Magical Realism Examples

While on a business trip, I stumbled into my brother-in-law, Julian Zeller, mid-act with a male colleague in a hotel parking lot. Furious, I blew the lid off his fake marriage and helped my sister, Yvonne Sutton, escape that scumbag. But after the divorce, she lost his financial support. She spiraled, blaming me for destroying her perfect marriage. She even killed me for trying to stop her from going back to him. Then, everything resets. I wake up, and there he is—slipping into the car while hugging the same man. I pocket my phone. This time, I won't ruin Yvonne's happy ending.

Due to my husband's unique status, I did not reveal his identity to my mother after we secretly married. My family was about to be relocated during the holidays, and I took the opportunity to visit my hometown. When I got home, my mother locked me in my stepbrother's room. I questioned my mother about it, and she said, "We're about to be relocated. If you get pregnant, the baby will be counted as an extra person. We'll be compensated with one more house and millions of dollars extra." I begged my mother to release me, but she said that it was better for me to stay in the family than marry into another one. "You and your brother aren't related, anyway. We can even save on dowry." I refused, so my mother got my brother to beat me up until I bled. As the date for the entire town to relocate approached, the developers arrived to distribute the compensation. My husband was among those who arrived. When he saw my bruised cheeks and the bump on my stomach, he went crazy.

On the day of the wedding, my best friend, Elena Hartman, can't bear to part with me, so she threads my wedding shoes with a string and ties them snugly around her slim waist. The groomsmen turn the whole place upside down, and we end up late for the ceremony. She eventually cracks up and tugs at her billowy bridesmaid dress, revealing the outline of the shoes at her waist. "I dare you to come take them. As long as I'm here, she's not getting married!" My fiancé, Miles Lawson, shakes his head and chuckles. "You just love tormenting us, don't you?" Miles exchanges a look with the groomsmen, and they charge at her at the same time. She squeals as she falls back onto the bed, squirming under her layers of tulle. "Don't be so rough! I'm ticklish…" The groomsmen flush bright red. Miles' ears turn scarlet as he feels around her waist. She giggles even louder. "How are you going to undo it through all these layers? Use your head!" Then, she gasped. "That tickles!" Her theatrics make my temper flare. I spring to my feet, lift her skirt, and rip the wedding shoes right off her. "If you're that ticklish, smack yourself with a slipper. Drop the act, or I'll yank out the nerves that make you ticklish!"

As I secured the safety rope, I discovered that the metal clip had been replaced with a flimsy plastic ring. My girlfriend, already on the soft ladder, dismissed my concern casually. "Ryan has got a ton of luggage. One clip isn't enough to keep it secure, so I gave him yours. Just wait for the next trip." In desperation, I pointed to the floodwaters surging past my chest. "But I can't swim!" "Cut the drama, okay?" she huffed. "You're a swimming champ. What's the big deal about treading water for a bit? Ryan is related to my boss, and if anything happens to him, my promotion is down the drain. Can't you be reasonable?" "Is his luggage more important than my life?" I shot back, lunging for the ladder. But she kicked me away. "I've checked. The water won't rise too fast. At worst, it'll reach your neck. You'll survive." Refusing to argue further, I watched the floodwaters rage higher and quickly pressed a special emergency beacon on my wrist.

My sister-in-law, Hannah Martinez, was eight months pregnant when someone shoved her to the ground. Due to the heavy bleeding, she was rushed to the hospital. I happened to drive past, but I rolled up my window and pretended I saw nothing, pressing down on the gas pedal. In my previous life, I had immediately taken Hannah to the hospital when I saw her pass out from the blood loss. However, the situation was critical. After the severe bleeding, she developed an amniotic fluid embolism. My wife, Lauren Martinez, was the best obstetrician in the city. I called her, begging her to hurry to the hospital. Yet, she thought I was throwing a tantrum out of jealousy because she was having dinner with her first love, Isaac Poole, and his family. She believed I was using Hannah's emergency to force her to come back. By the time her family finally arrived, Hannah had already died from the failed treatment of the amniotic fluid embolism. Her entire family blamed me for Hannah's death, convinced that I had deliberately caused Lauren to misunderstand and let Hannah die. My brother-in-law, Jacob Turner, who rushed back from out of town, believed their lies. In his overwhelming grief, he hacked me to death with a knife at Hannah's funeral. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Hannah was pushed and started bleeding out.

Lewd videos of my best friend, Katie Anderson, are suddenly leaked online, and I defend her in public. However, Katie ends up accusing me of leaking the videos in the first place. All of a sudden, the entire Internet turns against me. I get blacklisted by the whole entertainment industry and get cyberbullied online as well. Katie's die-hard fans abduct Mom by throwing a sack over her head and record lewd videos of her, driving her to so much shame she jumps off a building and dies. Meanwhile, Dad drinks rat poison and dies next to Mom's grave. After my family is torn apart, I ask Katie why she wants to frame me for everything. She replies, "Samael is the richest heir in the city. This is his fetish. You were the one who made everything into a big fuss. Of course, it's you who'll have to bear the responsibility for everything!" Samael Crews slinks his arm around Katie's waist and looks at me with a mocking smile on his face. "Did you think you were just trying to help out a fellow woman? Sorry, ex-girlfriend, but your precious bestie here is nothing more than an obedient lapdog of mine!" I end up being sold to Meowmar and eventually die from mistreatment. When I open my eyes again, I realize that I am reborn on the day that Katie accuses me of leaking her lewd videos online. This time, I choose to ignore her completely.

