Wherein the Gemini Star Twins, Castor the mortal & Pollux the immortal, are imagined as rivals instead of indivisible brothers.  The Universe hangs in the balance as they come face to face with the Author of all our stories…

          The Old Woman sits hunched over her typewriter, spelling.  Spelling–the just-so casting of letters and signs.  Just so, and the spell is cast.

Thin brown fingers, gnarled twigs of ancient oak, tap a glacial rhythm across the keys to her deep mumbling hum.  Entranced, transposing, she is at peace with the slow, steady heartbeat of her keys.

Her shadowed room shelters an elemental awareness, in thrall.  Deep inhale, silence.  Deep exhale, silence.  The sentient space echoes her unspoken prayers.  Whatever is she typing there, resolute in her galactic deck chair, gazing out on her view of the Multiverse?  She only dreams, spinning and weaving an endless tale of tales…

“Pssst!  HEY!  You!”  Boney fingers twist away from the keys and the Ancient One’s neck crackles as she anchors around to gawk, open-mouthed.  “Yeah! Found. You. At. Last!” the intruder jabs his finger five times in her direction, childlike.

Clawing her chairback for support, the Crone stutters to her feet and faces the despoiler of her Spelling.  Hips, knees, ankles screaming, she’s long since lost her voice.  One hand strains upward and signals the wretch to speak.

“Can’t even believe I’m finally standing here!” the disheveled youth blats into an electrified room.  The old one arches her eyebrows, body rigid, commanding more from him.

“Okay, okay.  I’m Castor.  I’m relieving you.  And don’t look at me that way Grandma.  You’re lucky my evil, immortal twin didn’t get here first.  You been hogging the keys on this Big T long enough now!  How many years you been at it anyway, a couple six billion?  Just show me where your story’s at and the relief team will be along shortly to take you, umm, wherever…” he shrugs.

The ageless author lowers her chin and sinks back down into her seat, massaging her hands and gazing intently at the typewriter.  “Hey hey, Grandma,” the trickster winks and dares to step in closer.  “So this is it, right?  The Big Story?  Piece o’ cake, let’s see what we got.”

Castor leans over the legendary machine studying its arcane keys.  And gapes when he zeroes in on the carriage, sideways unfurling a measureless, horizontal scroll of paper.  It’s a seamless tickertape, a telling of all Beings in a stream of esoteric signs and symbols…

“Whoa, Grandma!  Wait.  A.  Minute.  What’s goin’ on here?  You busted something, or what?” he blurts, narrow-eyed.  He reaches for the Margin Release key, unhinged from its lever.  “You been typing outside the margin all this time?!  Are you demented?!”

Before the old woman can react, Castor deftly reconnects the key and is about to slam the carriage back to a new line when an iron grip lashes forward and stays his hand.  “Hold up there, little brother!  Slow down and let’s talk this situation through, shall we?”

“Ahh, shite, Pollux?!  You show up NOW?  Oh, right.  Of course you do, Mama’s precious immortal boy…  But I got here first, you hear me?  Always cuttin’ in on me,” Castor whinges.  “Always Mother’s favorite…  But Grandma here’s DONE!  You can see that, right?”  Look at what she’s been up to all this time!  One nonstop run-on sentence, that’s the whole nonsense story?!

“Castor, I need you to shut up and please listen closely.  Grandma, as you call her, has been spinning the stories of life in this Universe since Day One; you understand what I’m saying?  You might as well call her Ms Universe, okay little brother?”  And you thought you could just drop in and take over that job?  What, exactly, did you think you’d accomplish here?  Do you have any idea what would have happened if you’d actually returned that carriage?  Now put that key back the way it was, immediately.”    The three-way silence is stentorian.

And then, three things happen simultaneously:

• Flame-faced, Castor flings the carriage back to a new line, just managing to choke out “Y’know Pollux, I’ve had all I can take of your immortal holier-than–“
• The Ancient One and Pollux gasp in the sudden void
• The Big Bang erupts as the Great Black Hole event horizon of the Universe collapses in on itself

Whereupon, it is all no matter anyway.

__________________

In Gratitude to Douglas Adams, as was.  “My universe is my eyes and my ears.  Anything else is hearsay.”     Opined in his Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Constellation Gemini

For those uninitiated in Typewriter Mystique, the first 3 minutes of this tutorial will introduce you to the fervor and the facts used in the story:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usO-c1MZfNs