The Button

Rose first pressed the button when she was six. The next day, Ana, the seven year old girl who tripped Rose, disappeared. Rose did not know where Ana had gone, but she was happy that she was no longer around. Rose, thirteen now, pressed the button once more after her teacher gave her an F on a project she worked extensively on. The next day, there was no Ms. Crambell, in fact, Ms. Crambell had never taught the eighth grade ELA class, Mr. Poland did, or so said everyone who went to school with Rose. It was thirteen when Rose discovered what this button could do, a deletion button, like the backspace on a computer. Rose likened it to retconning an annoying character in a film she never liked. And so, the very next day, she deleted the man who invented homework, Uriel Iscariot, and went to school with none of her homework done. To her dismay, she was given an F. “Missing homework,” Mr. Poland chided with a tsk-tsk-tsk. Confused, Rose had discovered on her way home that it was never Uriel Iscariot who had invented homework, but rather, Roberto Nevelis. And so, she deleted him too, but made sure to do her homework for tomorrow, just in case. 

At twenty three years of age, Rose missed an important promotion at work because her coworker, Karen, stole her hard work. Beyond red-faced, Rose struck the button with all her measly might. The next day, Karen was murdered. Or so thought Rose. Like Ana, like Ms. Crambell, Karen had been deleted. But Rose was an adult now, she knew the consequences of her actions, there would be more ramifications than a simple F. The very next day at work, Rose had been promoted. “A vacant position,” her boss told her, and Rose was the best candidate. The only candidate. “But what about my punishment?” Rose thought. “Where are the consequences?” She pondered. The very next day, she deleted her boss. Rose was promoted once more. And so, there were no ramifications—no bad karma. It simply did not exist. By the time Rose was thirty, she explored the world, she became CEO of a mega corporation, and did whatever it was she wanted. There were those that opposed her. Those were no more. But Rose wanted more than a cocktail on a beach and a wad of cash in each pocket. She wanted to be a hero, to get rid of people who liked to inflict pain, to get rid of bullies, like Ana. Newspaper in hand with an infamous name printed across the top of it, Kelor Hespian, Rose decided that Kelor would be no more. A second later, the newspaper faded, the words and characters fell through her hands like sand and presumably, Kelor was deleted. 

“A name,” Rose realized. “And I can change the world.” And change the world she did. After one hundred presses of her button, the most notorious men and women alive vanished. She decided who deserved what, she decided what was good and what was evil. She was the judge and the executioner, she was God.

The FBI’s most wanted list became barren after a thousand presses, the names of men most infamous throughout history became nothing after ten thousand presses. After one hundred thousand presses, Rose turned to gaze at the good she gave the world. But to her dismay, the FBI’s most wanted list had repopulated, the names of serial killers and rapists had been replaced with foreign names, foreign to no one but Rose. The vile conquerors of old such as Walsif III had been replaced with strange names like Alexander the Great. Yulen Khan became Ghengis Khan. Joseph the Conqueror became William the Conqueror. Thaddeus the Betrayer became Judas the Betrayer. And a man named Nero had become the greatest villain of them all. 

“Nothings changed,” she finally concluded. “Names become replaced, evil still permeates. What good have I truly done?” She lamented the question. She could not understand why nothing had changed. Old and withered now, Rose could not muster the strength to press the button further, not when her life’s goal had been all for naught. So she hid it, put it away to fester in yellow Alabama dust. She was done pressing buttons, no more would she take lives, even if they were synonymous with evil. All she was left with was money, so she donated it, gave it away to the homeless and the poor. Rose saw that that was good, that despite the meager efforts in helping one man at a time, it was more people than she had ever helped in her life. 

“Am I good?” She knew the answer. Rose wished she had never pressed the button, she wished that Ana would still be bullying her, tripping her at recess and lunch, she wished Ms. Crambell could give her more F’s and that her coworker, Karen, could still steal more of her work. She wished that these people would have never been deleted. But Rose knew the proper word for what she had done. Murder. Not just Ana, not just Ms. Crambell and Karen. Over one hundred thousand people had died because of her, the dead dying twice left a sour taste in her mouth. Rose did not know if karma existed but she saw herself as the worst possible punishment she could have received. The consequences had finally caught up to her.

“Perhaps, I have killed more people single handedly than anyone who has ever lived…” She decided. And so, frail and dusted, she removed the button she swore never to press again and laid her palm upon it, deciding that this would be how she could become a hero. Her one true good deed. And so, Rose the Deleter had never existed. The people she deleted stayed deleted, their newer faces and names remaining despite her attempt to renew the past. But like those names she had replaced from history and newspapers, Rose also had a new name. 

A six year old girl named Anastasia who had a terrible bully.