Nancy Elsner

Appearance

Nancy's 2016 design portrays her with strawberry blonde hair and light blue eyes. She has a light skin complexion and a thin body figure. Her attire shows her in a mid-sleeved green dress with three buttons holding the top half of the dress together, alongside with a lighter green collar. The bottom half of the dress is in a darker green with white polka-dots all over it. She also wears two pearl necklaces with black heels. In the original 2014 version of the song, Nancy looked extremely different from her 2016 design, which was mainly due to the fact that Nancy wasn't really her own character at the time. Her design was mainly based off Gumi and 1950's housewives. Nancy has short green hair and green eyes with a light skin complexion. She has a short-sleeved orange dress with a light orange collar with two buttons on the collar of the dress. She also has sewing equipment in the left pocket of her dress. The dress is fastened with a dark brown belt with the bottom half of the dress being covered in polka-dots, alongside with dark brown dress shoes. Nancy's 2015 design looks like the original design along with some minor changes. She keeps her green hair but her eyes are now a light pink. Her dress is now a lighter orange with a same colored collar. Nancy now wears a green belt and wears green heels. Nancy also wears two pearl necklaces.

childhood and troubled past

Nancy befriends Henry Elsner (her soon-to-be husband). Nancy's childhood wasn't exactly the best. It was often hard to find support in her family. Her family was successful in almost anything, school, work, etc. Her parents didn't suffer financially and had a good relationship with each other, her two older sisters were straight A students, and her brother was well behaved. Despite the rest of her family being "perfect", Nancy was average in grades and often wanted to create more than study and had chromesthesia (a type of synesthesia) which her family said that she was "making things up". When Nancy began middle school, she began having problems making decisions in which her parents did not like. She often needed reassurance from others when it came to making decisions . Instead of helping Nancy overcome her insecurity, her family decided to let her figure things out on her own instead. She was also an outcast in school mainly due to her synesthesia. Despite this, she and Henry were often there to support each other during difficult times.

personality

Nancy loved to listen to the radio, as it often brought comfort to her. She loved to sew and often did commission work for her neighbors. She is also described as shy but still has friends, one of her friends mentioned is her neighbor Patty Rosalind. Nancy also is reserved, she doesn't really open up her feelings to anyone unless she's close with them (which really is only Henry). Nancy has a fear of abandonment. She relies on Henry for emotional stability and security, however this wasn't shown in the revised edition of COMMUNICATIONS.

role

In the original story, Nancy and Henry are childhood friends and eventually got married as the two thought it would be perfect to live with each other. They move to Chicago and Henry eventually cuts ties with Frances, his mother. Nancy began to get anxious about Henry leaving her and often had panic attacks with frequent depressive episodes. Nancy needed Henry to reassure her that he wouldn't abandon her. Henry began to have horrible flashbacks because of this and decides to try to leave Nancy in the middle of the night. The day before doing this, he quits his job as a journalist and packs up his suitcase. When it is night, he grabs his suitcase, types a letter, and decides to get a drink of water before he leaves. This doesn't go as planned and Nancy catches Henry trying to leave her. Nancy can't think clearly and disassociates.Henry dies and Nancy realizes she killed him. Nancy goes into a deep denial and drags his body into the basement.

the next day

The next day, Nancy turns on the radio and she hears his colors (black and white), which makes her think Henry is alive. Nancy stays in this delusion until the radio began playing in different colors, which makes her realize that Henry is dead and that she killed him. Unable to live without Henry and the guilt of killing him, she writes a letter to the police which says the following:

Nancy’s letter

“Whoever may read this letter, as you may already know, my name is Nancy Elsner. I have nothing left but my deepest regrets. I was certain my love was still alive. I heard the colors of his voice in the radio, I swear. It wasn’t until I came to realize that every voice happened to be black and white. Males, females, young and old, none of these voices came from my love, yet they all played in monochrome, just like his. Flickering... back and forth, back and forth, between blacks, whites, and an array of different colors. I soon realized that I had only fooled myself. Even today, after I’ve remembered every detail of that night, I find it impossible to believe that I could’ve been capable of such monstrosities. Death is the only punishment suitable for me, I believe. I owe him so much. My greatest apologies, even giving my own life, will never be enough to grant me forgiveness, but it’s the least I can do."

revised story

In the revised story, Nancy and Henry begin as childhood friends until they eventually got married. They both move to Chicago with Nancy and Henry living peaceful lives, alongside with Henry and Nancy becoming friends with some of their neighbors (mainly Patty Rosalind). Frances calls their phone and Nancy picks up since she was at home. Frances apologizes to Nancy for feuding and asked if she and Henry could be in touch. Nancy tells Frances that she'll ask Henry. Nancy tells Henry when he gets home, with Henry being disturbed at the fact that Frances would try to get in contact with them. Henry eventually agrees and Henry, Nancy, and Frances talk on the phone for a few months. That was until out of the blue, Frances began telling Nancy that Henry talked about getting a divorce but only stayed with Nancy out of his fear that she would hurt him or herself. Nancy was confused and didn't take what Frances said seriously. Despite not believing it, the thought still scared Nancy and she didn't say anything about it to Henry. Frances told Henry some lies about how Nancy was crazy and would try to kill Henry if he ever tried to leave her; he didn't tell Nancy about this. A few weeks later, the two eventually decide to talk about it and concluded that Frances was making stuff up to try to sabotage their relationship. Henry eventually lashes out on Frances over the phone in which the whole neighborhood heard (since they're on a party line). Afterwards everything seemed fine until one day, Nancy woke up and got dressed as usual. She eventually realized that there was blood all over the floor and decided to follow it. Nancy eventually was led to the basement and heard her radio echo throughout the room, playing her favorite radio station with Henry's dead body on the floor. Nancy was stunned and needed a minute to process this. Afterwards, she called Frances and Frances decided to tell her another lie which put her into the delusion that she killed Henry (which she didn't).