sallenmark · upper road, no. 7
keeper · w. lothner
open · thursdays and saturdays · 10 to four
twenty-nine machines, all small. the collection began with one — a remington portable found in a coal-cellar by walter lothner, then a boy of nine, in 1951. it never typed a comma after that morning. the rest came slowly: bequeathed, salvaged, traded for chickens.
the room is the front parlour of a tall thin house on upper road. it smells of cold metal and slow ribbon-oil. mrs. lothner, who keeps it now in her brother's stead, will tell you about the unsent letter still rolled into machine number twelve. she will not show you the letter.
on the wall above the cases hangs a smaller framed page from machine number four, on which someone — not walter — once typed only the word yes, two hundred and thirty-one times in a column. asked about it, mrs. lothner says only that her brother is in the garden.
field-note — the ribbons are still inked. tap any key gently and the hammer rises, considers, falls back. nothing is written. it is the smallest sound in the room.