Intro: Of Course
The months ago by, and you function. You still go to work, and you still buy milk at the corner store on your way home. And the whole time, you pretend that there isn’t a reason that you aren’t running late in the mornings anymore, and that you only buy milk by the pint. You pretend, and your acquaintances pretend, and eventually things run a little more ordered.
But you just get tired. Alice was tired. In every conceivable sense of the word, Alice was tired.
Which might have been why, when she woke up from what passed for sleep these days, and walked around in a room where the air felt stale and the floors were cold through her socks, she hardly recognized it as wrong. She recognized it as different, certainly. She was aware enough to tell the difference between her living room and a strange base. She’d been in her living room, now she wasn’t, and maybe a year ago, she’d have had some sort of more discernible reaction. But now? She was tired. Her head hurt. Her trainers were nearby, thankfully, and Alice slipped into them. She didn’t need a change of clothes - she’d fallen asleep in hers. As prepared as she was going to be, Alice looked around, resigned.
“Of course.”
And that was the whole of it.
But you just get tired. Alice was tired. In every conceivable sense of the word, Alice was tired.
Which might have been why, when she woke up from what passed for sleep these days, and walked around in a room where the air felt stale and the floors were cold through her socks, she hardly recognized it as wrong. She recognized it as different, certainly. She was aware enough to tell the difference between her living room and a strange base. She’d been in her living room, now she wasn’t, and maybe a year ago, she’d have had some sort of more discernible reaction. But now? She was tired. Her head hurt. Her trainers were nearby, thankfully, and Alice slipped into them. She didn’t need a change of clothes - she’d fallen asleep in hers. As prepared as she was going to be, Alice looked around, resigned.
“Of course.”
And that was the whole of it.