The End of Herself

A small, meek man walked down the street. He held a physics book under one arm and took each stride with purpose and valour. He quickly pushed his hair to the side in a quiff as his mind began to race on what his thesis could actually be; theorems and formulae that were far too complex or specific smashed themselves around his head like bats screeching within a cave, clouding his thoughts in dark, leathery wings. The sun beat down on his scalp as he restyled his hair into the aforementioned quiff. He pushed his glasses up his sweaty nose as he passed a towering woman with a very fierce yet beautiful structure. He took her into account as he approached, she seemed to be celebrating the deployment of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki -- ‘Like all those other murderous hooligans’ the man thought as he shook his head, locking away his monologue and smiling at the parade and then at the man next to- 

Electricity fizzled throughout his entire being and he stopped in his tracks. 

That beautiful woman was staring at him, he could feel it on his back -- like some sixth sense. He turned to look at her and their eyes met. The electricity burst throughout him and he felt elated. It was as if God himself was pulling him up to Heaven and pushing him down to Hell simultaneously as their lives together flashed before his eyes. He stood there dumbstruck. The woman revealed her pearly, white teeth in a smile and winked at him… He had to go up and talk to her, he had to. Pieces of spaghetti dragged his torso along the sidewalk as he approached the personification of Eden. He stopped about ten metres before her realising how abhorrently out of his league she was. She caught his eye again, giving him a small wave and delicately walked off -- a testament to the limitless bounds of beauty. 

The door closed as if it were the back end of a book and she collapsed on the bed. The shadows from the curtains stretched over the ceiling and she watched them slowly creep to the edges of the room. Suddenly, she sat up as she reminded herself to reapply her make-up. The woman looked in the mirror to see her hauntingly beautiful features staring back at her, her cheeks were ignited with a rosemary pink as she dabbed them gently, her mascara struck the top of her eyelashes, and her nose, her nose… the most peculiar of abnormalities… her nose began to grow. It was very strange at first, but her once petite and perfect nose began to grow into a horrifying, grotesque hook akin to that of a witch’s. Her eyes began to move in opposite directions as she realised how unsymmetrical they were -- as if her face was designed to be purposefully surreal -- when did her teeth get so mustard with disgusting plaque and were her lips really that chapped? She stood up in disgust as she moved away from the little mirror. She closed her eyes for a while, panting gently as her heart slowed down its imperative sprint. When the world reappeared before her, she saw herself standing an arm’s length away. “This must be what going crazy feels like” the woman thought, before realising that what she saw before her was not actually her physical form in flesh, but purely a reflection from the large mirror that stood at the back of her room. Her face was back to its aesthetic perfection. Was it the dress that made her stomach look as if it were protruding slightly? She ran her hands down her frame and shivered, was she getting… fatter? No, no, she was far too young, she took a closer look in the mirror to see that -- yes -- it had just been the angle from which she was standing that gave that impression, that's all. Something soft yet teeth-grindingly aggravating stroked the sole of her foot, she bent down and came up with a small piece of paper she had drawn on. It was a baby and a pram in Hell. She lay back on the bed, chuckling to herself, as thoughts of that silly man she had seen today swam around her head. The electricity she had felt. It was almost comical that she could feel that way about such a shrimp. Her chuckles became a very ambiguous sound as she tried to label exactly what it was she kept feeling, in that room alone, staring at the ceiling.

The sanctuary for his focus arrived in the shape of the library. The man would make his way there, knowing that the aroma and silence were bound to make him see clearly. “I hate love” the man thought, catching himself on that last word. He sat, pondering about everyone he has ever known, ever will know, would they compare to her? He hurriedly got up, fleeing away from the depressing thought’s harrowing claws. 

He couldn’t have been more correct if he tried; he sat in the middle of the library, smiling to himself as he felt the atmosphere crash over him like a tidal wave of nectar. The smell, the silence, the books, the tranquil, quiet footsteps of the librarian guarding her palace -- keeping chaos and confusion at bay. The crisp sound of a page turning like leaves crunching under feet, the leathery feel of the spine of his physics book, the electricity… the electricity he suddenly felt as she walked in. Suddenly none of it mattered anymore, none of it. How she stood there, Aphrodite’s bias on creation. He approached her meekly. He couldn’t mess this up again, 

“Umm…” he gulped as her pearl blue eyes broke through to his very soul,

“Oh, hello there…” The woman smiled a pirate’s smile and winked at the man, she slowly moved out her hand for him to kiss, 

“Oh, umm…” Awkwardly the man put out his hand and shook hers, she wrinkled her nose, “I-I’m Arthur” a soft, british accent licked the inside of the woman’s ear,

“Nice to meet you, Arthur” She giggled

“It’s nice to meet you, uh” suddenly Arthur had an impulse, he knew her name -- her beauty inspired only one suitable label -- “Mary”

The woman smiled at him, “My name is Alice”

“Oh… And what is your last name,  Alice?” that question sounded a lot less intrusive in front of the bathroom mirror,

The woman’s smile faltered a little before returning to its flirtatious state, “Atwood, Alice Utwood”

“Ah, that’s a nice name…” Silence filled his mind, cymbals crashing over an orchestra, his palms sweated as if he had just been swimming through the tumultuous currents of the River Nile.

