In The Presence of Greatness

Writing Prompt from ENGL 015:

On a cold crisp December day when I was unpacking, I found to my surprise a leftover. It was a special treat that was left behind by the previous tenants. From the looks of the box, it did not contain anything of importance. I walked over to the dilapidated box and cautiously lifted a rippled cardboard flap open. Inside the stale smelling box was an old typewriter covered haphazardly with old books. The spine on most of the books was beyond repair. As I reached for the top book, the wind blew hard against the plate glass windows sending a chill up my back. The tip of my index finger touched the canvas cover as the chill met the nape of my neck. In gold lettering was the familiar name of T. S. Elliot. Digging deeper into the box I found other notables like Faulkner, Emerson, and Frost. The books immediately held a primary significance to me as the thought of my macaroni and cheese was burning on the stove. At the bottom of the box was a large green book holding the same canvas cover and broken spine. This book was different though, it had papers jutting out of it. On the papers were typed poems. I delicately fumbled through them taking great caution not to rip the aging pages. One poem stuck out to me as if screaming to my memory. It was about a surgeon, at the bottom there was the name Emily Dickinson inscribed into the papyrus. My heart was pounding on my rib cage and my arterial walls were straining to keep it together. I was in Amherst, Massachusetts but how could I be in her house? The cold must be getting to me; maybe it was the house of a mysterious lover? Maybe she was not a social recluse after all. Like Sylvia Plath’s writing I found Dickinson most intriguing. I sat down and began reading the poems like you read a parachute manual. All the while I had forgotten about the typewriter.