Day 288 - Deleted Story

Deleted Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

After much tragedy, Erick finally figured out that the delete key on his keyboard was the “Delete Key of Doom,” and that by pressing it, he was in fact deleting someone or something from existence. He didn’t know when it began. He could have been deleting and destroying things for weeks or months or even years. He just had no idea, really. It was an overwhelming realization he didn’t want to face. He certainly hadn’t set out to destroy people and things. He wasn’t a mean or evil man. He just had an uncontrollable monstrous piece of hardware. Maybe he had been cursed. He didn’t know why fate had chosen him.  But it had. He had the “Delete Key of Doom” and tragically it took him far too long to realize it.

Erick was not in control. He had no agenda. He had not sought this out. He was accident-prone and he did harbor a little bit of jealous rage that reared its ugly head from time to time when he was frustrated or challenged. He had, on rare occasions, been angry enough to wish he could change the world, but he had never expected or wanted anything close to this.

The disappearances went unnoticed at first. They weren’t close enough or important enough for Erick to see them. The disappearances happened in close proximity, but not always within his immediate periphery. The first things to go were small little things, like knickknacks. Things that get lost all the time. Then, when other things were gone, they were out of his sight – things in the house next door, items on shelves at stores near where Erick went – things like that. Things that he couldn’t see or know were gone. If there were people being deleted, it was tragic, but they weren’t close enough to Erick for him to know.

It wasn’t until after he noticed his own things were disappearing around him at an alarming rate that he began to suspect something. Yes, he could see his home was increasingly bare as more and more of his possessions went missing, but no, he had not yet realized that it was in direct consequence to his pressing the delete key on his keyboard. It wasn’t until the deletion of his close friend Donald that Erick began to figure out the exact correlation. It took a heartbreaking loss for him to finally see it. Donald was a terrible accident. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and just happened to be a little too close in proximity when the unfortunate key pressing occurred.

Erick erased his friend. Donald was in the room with him and they were talking and then Erick pressed delete while typing something and suddenly Donald was gone. Erick still remembered him. Donald had existed. He just didn’t anymore. Erick was stuck with the pain and the memory and knowledge of what he had done. And he had no solution, no way to atone.

Erick unhooked his keyboard and very carefully locked it away. His first thought was to destroy it, but then he reconsidered. He had no idea how this was happening. He wasn’t sure if the keyboard could be destroyed, and didn’t know how to be sure that if he did try, that something far worse wouldn’t occur. He decided to play it safe and keep the delete key intact, but hidden away.

He knew that wasn’t a solution. He knew that at some point someone else would eventually find the keyboard. He wasn’t going to live forever. He couldn’t be there to keep people away and stop anyone else from pressing the delete key. But maybe it only happened when he pressed it. Erick’s hope was that when he died the curse of the keyboard would die with him. But he wasn’t ready to die yet, and there was no way to test any of this without involving someone else and being willing to let something or someone else be deleted.

It was just one little press of a button. If he could guarantee it would destroy the keyboard itself he would press it again. If it could bring Donald back, he would press it again. But how could it? And how could he be sure in advance? He had potentially the most dangerous keyboard on the planet and yet there would always be a sliver of doubt regarding what it could or couldn’t do. Erick couldn’t risk testing it further. He could never know what it would or wouldn’t do. But he knew it was now his to protect. Whoever did this, be it person or spirit or demon, the keyboard was now his responsibility. He couldn’t let it fall into the wrong hands. Ever. He could try to find someone who could tell him something about it and figure something out, but he could never let it be a tool of destruction. It was his curse to carry. His curse to bear. His curse to battle and hopefully to win.

He tried to mentally prepare himself for what his life was about to become. He tried to fight the urge to end it. But most of all, he tried to fight the urge to go and press the button, just once more, just to see what would happen, just in the hopes that maybe it or he would suddenly be gone.