The Magic Eraser

By, Wendiann Alfieri

The magic eraser

“Mrs. Brinned stood defiantly in front of a huge house. It was quite a cute house, but it was not meant for living any more. In fact, it was no longer a house.

It was now a business, as all the once populated houses in The town of Gin were. Some were doctors some were shops but they all had a specialty. The bright large bubblegum pink house by the bay sold baby clothes and diapers and such. The Stren family worked it. For a family of all grown men, they knew everything about how to take care of babies, ever since the boys mother abandoned her husband and left him alone with six kids. Mrs. Brinned helped them and always gave them freshly made bagels from the bagel place she owned.

But today was a somber day. She stood with her back towards everyone else, looking at this house that was used for funerals. Her coat was purple as well as her hat. She took a breath and went to enter the building. No one could prepare her”

( we are now in a block of white space. A woman is sitting there, or the shape of one. She has no mouth or eyes and now is just an outline. Her name? What is her name?)

( ok Mrs. Brinned was her name. But she still can’t see anything. Her brain was filled with words but without a mouth she is hopeless. She stands there, but suddenly feels strange. She stands up her back perfectly straight.

Her head rises and in front of her is now a blue house. A feeling of rebellion courses through the outline of her shape. She can see but all she can see is the color blue and the shape of a house. She doesn’t understand

She turns around and now she knows she is on the back burner as six boys and their father are standing totally confused

She still can’t see. She can sense. And she senses she doesn’t like wear this is going as now she can see the color purple and there is a purple hat on her head and a purple coat on her as well. Her stomach sinks as she now falls still. Like a statue as well as the men do the same thing, turning towards a voice they heard)

“As Mrs. Brinned enters the room for the wake, she feels nothing. She sees the person there now deceased. Once part of her life, her sister now lays there. Her sister. They found her on the highway. Ironically her husband found her, a woman he’d never thought he’d see again. Mrs. Brinned sees her sisters husband. She runs over to hug him, as she can see the pain on his face with her big brown eyes. Her lips were dry as she could not form words to speak to this man to give him any help. Mr. Stren cried and cried and Mrs. Brinned held her brother in law as the tears fill up her face as well”

( a voice bellows this throughout the White space. Mrs. Brinned can see. But Mr. Stren cannot. Mrs. Brinned feels like she can’t control herself in this white space as all of these ideas were swimming around her brain, all these possibilities that could happen to her.

It flies through her mind when suddenly one line sticks. It has not been bellowed. It’s been whispered like the other ideas. Mrs. Brinned feels that spine straightening thing called defiance.

She was not going to just let herself die on the way home from this funeral. She starts to panic. But what can she do?

How can she fix this? When the voice bellows out more commands but Mrs. Brinned doesn’t follow)

The author Wendiann sits at her computer, tapping her fingers. Why couldn’t she write down Mrs. Brinned’s awful fate? Would the character really face that? Oh well, Wendiann thinks and types half of the sentence when she hears her mother calling her name

She gets up and rushes to her mom to help her with the groceries.

( Mrs. Brinned has found ways to search through the thoughts about her fate pining through idea after idea where she would appear in multiple different endings in multiple tales. But she doesn’t like feeling bound by this. So she looks up with her brown eyes and sees words high above. She has to get to them.

Mrs. Brinned’s feet were stuck

But she remembered her first feeling in all of this

Defiance.

And it propels her to reach up and rise touching the letter and they disappear as well as she herself.)

Wendiann came back to her computer and found all her writing had gone. Damnit she couldn’t even remember what she was gonna write to add on it. She sits down and starts writing a poem instead.