on the sewer drain. The poor thing sputtered and spat, and just when it seemed that the road had ended, the engine would rejuvenate itself, and a black puff of smoke would be coughed out the tailpipe. Long lines of chipped paint ran across its sides, cheery blue hues crumbling into industrial grey metal. "Eureka its mail!" Was scrawled across the top in beautiful cursive lettering.
Reese huffed out a laugh at the name. For however stupid he thought this town's name was, its citizens always managed to make it a whole lot stupider. He supposed that this wasn't intentional, though, and the people of Eureka seemed to take a lot of pride in their town. For the short duration Reese had been there - 1 month, 2 weeks, 2 days, 5 hours, 36 minutes, and 46 seconds but who's counting? - it seemed like there was another monument to town pride right around the corner.
The tired writer returned to his work, continuing to mash "w" as hard as humanly possible to create some sort of conceivable message. He kept trying, knowing full well that his efforts were in vain, but refusing to give up because those stupid pompous writers just couldn't win. The mental image of them sneering, with their disgusting facial hair, and overdramatic coffee orders "I'll have the double caramel macchiato with only one and three eighths shot of cinnamon chemicals, and leave half of it empty so I can add in my own special artisanal liquids!", was too much for the man to take. He shook his head.
Reese was far too overworked and much too underpaid to be expending this much energy on besting the people in his head. There really was no reason to try so hard, his boss was terrible, his coworkers were insufferable, he worked for a failing newspaper company, for christ's sake! But he did anyway, because what else would there be to do, it filled up the hours he supposed. Perhaps hours that could've been spent working on himself, or finding friends, but at least it was a distraction from whatever else was going on in the world. He put his head down on the desk.
He turned his cheek over the splintery wood to gaze at the tiny candy he'd received. The mailman had shown him a rare sort of unconditional kindness, one of which many only experience once in a lifetime. Reese hoped this wasn't his "once in a lifetime kindness", because that would be very very sad.
The wrapping glimmered under the dim sunlight, and shone brightly as Reese turned it around in his fingers. He undid the piece of plastic to retrieve the sticky candy inside. It smelled partially of brown leather, probably from the mailman's bag, but also of sweet old toffee. Reese popped the tiny thing in his mouth. He tried to chew a little, but the candy was far too hard to do so with ease. He resigned himself to lightly sucking on it, moving it around his teeth and tongue. He promptly went to sleep after that, slouched over his desk, with the w key still standing smudged.