The strange keyboard
One day two friends discovered a beautiful old car unlocked with a strange keyboard sitting atop its roof. Alongside was a handwritten note directing its reader to place the keyboard in the car’s console then to type.
The car’s silver body glistened as they obeyed the instructions, uncertainly typing a command for the engine to start.
Nothing happened.
They tried other words that meant ‘start’ yet, still nothing.
The friends wrote a polite greeting but there was more silence. Repeated questions were equally fruitless and scouring the interior for clues also yielded nothing.
In exasperation the men typed something dull about the weather. The car stumbled forward.
Stung with surprise, they wrote again and the car continued moving.
Excitedly one steered the mysterious car while the other typed.
The experiment gathered pace as they tested phrases.
Sometimes the beautiful vehicle would propel forward at alarming speed, occasionally soar and sometimes halt.
By sunset a pattern seemed to emerge. It had been there all along, only hidden like invisible ink. But surely - they thought - it was too fantastical to be possible.
Could the car really know what was true?
The more they wrote the more awestruck they became and hatched a perfect plan to use the car’s startling knowledge for their fortune.
The friends disappeared from sight to change future history. Shoes would soon be rare, baldness revered and cars would fly (but not in the way imagined) and other things most wouldn’t believe.
