A Keystroke

On this lazy Saturday afternoon in Office, I am typing away softly but continuously on my Laptop, as if it mattered to some one. The place is mostly silent, save for the distant chatter of the IBM maintenance engineer explaining away at the phone, the clatter of the fax machine, a couple of phones ringing softly but with the distinct quality of urgency characteristic of Land phones.

The place is mostly still, as if in a photograph, save for the weirdly moving set of fingers on my key board carefully placing itself on each key one at a time. I have never observed the key board of my Lenovo T61 so intently, as i do now. It may be silent, may be passive, may be harmless, and may never seek my attention !! But there it stays, in its own world with the dynamism of a small city where each key is a tower standing beside the other.as if with a life of its own.

I wonder whether the keys compete among themselves, for fun, or for sake of social superiority, claiming to be the key that is touched most often by their master, the owner of the T61. I wonder whether it matters to them, who is typing, whether they care about the nails in my fingers , or do they love the sweet scent of the nail polish when a female colleague types her password carefully with the elegance of a queen. I wonder whether they enjoy the rare moments that the user decides to give the keyboard a glance once in a while, just to make sure he has hit the right key, and whether such moments call for celebrations or parties in the key board land!!

Even as I type these lines, i can almost feel the keys smiling with joy, because i am typing this looking at the keyboard and not the monitor. This may have been the longest i ever looked at the keys ever since i owned this device. its strange but true. The keys certainly have character and identity. Each key is different from the other and cannot be replaced. Its almost as if each key has its own story . The smile of the "S" , the boredom of a lazy "Z" or even the obesity of the "B". Each key is different. very different. It feels like the "space bar " is the mother, the base of all keys and yet silent without anything written on it at all. "Ctrl" looks like a father, in control of things all the time, but never in control of the keys themselves. These Keys are friends, brothers, sisters and have already bonded. You cant separate them, unless you are a sadist and don't care at all.

Now as i look closer i see a cube of sugar somewhere between the keys J and H . I had never noticed this cube before. I feel it might not have been there for long, or I would have seen it. I am not even sure if its a cube of sugar or a small tiny shiny stone. For I somehow feel if it was sugar the ants would have found it before me. There is just such a huge world below these keys, a world that I didn't know existed. A world that I didn't care for. But as u know, in the end , it doesn't even matter.