Unwritten

I wrote a story today. When I had finished, everything was perfect.

Then I glanced over the page and felt something was wrong.

The characters weren’t people. They were, physically, but inside of them raged wicked monsters of hatred and jealousy, their veins bursting with evil blood. They had to go – so I erased them.

The scenery wasn’t pleasing to the eye – in reality, it was marred by small runs in the canvas, a sad tear here, a screaming voice there. There was nothing of beauty. I changed it. Actually, I decided the story would be better without the scenery so I trashed it altogether.

There were scars. Dark, painful reminders of the hurt and trauma in the past.

Fix them, I thought. So with a needle and thread, I sewed up the wounds. But when I looked at them, no matter how much sewing, the scars showed. I tried so hard to put it behind, hide it – yet it managed to show its ugly self. Out came the eraser.

Some of the events that occurred seemed surreal to me. I didn’t understand how or why they happened, or why people acted the way they did. One thing was certain – they didn’t belong.

And they went too.

The lead character scared me. She was a compassionate friend and caring person. Those were her flaws. People used them to their advantage – walked all over her, left her dying in the debris.

From that point on, I got rid of everything that scared, hurt or upset me.

When I looked over what remained, there was nothing but a blank page.

I erased everything that I didn’t want there, everything that I wished had never happened – I’d erased the whole story.

I looked again, and I couldn’t find myself anymore. I wasn’t there. There was no one looking at the blank page, no one sitting at the writer’s desk.

I’d erased myself in the process.