There is no undo button in life. If you take a black marker and you make a line where a line shouldn’t be or burn a bridge you wish you didn’t burn you can’t tap control z or turn off and turn back on again and try something different. It is burnt into the invisible book of history scarred there forever. You can always try something new though, or even the same.

Tom’s little arm accidentally swipes at the wall with a marker while he toddles about. The wall was big and white just like a piece of paper and now it sports a long thin line. Marked as if it was a giant sheet of paper. But the wall isn’t paper. Tom needs to do something or mama will be mad, what if she takes all his markers away? Tom certainly doesn’t want that to happen. He sits down in front of his mistake and he thinks for a moment as to what he could possibly do. He settles upon a solution. He swipes at the wall again, maybe he can trick mama into thinking that the wall is meant to look like this. He swipes again and again and again. He seeks out a new color your current one becoming boring. He grabs a new color that fits his liking and starts doodling various shapes and images as he had very clearly forgotten what his original mission was.

Taken away. Those silly little markers have been taken away. Sophie places Tom back in his crib and fills a bucket with warm water. She adds some soap and grabs a sponge. She starts scrubbing away at the mess created upon her once clean wall by her toddler. Some of the colors start to come off easily while others not so much but the black marks, in particular, doesn’t seem to want to come off at all. Sophie ponders why, dreading possibly the worst and looks through the markers that had been taken away. A sharpie, how did Tom get a sharpie? Wonderful, how on earth did he get a sharpie? She stands and she can feel her knees and back crack and pop as they’re suddenly told to move. She walks over to the computer to try and find a good way to clean this mess up.

Alex gently creaks open the door to his family’s home. Today had been rough, a friend had passed away, his co-workers were genuinely unpleasant as always, his car is even acting up. All he really wants to do at this point is to lay down and cuddle with his wife. She has always been an ever-present light in his world of suffocating darkness. He spots her typing away at her computer.

“Hey honey.”

“Oh hey you’re home, how was your day?”

“It sucked.”

“I’m so so sorry honey. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“Alright. Do you know how to get sharpie off the wall?”

“Nope. Can we cuddle in a bit?”

“Sure.”

Sophie finally finds a solution to the sharpie wall. She grabs some rubbing alcohol and a disposable cloth. She scrubs at the wall while her husband sets about preparing dinner. As she scrubs at the wall as a pleasant aroma floats throughout the air. Eventually, all of the marker fades away and she flops back onto the floor. Her husband’s feet appear by her head and her dear beloved kneels down by her head.

“Can you go get Tom?”

“Yeah,” she slowly gets up and starts making her way towards the stairs each creaking as she makes her way to her son’s room. He’s sleeping deeply and carefully nudge him awake, he cries a bit but he quiets down and the two head back downstairs. Her beloved had finished making dinner and she sets Tom in his high chair. She helps Alex set the table and the two finally sit down together to eat.

There may be a lot of dark marks in history but there are also light ones.