“Say Arthur, you look like you could use a drink to calm you down, why don’t you come along with me?” 

“No thanks, I’ve got to go to the thesis to work on my physics section” Arthur’s legs drove him away as his mind stayed behind, his veins pumped with self-hatred.

His finger ran through the phone book as he searched for Alice’s last name. Was it Atwood or Utwood? Her flirtatious accent had sprayed a cloud of ambiguous mist over her crucial surname, he reformed his hair into a strong quiff in order to let out his frustration. “Ah!” he had found the name Alice Atwood and… “Ah ha!” he exclaimed. There was no such person with the name Alice Utwood, well they didn’t have a phone at the very least. He pain-stakingly rotated the dial, he felt as if he were reversing a clock.

“Hulloh?” a deep, gravelly voice answered the phone, it leered over him, Arthur could almost feel it readying itself to claw out his Adam’s Apple,

“Sorry to bother you, sir,” After hearing the voice on the phone, his own voice sounded very high and nasally, he cowered behind the microphone: “Can Alice answer the phone?”  Arthur assumed this was Alice’s father. A menacing silence ensued,

“Who is this?” the voice replied darkly,

“I am… an old friend of Alice’s” he coughed “from her schooling years”,

“Alice went to an all-American, all-girls school” Arthur felt strangely flattered by the stranger, maybe his voice was more deep and gravelly than he first believed,

“...I smoke very heavily” he said in a cheap New York accent.

The deep voice seemed to be unfathomably satisfied with this answer and called out: “ALICE, BABY! IT'S FOR YOU!” There was a slight pause and then “I don’t know who it is, sugarplum, just one of your old smoker friends from highschool” another slight pause, “Well, how was I supposed to know you didn’t go to highschool? Just answer the phone, this is the last thing I need today!” This obviously was not the right Alice.  Arthur’s blood ran cold from the minute he heard “sugarplum”. He was about to lift the receiver and slam the phone down, when her voice swam its way smoothly into her ear -- a dolphin pushing itself with ease through paradisiacal waters to find its true love.

“Hello?” Electricity. Earth shattering, catastrophic electricity.

The line hung up as Alice repeatedly said “Hello?” into the phone, “Why is it screaming at me?” she finally exclaimed.

“That means they’ve hung up, honey-pie, their line’s disconnected. They must have been asking for a different Alice”,

“Oh.” Her heart dropped. She began to edge her way back up the stairs to her room, to her ceiling.

“Say, Alice, how long have you been spending up in that room? You’re looking a bit more…” His deep, gravelly voice trailed off as he searched for the right word: “...piggish than usual”

“I’ll try that new diet you recommended to me yesterday, and I’ll see if I have time for a run tomorrow…”

“I think the diet might be a good idea” the 6 foot 3 inch brute of a man smiled at her reassuringly, it depressed Alice that she had to label that buffoon as her boyfriend, “However, I don’t think you should go through with the running, best case scenario the neighbours will be thinking you’re trying too hard and we would not want that, would we?”

“No.” 

She felt so small.

Just then, a basket of clothes came into the kitchen -- held by Alice’s mother -- her boyfriend greeted her, saying: “You hear that she wants to go for a run tomorrow!” 

Her mother chuckled, 

“Oh, seriously darling, ‘running’ is not a proper thing a lady should be doing to keep fit, have you tried putting some good elbow-grease into your ironing? That’ll do the trick”,

“I’ll try” Alice mumbled defeatedly,

“Honestly,” Her boyfriend laughed, “they’d be calling you hysterical”,

“Yeah…” Alice accepted as she began to retreat back to her room, where she would watch the shadows creep across the ceiling.

Alice’s stomach clawed the flesh off of her oesophagus as it begged for any food to replenish its emaciated fashion, but Alice’s fork held the maximum amount of salad she could manage without risking public embarrassment. Despite this, she was rather pleased with herself. She had created a new dress for special occasions -- such as this one -- in order to seem more lady-like and put together in front of her mother, as well as the ever watching needles of the public: weaving her past, present and future off a single reference. She had even made the effort to tell her boyfriend and mother that she would be wearing the dress out tonight. However, neither made an effort to say anything, and soon she fell back into famished depression. Once her boyfriend had slurped up his spaghetti, he sat back and looked at her lustily, licking his lips. She smiled neatly back at him, her small hand trembling.

“Really, Alice?” Her mother sighed,

“I’m sorry, mother?”

She watched as her mother cringed away everytime she even talked or opened her mouth,

“Alice, it's disgusting,” her mother physically gagged, a lump formed in Alice’s throat, “you have a leaf stuck between your teeth”

“Oh my goodness! I am so sorry!” Alice attempted in vain to hide her mouth as she tried to pick at her teeth with her finger,

“For Christ sakes we are in public, you silly girl!”

