Last night Alice was falling fast asleep in the library, under the dim light of a desk lamp. Outside rain was hanging ready to break through the clouds and flow, while the place was stinking of an interminable tension.

She bought bread and cigarettes and got on the bus. In her mind the 50 pages she still had to write out of a thesis of 50 were ringing as an emergency call.

At home, with her hair wet, she took one more glance in the mirror…No, that head is not yet shaved, but will be,..someday, when Alice will have gained her strength. Until then, she’s used to it: 15 minutes de-tangling after every bath; weird animal habit..

Cooking a meal for two and listening to the noisy thoughts that were torturing Alice, the sleep somehow faded off..

    Why are those girls so keen on being girlish while they hate their boobs but love their vaginas? Why are they violent? Why do they talk to each-other as if talking in a mirror on a stage and get angry when all of them see the same guy leaning on a wall in the corner of the mirror? Why do they love each-other with passion, hate what usually lies underneath pants, but still wear them? Why, why, why..will they all become head-aching housewives hiding the dark secrets of their troubled youth from their children? Why does fury put an end to all these marvellous dreams of liberation?

Alice had no answers and she kept staring innocently in thin air..

Everything will fade away eventually Alice, everything usually does.. Especially the big questions. A hug drives away noisy thoughts, and three years will probably have changed everything we could even recall about our old selves:

    Why was I dead-worried about what thesis? What was Alice wearing? Grey pants? What were the names of the girls Alice was talking about and from where did she know them? And again, how could Alice have known what she was talking about? How, in turn, did Alice know those girls? Did Alice ever fall asleep that night? Was it truly hot in the room? Was it perhaps all the time just Alice herself loony-talking to her broken mirror? Who knows..who will know…in three years time.

Alice continued her dinner quietly, then Alice left the dishes for herself to do in the morning ‘cause Alice had cooked.

She woke up almost racing with sunlight; in fact she had been racing and troubling all the night through..with the heat, with the thesis, with a very annoying mosquito and with Alice who was simply splashed on the bed and couldn’t be moved, not even with the noise of hammers! The morning light was licking sweetly all windows as if sugar-coated..and Alice thought: this is gonna be another fuckin’ day in an oven but, nevermind, the coffee is good.

By 10:30 she had already done al the things all people who wish they were normal (as Alice always did) do in a normal day: drink coffee, take a shower, talk to friends, read news, listen to the radio, work on a thesis, answer emails, eat breakfast. And a few other things too (except walking a dog…Alice must buy a wagging tail soon, very soon, before Alice has the chance to buy a cat!).

Realizing this came as such a miracle to Alice, she realised she always loved ppl wakin up early in the morning and loved herself for doing it every day. The amazement turned into amusement and Alice hugged herself. Soon the room became heavy with laughter; Alice was smiling and glancing and laughing out loud and she felt like every two seconds the giggling ran around the room, banged on walls and returned back, electrifying, in her own person. Alice was contempt while looking at Alice; and Alice asked:

Are you falling asleep?

No, do you have Alice with you? Read me a page please.