(no subject)
Title: Alice in Bummerland
Original Fiction
Rating: PG
FOR BETA PLEASE (Any takers?) =P
When asked for her name, she replies with simply Alice. Alice what? They often ask, expecting a spark of something fabulous from such a plain name. It was simply, Alice and her Generic Last Name. Two other people in class share her Generic Last Name and combined with her equally Generic First Name would bring her problems with airport security later on in her life. She used to tell the people in her English class that her mother’s favourite story was Lewis Carrol’s Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, thus naming her Alice. In reality, her mom simply skimmed through a gigantic baby book of names and randomly placed her finger on a page with her eyes closed.
Alice played with dolls and experimented with make up. She ran and climb trees, skinned her knees and hit boys with cooties. After five years, she would still continue hitting boys, this time for breaking her adolescent heart. Nothing stood out with Alice. She wasn’t hideous nor was she a head-turner. She would struggle as hard as anyone else and still get plain, satisfactory results. She would have occasional bouts of brilliance in whatever would interest her at the moment but eventually someone else more brilliant or visually appealing would promptly steal the spotlight away from her.
When Alice graduated from a so-so school with an equally so-so course, she took an office job that was gave her a stable flow of income to support her average needs and occasional splurges. She also dated a few times before settling with a mundane banker with a Generic Last Name. He was short, smiled uneasily and was slightly balding. He told her that she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She smiled and allowed him to unbutton her blouse. They were married after three years. She bears his Generic Last Name as her New Generic Last Name, as well as two children. The two children bring upon her the physical side-effects of pregnancy: a beach ball body.
Alice and her Generic New Last Name had been eyeing a position in her office job for quite some time now. Her closest colleagues often hinted that she was definitely qualified for it. Months later, a tall, statuesque woman from a different department gets the job. Her boss told her that the new woman-boss is a graduate of this certain University and has exceptional qualifications that were suited for the responsibilities of the job. That night, she tells her husband that she wasn’t able to get the promotion later. He assures her of her worth, makes love to her and they go to bed.
Three months later, her boss divorces his previous wife and remarries the statuesque woman-boss, graduate of this certain University.
Still a month after, Alice catches her husband in bed with a younger, more curvaceous woman co-worker from the bank. She leaves the oven’s gas valve turned on and smokes her husband’s cigar (She’s tried smoking at least once in her life). She takes one last look at both of her children’s closed bedroom doors and swiftly exits the house through the backdoor… leaving the cigar behind on the kitchen floor.
Alice drives beyond the speed limit as her diminutive mind thinks of the many different ways to escape her crime. Her meaningless driving sends her though a mountain trail which leads to a bridge under construction. She is aware of this but does not stop.
Alice’s death does not even reach the front page of the local broadsheets. An article of arson in the suburbs makes it in the local news; her car crash a filler in between the weather report and a Labradoodle dog show announcement.
The mass of neurons that used to belong inside Alice’s skull are scrapped off from the rock that broke her fall. Maggots feast on her blood. They mutate into adult flies and carry Salmonella Typhi to the food of some unsuspecting orphanage below the mountains. The rest of Alice becomes compost for the garden grass growing six feet above her mangled, decaying body.