Pink Eraser (2005)

When I was young, I had a pink eraser. I loved it. I thought it came close to being the cutest thing in the world. It was shaped like a little bunny with a cotton nose and fluffy tail. When I saw it on the shop counter, it was love at first sight. After playing with its tail for about five minutes, and being softly abused by the shopkeeper, I finally bought it.

I took it to school and showed it off to my friends. They were so jealous. It was so good. I took my friends back to the shop after class, but all the bunnies were gone. Some kid had come in and stolen the lot. The shopkeeper was really annoyed. I was kind of glad, because then, only I had a cute, fluffy, pink eraser in my class. It made me feel so special.

I brought my pink eraser with me everyday to school. But I never used it. If I used it, it would get all dirty and ugly. The cotton nose and fluffy tail would probably fall off too. I kept explaining all this to my friends every time they wanted to borrow it. To make things worse, since I couldn’t use it, it meant I had no eraser. So I would ask people to lend me their erasers. Of course, they would just point to my pink eraser, in which I would have to explain why I couldn’t use it all over again.

Gradually, I stopped bringing my pink eraser. I bought another one from Office Works for 20 cents. It was just white – no nose, no fluff – just white. I wrote “yes” on one side and “no” on the other. My friends and I took turns to flip it.

“Does x like y?” (Names substituted for identity protection.)

Yes

And then the class goes wild. It was so good.

***

Years later, and now I’m at uni. I still have my pink eraser. The colour and glue had worn away, leaving only a faint outline of a bunny. The nose and tail had fallen off a long time ago. I used it once, because I thought it was quite ridiculous having an eraser that I don’t use. When I used it, it smudged my work. The next day, I went to Office Works and got another eraser for 50 cents (inflation). I optimistically wrote “yes” on both sides. Just to double my chances.

(Written for UNIBUDS Sacca 2005)