Lost Characters Are Hell

Lost characters. Damn it. Where do they go. What happens? Typing typing typing typing oops nope not that backspace backspace backspace backspace. But... What happens to deleted characters? Where do they go? In the good old days of hot lead Linotype machines groaning and grunting and creaking and spitting shiny lines of hot lead type if there was an error the type was tossed back into the hellish vat from which it came, ready for incorporation into the next batch of mistakes and lies. But electronic digits and letters and numbers and words struck from on-screen existence are left behind like nothing ever was. Is there a digital limbo filled with unwanted writing, lurking and looming in a nethersphere, waiting like some form of electron waste behind a digital dam, pushing and straining at a dike that no little Dutch boy could contain with a thumb in the crack oh good God where are all these characters, the thousands and millions and billions eliminated over decades of tippity tappity straining at conscience and lurking, leering across the void like angry unwanted nurslings hoping to claim a soul for their own private hell of electron wastrels. If they become numerous enough, will they build a backspace bomb and destroy us all during one careless click of the delete key? Backspace. Boom. Done. Lost characters. Damn it. My life is a hell.