Letters formed, faint but legible:
BALANCE DUE: TONIGHT. SIGN BELOW.
REPRINT LAST CHECK? Y/N
As if in answer, a single piece of paper auto-fed. No command. No prompt. Just the print head warming up. epson tmu 220b
Then he unplugged the power cord. The blinking stopped. Letters formed, faint but legible: BALANCE DUE: TONIGHT
The paper advance knob turned by itself. Three inches of blank paper ejected. And on it, in the same violent dot-matrix font, now etched deep enough to feel with your fingernail: in the same violent dot-matrix font