After I graduated, I kept hitting walls while job hunting, but my boyfriend landed a position at a big company with ease. My boyfriend of two years voluntarily gave me his salary to comfort me. When I finally found a job, he worried about my long commute and bought me a car. All my friends envied me for having such a thoughtful boyfriend. In order to buy our first house, I secretly transferred my own salary into his account as well. A year later, we decided to get married. He held my hand and said excitedly, “I know you don’t have much saved. I don’t want a single cent from you. All I want is your whole heart.” I was deeply moved by how considerate he was. However, on the day of our engagement, he pulled out photos of me with more than 40 different men and accused me of cheating. I stared at them. I had never even seen these people before. Then, he showed me his card’s transaction history, filled with charges from a place called Sunshine Club. “I trusted you with my card, and you used my money to fool around! I’m not marrying you. Give me back my car and the 800,000 dollars you’ve burned through.” I calmly took out the card he had given me before and sneered, “Sure. Let’s settle the accounts properly.” The moment my attorney revealed the true financial statements, he was completely stunned.

I secretly invite my in-laws over for the New Year, hoping to surprise my husband, Huxley Carlson. But the moment my father-in-law steps through the door, Huxley's secretary shoves him out. He slams into the shoe cabinet, throwing out his back. She sneers. "Who do you beggars think you are, strolling into Mr. Carlson's villa like this? You're this broke and still have the nerve to call yourself his father-in-law?" I immediately call for the housekeeper to help him, but the secretary blocks her. She even shoves my mother-in-law. "You really think you're the lady of the house?" she snaps. "Mr. Carlson hired the housekeeper to serve him, not to waste time on you or your useless parents." My mother-in-law is so enraged that she suffers a heart attack on the spot. I call Huxley in a panic, begging him to come to the hospital. But he sounds utterly unmoved. His voice is cold and mocking as he says, "Jen told me what happened. The nerve of you, bringing your parents to my house! Now you want me to rush to the hospital because your mom's pretending to be sick? "Tell them to get out! If she dies, she dies. Hell, maybe it's a blessing—just in time for the New Year!"

As I stepped out of my older brother's newly opened supermarket, the alarm suddenly rang. The sales assistant grimly reached out and grabbed me, "Miss, you haven't paid yet." I remembered that my buttons were made of metal, which triggered the alarm. After patiently explaining and easing the atmosphere, I said, "The owner of this supermarket is my older brother. He'll pay the bill." The sales assistant scoffed. "Your brother's the boss? Why not say he's your husband instead? You stole and refused to admit it. Pay up or I'll call the police immediately," she said and crumpled the receipt into a ball before throwing it at my face. I endured the humiliation and unfolded it. A baby pacifier for 100,000 dollars. Two packs of baby wet wipes for 200,000 dollars. Security personnel's hush fee, 300,000 dollars. All of the miscellaneous expenses added up to exactly one million dollars. I laughed in anger. "One million dollars? Why don't you just rob a bank? Go and get Chad Surrey. I want to see how I ended up with such a heartless brother." She rolled her eyes. "Don't pretend if you can't afford it, thief. Is Mr. Surrey someone you can see whenever you want?" When my parents came to help me, I said, "Only one of us exists in this family. It's either me or her."

All the relatives knew I had a "backward cousin." For my birthday, she gave me a grocery-store pound cake. When I ran a marathon, she presented me with a pair of worn-out canvas sneakers. At my graduate school acceptance party, she even sent a funeral wreath of white lilies with a sash that read "In Sympathy," wishing me an early departure to the afterlife. In my previous life, I slapped her so hard she tumbled down the porch steps. My brother took her side and plotted revenge, falsely reporting to the university that I had cheated on my SATs. My admission was revoked. "You're so modern. You know how things work," he sneered. "Plenty of people take a gap year. Just apply again." My father also defended her, cutting off all my financial support. "You've had so much schooling. You're so educated," he said coldly. "Support yourself." Alone in a city eighteen hundred miles from home, I fought to survive. I called my brother and my father again and again—only to be blocked. I delivered food while renting a room and studying to reapply. At my lowest, my hands were raw and cracked from frostbite, scrambling for delivery shifts at four in the morning just to earn a small bonus. Worn down by the cold and exhaustion, I suffered cardiac arrest at twenty-three and collapsed in a snowdrift in that unfamiliar city. No one ever came to claim me. This time, I chose to let it go and accepted the wreath with a gracious smile. To fully integrate myself into this family. After all, what is a moment of pride compared to a lifetime's inheritance?