Nightmare At 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson Page A

pen.
    He sits down before his typewriter.
    He inserts a sheet of paper and begins tapping on the keys.
    His fingers are large. He hits two keys at once. The two strikers are jammed together. They stand in the air, hovering impotently over the black ribbon.
    He reaches over in disgust and slaps them back. They separate, flap back into their separate berths. He starts typing again.
    He hits a wrong key. The start of a curse falls from his lips, unfinished. He snatches up the round eraser and rubs the unwanted letter from the sheet of paper.
    He drops the eraser and starts to type again. The paper has shifted on the roller. The next sentences are on a level slightly above the original. He clenches a fist, ignores the mistake.
    The machine sticks. His shoulders twitch, he slams a fist on the space bar with a loud curse. The carriage jumps, the bell tinkles. He shoves the carriage over and it crashes to a halt.
    He types faster. Three keys stick together. He clenches his teeth and whines in helpless fury. He smacks the type arms. They will not come apart. He forces them to separate with bent, shaking fingers. They fall away. He sees that his fingers are smudged with ink. He curses out loud, trying to outrage the very air for revenge on the stupid machine.
    Now he hits the keys brutally, fingers falling like the stiff claws of a derrick. Another mistake, he erases savagely. He types still faster. Four keys stick together.
    He screams.

    He slams his fist on the machine. He clutches at the paper and rips it from the machine in jagged pieces. He welds the fragments in his fist and hurls the crumpled ball across the room. He beats the carriage over and slams the cover down on the machine.
    He jumps up and glares down.
    "You fool!" he shouts with a bitter, revolted voice. "You stupid, idiotic, asinine fool!"
    Scorn drips from his voice. He keeps talking, he drives himself into a craze.
    "You're no damn good. You're no damn good at all. I'm going to break you in pieces. I'm going to crack you into splinters, melt you, kill you! You stupid, moronic, lousy goddamn machine!"
    He quivers as he yells. And he wonders, deep in the self-isolated recesses of his mind whether he is killing himself with anger, whether he is destroying his system with fury.
    He turns and stalks away. He is too outraged to notice the cover of the machine slip down and hear the slight whirring of metal such as he might hear if the keys trembled in their slots.
    He is shaving. The razor will not cut. Or the razor is too sharp and cuts too much.
    Both times a muffled curse billows through his lips. He hurls the razor on the floor and kicks it against the wall.
    He is cleaning his teeth. He draws the fine silk floss between his teeth. It shreds off. A fuzzy bit remains in the gap. He tries to press another piece down to get that bit out. He cannot force the white thread down. It snaps in his fingers.
    He screams. He screams at the man in the mirror and draws back his hand, throws the floss away violently. It hits the wall.

    It hangs there and waves in the rush of angry breeze from the man.
    He has torn another piece of floss from the container. He is giving the dental floss another chance. He is holding back his fury. If the floss knows what is good for it, it will plunge down between the teeth and draw out the shredded bit immediately.
    It does. The man is mollified. The systematic juices leave off bubbling, the fires sink, the coals are scattered.
    But the anger is still there, apart. Energy is never lost; a primal law.
    He is eating.
    His wife places a steak before him. He picks up the knife and fork and slices. The meat is tough, the blade is dull.
    A spot of red puffs up in the flesh of his cheeks. His eyes narrow. He draws the knife through the meat. The blade will not sever the browned flesh.
    His eyes widen. Withheld tempest tightens and shakes him. He saws at the meat as though to give it one last opportunity to yield.
    The meat will not yield.
    He howls. "God