After a few minutes, blood began to flow through his cramped muscles. Todd looked at his hands. They were flexing with eagerness to get back to work.

“All right, boys,” he said. “Just let me get a sip of—”

But his hands jerked forward—like a dowsing rod, Todd thought—and began clattering at the keys again, and did not stop until it was too dark for Todd to see and then, after he had turned his lamp on, until Todd himself was too tired to see.

*  *  *

Todd woke in his chair again, but what woke him this time was not the ache in his neck, or the light of the morning sun, but his hands. He looked down. The things were virtually drumming a tattoo on the table.

Todd looked at his right hand. “Thank you, Thing,” he said, but it didn’t sound that funny and it also put an image into his head of his two hands, severed from his body, typing away quite happily while Todd sat there aghast, blood pumping from his useless wrists.

“I need to eat,” he said to his hands, not feeling as dumb as he would have expected. “I need to take a dump, I need to wash, and I need to sleep in my own bed.”

At once his hands relaxed. Todd lifted his arms and examined them. They seemed somehow his again.

*  *  *

An hour later, full of oatmeal, showered but not shaved, and rested after a brief nap, Todd found himself at the typewriter again. His hands virtually flew at the keys, like he was a deranged virtuoso pianist performing the concert of his life. As his fingers typed and typed and more and more sheets of paper were added to the pile, Todd was reminded of a movie he’d seen with Janis—a movie Janis had made him go and see with her—some English crud about a dancer who put on some magic ballet shoes and couldn’t stop dancing. At the time Todd had entertained himself, if not Janis, by laughingly asking why the dancer didn’t just shout, “SOMEBODY GET THESE DAMN SHOES OFF ME!” at the audience, but that too didn’t seem so funny now. Or so Todd thought as his fingers battered away at the keys.

When he was able, as he was slotting another sheet of paper into the machine, Todd stole a glance at his fingers. They were red and swollen, as though he had been climbing a rock face with them. He wondered if he could get a bowl of warm water to bathe them in but the moment the paper was in the typewriter his hands were off again, like seagulls whirling relentlessly around and around.