Elsa has a problem: she is invisible to everyone. Published by Columbia Journal in 1999, “Elsa Minor” investigates the relationship among mental health, human faith, and absurdism.
In five brief pages, Aimee Bender paints an absurdist portrait of depression with pert acuity reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In lieu of a dreamscape, the story derives its strangeness from a nameless doctor’s typewritten symbol on scrap paper as prescribed treatment for the protagonist’s invisibility. The symbol does not represent nor can it be traded for medication. Instead, it must exist in and of itself, as interpreted by each who beholds it. At first, Elsa sees an asterisk: a mark of omission, a character standing in for a longer note, or—insofar as the written word is the symbolic representation of spoken language—the symbol for a symbol. The doctor, however, puts forth a different, vaguely Duchampian understanding: the mark exists on a pictorial plane, outside of the rules of punctuation, as a guiding star to be followed. Ultimately, the story revels in the marriage between stylistic and ideological experimentation, estranging that which we think we know best.
Elsa Minor
Aimee Bender
Elsa went to see the doctor for depression.
“I have disappeared,” she told him, “I feel invisible. No one sees me. Your secretary never even called my name.”
“Then how did you get in here?” he asked.
“I walked right past him,” Elsa said, “I even sneezed, but he didn’t say a word.”
The doctor shifted once in his chair and looked past Elsa to the door. His forehead was deep in thought.
“Elsa,” he said after a minute, “I believe I have just the thing for you.”
He reached into his top desk drawer and, after shuffling a few things around, removed from it a *.
“Elsa,” he said, presenting it to her solemnly, “I feel certain that this is the answer to your troubles.”
”An asterisk?” Elsa asked, voice rising in confusion.
“No, no,” said the doctor, “it’s a * for you, Elsa. A guiding *.”
She sank down deeper into the leather chair. The * was on a scissors-cut comer of lined paper, college ruled, with one notebook hole showing. It looked very ordinary. ”What will I do with a type written *?” she asked, “how will that make me less invisible?” She felt her body moving towards tears. She did not want to cry. She cried so much lately. She had even stopped drinking water except little sips during meals because she thought this might curb the problem. It didn’t. Now she just cried and was dehydrated, too.
The doctor coughed. “Elsa,” he said, “one never knows about the hidden power of a *. Have a little faith, and I’m sure it will be of use.”
So Elsa left the brown office with the * and went into the day. The sun was glaring and Third Street was filled with visible types: sweat-glazed taxi drivers who honked, women in dark sunglasses, short children with tall balloons. Elsa weaved her way through the crowd, eyes on the sidewalk. She closed her hands like a prayer over the *.
Well, she thought, a * belongs in the sky. She looked up. The day was overcast. Bending her knees, she threw her * up into the air, over the heads of the people, into the clouds. She watched it closely, hoping it would rise, that somehow it would magically lift itself high, soar past the clouds and fix onto the dome above her-then it could be her guardian*, her * to wish on, her own special constellation complete with notebook hole and lines. Elsa Minor. But the paper just fluttered down into the street, side to side on the air like a pendulum, and Elsa had to risk her life in traffic to get it back. Not one of the sweaty drivers honked at her.
She slid the slightly dirtied * into her pocket and found a phone booth near a fish shop on Wilshire.
“Dr. ____,” she told the telephone receiver, “I really don’t think this is working.”
“Elsa,” he replied, “you’re trying too hard. Let the * guide you. Don’t guide the *.”
She hung up the phone. She looked at the little piece of paper. “Guide me,” she said to it. It sat calmly on her palm, corners curling slightly in the wind.
It blew off her hand into the fish shop. Thrilled at this sign of destiny, Elsa followed it inside, peeling it carefully off the tile. In the back of the store, past rows and rows of glassy fish eyes, she found a starfish on ice. She put her little * on top of the starfish. This is it, she said to herself encouragingly, here it is, right here. The solution to my woes. She stared at the * on the starfish, trying to find the combination comforting, five tiny prongs on five triangle legs, her darling piggy-back paper. She felt worse. It made her feel worse that this lovely starfish was dead on ice in a fish store and she’d never heard of anyone eating starfish, so clearly it was dead for no reason. She picked up a piece of ice and rubbed it to water in her fingers. No one asked if she needed help.