“I’m sorry, it’s not coming out” A tear fell into Alice’s salad. It was as if she was balancing spinning plates, except there were six plates on her nose, ten in each hand, five on each toe and she was in a crashing aeroplane. 

Suddenly, she felt electricity tickle up her spine.

“Y-y-your dress looks nice, I think” It was Arthur, her hero,

“Thank you” she smiled, that leaf still lodged between her teeth, 

“No prob-” Arthur caught sight of her boyfriend and went sickly pale, without a word he speedwalked off.

“What a blunderbuss!” Alice’s boyfriend laughed as Arthur tripped on his way past him,

“Oh, honey, you’ve still got that wretched leaf in your mouth, please deal with it. You’re not a cow munching on grass, are you?”

Black tears fell, daggers from heaven, onto Alice’s salad as she struggled to repress her sobs, it was no use and her sobbing began to crescendo. The orchestra readied for climax.

“Now, honey, don’t cause a scene” 

Her boyfriend awkwardly placed his hand on top of hers, like a brick squashing cement. “Please stop crying, angel, people will think you’re mentally insane.” he kissed her on her wet cheek -- the violinists propped their instruments under their chins, the horns pursed their lips -- “there, there, buttercup, blossom for me please? Just for me?”

And the orchestra erupted. 

Timpani smashed the paintings off the esteemed restaurant walls, the table cloth was ripped straight off as the strings lead powerful modulation after modulation, the virtuoso stood up as they played such a heart-wrenching and painful melody that it made the owners of the restaurant come to the front in curious outrage. Tears splashed onto the keys of the piano as fast, chordally progressive arpeggios flipped the entire table upside down. 

Diminuendo followed the woman as she fled the scene, crying and crying and crying until she didn’t even know how to. She found an alleyway between two buildings and sat at the edge of it, below a balcony.

 Electricity. 

And there he was, Arthur, she had never felt love, so she would never know if this was it. Arthur got down on one knee, her stomach did a flip,

“Hey, are you okay?” he asked,

“Please leave me alone.”

“Look, I saw what happened in there, everything actually. And that wasn’t right.” Arthur tried, Alice replied with a heavy silence, Arthur took the message. “I’m really sorry, I thought I could say something, like they do in the movies or something but obviously I was-”

“Do you feel it?” Alice said, Arthur thought she had never looked so beautiful, with her golden hair flowing through her hands supporting her head. 

“Sorry?” He said in admiration,

“Do you feel it? Everytime we see each other? Everytime we keep bumping into one another?”

“I do” Her stomach did another flip,

Arthur sat down next to her, it began to rain but the balcony above covered their heads,

“Alyssa, I think I love you” Arthur smiled,

Alice chuckled to herself as her sobs mimicked the pattern of the rain.

Today was the day, it didn’t matter how big her ‘boyfriend’ was!  Arthur was going to ask Alyssa’s mother for her daughter’s hand in marriage. He’d already asked Alyssa but she said she would get back to him next week and that he should come to her house when he felt ready, but he was already confident in her answer; he had been there for her when she was at her lowest, he had confided in her his stresses about writing his thesis, he’d like to see her bull-dog looking boyfriend do that! His knuckle met the face of the door as if it were St Peter at the gates of Heaven. Alyssa’s mother answered.

“Is Alyssa home?” Arthur asked confidently,

“Do you mean Alice? Yes, she’s in.”

“Good! First though, I wanted to ask you something…” He hid the ring in his hand but she had already seen it, she winked at him and nodded, 

“You have my approval, she’s upstairs” Arthur grinned so wide his mouth almost burst off his face, he laughed out loud as he hugged her mother, 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” he exclaimed, “I won’t let you down!” and he sprinted up the stairs…

“Alyssa! Alyssa!” he called… 

Once he arrived at the top of the stairs, the air seemed to disappear from the world. The slight creak of a rocking chair was heard in a room two doors away from him. “Alyssa?” He turned into the room to see two empty eyes smiling back at him. 

His face dropped, the room stunk.

“Yes?” Alice barely spoke, her lips just formed the words behind heavy breath,

“Your mother approved of our engagement, we’re going to be married!”

“Oh my, thats nice” Alice sat slightly dazed on the rocking chair, “I’ll have a big family, I won’t have to worry about it anymore”,

Arthur stood there, perplexed. What was the matter with her? “Darling, I don’t think you understand what I’m saying to you… We’re going to be married! With children! It’s going to be amazing!”

“Hmmm… yes, children” She chuckled, “I’ll have a big family, and I will not have to worry about it anymore” silence stank out the room,

“I’ve had an operation” 

Arthur moved forward towards her and saw a large recently healed scar across her forehead beneath her fringe, like a river of stone magma in a dormant volcano. Arthur stood stunned to the spot, too horrified to speak. Alice giggled monotonically, “You’re as silent as a newborn babe…and I will not have to worry about any of that anymore.”