In front of an old typewriter, with a faded finish upon the keys after years of use, Stanislav sat on a folding chair that was nearly as old and as worn as the typewriter itself. He recalled his parents buying the machine, along with paper and ink, when he was learning to spell his name in English. The keys, as the stared down at them at that time, were like a code he had to master, to use to type more than his name on a virginal sheet of white paper. And now, he though, I have indeed mastered this code, for he could write sentences that, when compounded, became paragraphs, and the paragraphs themselves extended over pages to form a novel with distinct characters and a plot that lacked in banality.
Stanislav turned away from the typewriter for a moment and toward the window to his left. His roommate�s and his apartment stood on the sixth floor of a large apartment complex, overlooking a city street that remained congested until they slept. Opening the window, for August was passing by with its turgid, torpid afternoons of lassitude, Stanislav looked down at the street � the gray sidewalk, the people, and the cars that covered the asphalt until its blackness became invisible. But, then, he sat back down on the folding chair, leaving the window open, and faced the typewriter again.
Upon a new white sheet of paper, he typed �Chapter 10� in bold-face type. This, he thought to himself, is going to be the end, after reaching a climax after nine chapters of anger, disillusionment, and laconic dialogue. Thus, he typed �Chapter 10� and leaned back in his chair to cogitate about an ending that would escape the trite trap of mawkishness and sentimentality.
The chair creaked at its rusted joints from the weight Stanislav exerted upon it. How to end it, he thought, recalling the protagonist. The balmy summer day spread throughout the room, as he stared outside at the vibrant, polychromatic urban landscape � his only world of familiarity. Although the trees across the street lost their green foliage, which used to remind him of loose pieces of silk in the breeze at one point, the potted plants of red geraniums, sitting along on a stoop, compensated for the deaths of the once-glorious trees.
The deaths of trees and red geraniums, he thought, laughing slightly. Stanislav despised plants, and, indeed, never owned a potted flower in his life. In fact, the sight of geraniums � in bunches, atop a slender stem � reminded him of fire after an explosion. The red blossoms, all huddled together, grew and became vibrant, as one watered the dirt beneath. But, flowers � especially red flowers like geraniums and roses � he did not care to write about.
What did he care to write about? Stanislav removed that page � a white sheet that transformed from a virgin to a whore after minutes of his typing. He placed another sheet in the typewriter and re-typed �Chapter 10.� This time, he vowed, such a foolish topic like geraniums would not surface. But, what was to surface, to serve as an apt ending to a work of grandiose proportions? Thus, slowly, he typed �The� upon the page to ignite a start for his thoughts. The day, the car, the boy, the fire, he thought. The fire raged in his mind � a conflagration of epic proportions that became independent from his control. Control, control, control. With his hands tied behind his back with a silk necktie, he felt like a prisoner, captured and forced to the floor by the constraints of iron shackles that provided him no more freedom than a terra cotta pot does for a geranium.
He stopped and removed his hands from the typewriter, as if the metal suddenly heated. Geraniums, he thought for a moment and chuckled. What irony. How will the plant continue to grow when its roots will hit the walls of the pot someday? But what did he know about plants, or even fire, for that matter?
He tore out that page and put another in its place. This time, however, he merely typed �10� at the top. Ten � that was it. Ten, he thought, and recalled when he first typed his name on a typewriter onto a sheet of paper. The English alphabet confused him then, since the characters had different form from those in the Russian. He typed with one finger � his index finger � and watched the characters appear on the white sheet like bruises on his flesh. Or, like wounds from gunshots after a drive-by shooting. But, his name was too long, and the letters were at various points on the keyboard, out of order from the traditional format of the alphabet. He recalled typing the final �A� before the last letter, �V.� However, upon typing the �V,� he looked at his name on the paper. In nine letters, the ink faded from a sharp shade of onyx to nothing. The �V� barely showed upon the page. He looked for the �S� again to re-type his name with more success, but, although he pressed the key, he realized that the ink ran out.
The typewriter again stared at Stanislav, with �10� as the only characters upon the page. Perhaps I will, indeed, be able to fully type my name upon this sheet, he thought. He knew the location of the �S� and could use all ten fingers now, and he typed his name in seconds. But, the �V� was barely visible on the white, appearing like three black dots after the �A.� He glanced about the room for another sheet, but he, instead, noticed that his roommate left a lighter on the adjacent table. Taking the lighter nonchalantly, he held it near the paper, watching the white burn black from the small flame. Soon, both �10� and �Stanislav� disintegrated, and Stanislav stood to close the window.