Returning the slightly wet * to her pocket, she left the store. On the street, she passed a homeless man wrapped in an afghan and asked him: would you have any use for a typewritten *? and he said No and in fact looked offended. She gave him a dollar. He offered to clean her windows, but she said: I have no windows on me, I’m just a person. This seemed to offend him more. He gave her back her dollar.
She called up Dr. ____ again. “I’m so unhappy,” she said when he picked up.
It was his machine. She listened to the whole message, and when it beeped, she said it louder. “I’m so unhappy,” she stated. “This is Elsa here.” He didn’t pick up. She thought he might be lecturing the secretary for letting her in at all. What do you mean you didn’t see her? he’d be saying. And the secretary would shake his head over and over. There was no one, he’d say, I have great vision. I am Mr. 20/20, and that waiting room was empty.
Crossing the intersection, the smell of fish still heavy in her nose, Elsa followed Wilshire westward, towards the water. She could see the straight line of ocean split into blue batons by the buildings. She walked the three blocks, found the slope downward, and walked in heavy steps until she was right at the water’s edge. Waves crashed down, leaving skins of sizzling foam on the sand.
“Everything is so big,” she told a fast jogger with a walkman on, “it’s all so big and this * is so small.”
She sat down on the wet sand. Water crept inside her pants. She removed the * from her pocket, to protect it from smearing, and examined it. It was smaller than a fly. It did not twinkle a bit.
A man passed by, holding an E.
“Hello,” he said, “what do you have there?”
She turned the paper around and showed him.
“Oh, a *,” he said, “that’s nice. I’ve just received an E.” He held it up. It was the size of his thumb, and made of gray plastic.
“From Dr.____?” Elsa asked.
”No,” he said, dodging the creeping foam, “no, it came in the mail.”
“Really?” Elsa cocked her head to one side. “Was it postmarked?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “no postmark but there was a stamp.”
“Curious,” she said, “I’ve never received a letter in the mail before—I mean I’ve received a letter, but not a letter—you know what I mean.” She looked down.
“I know,” he said, “me neither.”
She looked up again. He was watching her. “You know, my name begins with that,” she said, pointing. “My name is Elsa.”
“Really?” he said. He walked next to her. “Can I sit down, Elsa?” She nodded. He shifted a little on the sand. “Wet,” he said.
He held up his E and she held up her *.
Leaning forward, he wrote with his index finger in the wet sand. Elsa looked on with interest. He wrote E and then spelled out S-T-A-R.
“E-star,” said Elsa.
“Easter?” he said.
She felt that quick sickening feeling of despair leak into her body again. “But I’m Jewish,” she said. Her eyes started to overflow.
The man glanced at her and looked back at the word. A sand crab scurried out from the point of the A.
“Wait,” he said, “wait, Elsa, we can change it.” He filled in the E with wet sand.
Elsa watched, sniffling a bit. “Try it at the end,” she said.
He did. “There.” He looked at her. “See, there we go.”
Now it said S-T-A-R E.
“How funny that is,” said Elsa, hugging her knees to her chest. “Of all things to spell.”
The man wiped his hands on his shirt.
“But stare at what?” she asked, “that part is unclear.”
Twisting a bit, he faced her. Foam continued to sputter nearby. He fixed his brown eyes on hers.
Elsa squirmed a little. “You can stare at the ocean,” she said, “you don’t have to pick me, I mean, I’m going to stare at the life guard station, see, there it is, it’s empty.”
“I don’t want to stare at a lifeguard station,” he said, “that’s boring. Your left eye is bigger than your right.”
“That’s true.” Elsa’s voice wavered.
“Now your eyes are watering up again.”
“I know.” A couple more tears spilled out.
”What is it?” he asked. His forehead wrinkled. “Should I stop?”
“No,” Elsa said, wiping her cheek, “please don’t. I love it.” Her eyes flickered back and forth, from lifeguard station to his face, finally settling on his shoulder.
“There’s a stain on your shirt,” she said.
“Your ears are uneven.”
“It looks like tomato.”
“There’s something about your teeth,” he offered.
“Please,” she said, “please, tell.”
“They’re all jammed together.”
”You’re right.” Elsa smiled, revealing the crowd. Another jogger breathed by.
“I blinked,” she told him.
“I saw. Your eyelashes are short,” he said, and she laughed.
