Lucient

Lucient hacked away at his keyboard in his apartment. Thirty years in the business, and he still hasn't gotten over the habit of slamming each finger into the key just to type, even though he was typing on a relatively soft yielding computer keyboard and not a typewriter that he had been using. The editor wanted a proof copy by the next morning, and it was only just an hour ago that Lucient managed to get the interview all wrapped up. Typing into the wordprocessor---so different from the past. The words seemed to come out more readily, and felt less grave.

But some things stayed the same. His writing companion for the last three decades was still with him. His old tin coffee mug. It was something from his days serving in the military, a part of his mess-kit. Damn cup went with him through the war and back, and had even saved his life once through somehow managing to deflect a bullet just through happenstance. Even now, there was a very awkward dent in the tin coffee mug that he refused to straighten out. That dent had an air of nostalgia, just like the typewriter that had been sitting in its case on the floor near the leg of his large writing desk in the apartment.

The apartment itself was as old and nostalgia inducing itself. It was part of the massive building programme that the government had embarked on just after the war as a way of housing the veterans, a part of the ``service to country'' bill that was signed into law by the parliament after a strong grassroots movement by peaceniks and veterans alike for better welfare for those who had sacrificed their youth and sanity to fight for their country. Lucient had covered that event as it occurred; peaceful protests all over the country, getting more concentrated and heated as one got closer to parliament house itself. A few of the old news-clippings of the protests were pinned on the walls in the apartment, yellowing a little with age.

Lucient took another sip from his tin coffee mug and continued to hammer the keys to his story. He had a table back in the press office, but he much preferred his apartment for all writing purposes. There was just that magical something that was captured by his apartment that his office desk did not have, and for him, that magical something was more important than conforming to some rules put in place to control. As a senior correspondent, it was one of the perks.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 15-Mar-2014 12:16:33)