IBM Selectric

The IBM Selectric is the beige electric typewriter in Thad Beaumont’s university office that turns from an ordinary writing tool into the material channel of George Stark’s influence. During a spell of sparrow visions and pain in Thad’s hand, its keys draw him into a trance: the machine temporarily quiets the supernatural symptoms, then produces Stark’s threats, including the revelation that Stark has reached Thad’s home and taken his family hostage.

An Ordinary Instrument Becomes Unsettling

Thad has recently grown almost hypnotically conscious of writing instruments, large and small. Looking at the beige IBM Selectric, he wonders whether a different version of himself might inhabit each one, like evil genies in bottles. The thought makes the typewriter more than office equipment: it belongs to a growing field of objects through which writing, identity, and Stark’s presence seem entangled.

The Selectric is also tied to a stray, involuntary thought. Thad finds himself thinking that he must write a note to Mrs. Fenton, although she has been far from his mind. The notion is absurdly out of step with the living office around him; he remarks inwardly that a Ouija board would now be more appropriate than an electric typewriter for contacting the dead. The unexplained note foreshadows the machine’s abrupt role in producing words Thad does not intend.

The Typewriter and the Sparrow Trance

When sparrows descend on Bennett Hall, Thad feels an itch and burning in his hand and understands, with mounting certainty, that he can stop both the birds and the sensation only by using the Selectric. The impulse to sit before it feels horribly natural. Meanwhile, the vision in his mind shifts to the Ridgeway neighborhood of his childhood in 1960: the landscape becomes a dead country, and the sparrows rise together until their wheeling mass darkens the sky.

Thad does not see the real flock lift from the wires, infirmary, and Bennett Hall and disappear westward. His attention is confined to the childhood vision as he sits down at the machine, deepening his trance. One thought nevertheless remains clear: Stark may make him sit at the keys, but Thad believes he can refuse to write the book. If he holds to that refusal, he feels, Stark will fall apart or vanish. The typewriter thus marks a contest between bodily compulsion and Thad’s attempt to retain control over what is written.

Messages in Letter Gothic

The instant Thad turns on the Selectric, the hand-itch and sparrow vision stop. The trance does not. Instead, a new imperative presses on him: something must be written, and the demand seems to come from deep within his mind. He rolls in a sheet of paper and places his fingers on the home row, though he has long since given up touch-typing. His fingers tremble, then withdraw until only the index fingers remain. Stark, like Thad, appears to type by hunt and peck, and the Selectric is not Stark’s preferred instrument.

Despite a lingering tug of pain when he moves his left fingers, Thad’s index fingers slowly type a message. The Selectric’s Letter Gothic type-ball sets six capitalized words on the page: “GUESS WHERE I CALLED FROM, THAD?” The words snap Thad back into sharp awareness. He understands their implication: Stark has called from Thad’s house and has Liz and the twins.

Thad tries to rise, without knowing where he means to go, but pain flares in his hand and forces him back into the chair. Before he can make sense of his actions, his hands return to the keys and type another warning: “TELL ANYBODY AND THEY DIE”. As soon as he finishes, the pain, itch, watched feeling, birds, and entranced state vanish. Stark, too, is gone. The machine has served as the point of contact, but the episode offers no suggestion that Thad has freely chosen either message.

The Torn Sheet and the Machine’s Significance

The threat remains on the paper, glaring up from the Selectric. Thad tears the sheet from the roller and crumples it without looking around to check how close Steve Harrison is. He feels insane and waits for Harrison to ask what he wrote or why he removed the page so quickly. When no question comes, Thad says he is finished and dismisses the need to write Mrs. Fenton’s note, claiming the files will be returned before she knows they are missing.

The machine’s role is sharply double. Turning it on relieves the symptoms that draw Thad to it, yet sitting at its keys allows Stark to dictate a warning that changes Thad’s understanding of the immediate danger. The Selectric is not merely a tool used to record a decision: in this encounter, its material actions—the switch, paper, and keys—structure the passage from involuntary sensation to typed evidence. Thad’s attempt to conceal the sheet ends the episode’s visible record, but not the knowledge the words have forced on him.