Alice

 

            The deep, hollow sounds of the doorbell ran through the small apartment, clashing against whatever obscure knickknack they encountered, down the hall, over the table covered in books, old papers, dirty plates from a week of solitary meals, through the open door to the study and into the ear of the old man sitting there in. The old man stirred in his chair, the book that sat on his lap slipped from his grasp and fell to the floor with a thud. He put trembling hands to the end table and retrieved the glasses that laid there. Cramming them onto his face, he glanced over at the clock on the wall, 3:47. Who could be here at this hour? He thought as he got to his feet and headed toward the door. Sure, the thought crossed his mind; maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea to answer the door. He was a very logical man, who would want to rob an old man? And if there were robbers, why would they ring the bell? He couldn’t care less, one of the best things about being old is that you aren’t afraid anymore.

            The deep, mournful sounds of the door bell rang out a second time, colliding with the old man as he wondered down the hall way. Reaching the door, he pulled it open. Where he expected the gloomy figure of the stereotypical midnight visitor, he found the shockingly white hair of a teenage girl, his granddaughter. “Alice?” he said slightly taken aback “what are you doing here so late sweetheart?” Alice didn’t answer; instead she walked wordlessly passed her grandfather into the apartment. Closing the door behind her, “do you want something to drink? Some hot cocoa? I think I’ve got some in…”

“Shut up old man” snarled Alice turning back to face him

“Oh” responded her grandfather. Standing at the end of the hall, Alice was in full view of her grandfather. She wasn’t very tall, on the shorter side, but not tiny. Her shockingly white hair fell in curtains around her face, her eyes set deep into her skull, that added to the white nightgown she wore gave her a rather spectral appearance. She was pale, paler than the old man remembered. Her bare shouldered  looked so soft and childish, down her arms to her wrists where two blood stained bandages where wrapped. “you did that wrong, you know”

“what?”

“whatever you did, criss-cross, horizontal, it doesn’t do the trick. Cut yourself vertical” he demonstrated on his own arm, drawing his thumb nail up himself slowly, showing Alice. “Vertical makes it count, that is, if you really want to end it”

“Oh” responded the granddaughter. It was not the support normal children expect to hear from their grandfather, but Alice was no normal girl, and the old man, no normal grandfather.

“Why don’t you come and sit in the kitchen, I’ve got something I think you might like” he lead her into the kitchen and started rummaging in a cupboard over the sink.

“Your house is a mess grandpa”

“That’s because no one is here to help clean it up, it’s too much for an old man” he pulled a dusty bottle of greenish liquid from the cupboard, two glasses, a box of sugar cubes, and a strange looking slotted spoon. Setting these on the table, he went to the sink and filled a pitcher with ice and water. “Have you ever drunk Absinthe before?”

“no” Alice looked intrigued. She didn’t know of any alcohol that required water, sugar, and such an odd looking spoon.

“Well, you’re in for a treat” he poured a few fingers of the greenish liquid into the first glass.

“I’m no lightweight grandpa, pour some more”

“You have clearly never drunken Absinthe before sweetheart” he set the spoon over the glass and placed a sugar cube on it. Taking the pitcher of ice water, he poured it over the sugar cube, slowly; the greenish drink turned a milky white. Alice looked amazed. “Cool huh?”

“Yah” The old man repeated the process with his own glass. When he had finished, I sat across the messy table from his granddaughter.

            They sat in silence, sipping Absinthe. After a while, and a few more glasses of green liquid turned milky white, the old man said “Now, you came here for a reason Alice, why don’t you tell me about those cuts on your wrists?”

“I’m sure you would like to know” responded Alice, the Absinthe clearly starting to affect her mental state.  

“If you are feeling up to telling me” responded the old man, giving his granddaughter a small smile. She looked up from her glass and met the alabaster gaze of her grandfather. There was something about the way he looked at her, something she could not understand. His eyes were like knives, they sliced at her soul, yet they were oddly tantalizing. She could feel him examining her, like a botanist examines a strange new leaf. “Why don’t we retire to my study, I think you’ve had enough Absinthe for now”

            The young white haired girl followed her grandfather to the study. Falling into the nearest chair, Alice’s gaze returned to her grandfather. He was manipulating an old phonograph. She didn’t much care for her grandfather’s taste in music, yet something about it striking to her. Some woman she didn’t know was singing. The music has a dystopic feel. There was something about her pleading cries “daddy wont you please come home…”

            The old man sat down in his arm chair, staring at the young girl.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

            The day was cold; the darkened clouds closed in from the hills to the east and the wind softly moves the leaves on the trees. It was the sort of day Alice enjoyed more than all the others; she watched the trees from her window on the second floor. How she longed to go out, to feel the soft breeze on her bare shoulders, to smell the sweetness of the fallen leaves. Others where aloud out, but not Alice, she must stay inside. She could do little more than stare blankly out the window at the long dark path the beetled its way through the soft green hills that surrounded the property. She could see the entrance from her window. She would watch as people, visitors presumably, walked in and out of the building, no one ever came to visit her, but she didn’t expect anyone.

            There are no trees that surround Saint Clare's Hospital for the Mentally Unstable; the original builders viewed that as a deterrent for what were then inmates, now patients. Even if someone did manage to escape, there was no place to hid from the tall security towers the jutted out from the top of the main building. Saint Clare's Hospital for the Mentally Unstable was not originally called so, back in 1856 when it was built; it was called Saint Clare's Asylum, this being the appropriate title at the time. At the time, Saint Clare's Asylum was the pinnacle of mental health care, or lack thereof. There are still signs, carved into the stone on the side of the building, to remind passerby of the Hospitals original title.

            According to her morbid fascinations, Alice often referred to Saint Clare's as an Asylum, much to the distain of the nurses and doctors alike. There was something about the word asylum that fascinated Alice, something archaically disgusting about the word. She looked down at her pail wrists, how she would like nothing better than to dig the blade of a knife into the soft flesh, nothing better than to end her suffering with the elegant stroke of a blade. But she knew that was impossible. She could not even leave her room, let alone find something to slice her wrists with.

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

“Don’t you lie to me sweetheart” The old man interrupted.

“Oh go f**k off” Alice retorted with a sneer “I thought you wanted to know why I did this to myself” she gestured to her bandages on her wrists.

“Only if you are willing to tell me the truth”

“You’re much smarter than I remember” Alice reached out the pulled the bandages off the wrist and her the old man’s surprise, revealed no bloody scare, no cuts of any kind, just smooth skin, died with the obvious stains of fake blood.

“I don’t understand” said the old man “I thought you…”

“Well you thought wrong grandpa” laughed Alice

“But why?  Why would you fake it?”

“So I could get you to let me in”

*                      *                      *                      *                      *                      *

The blurry images of a bathroom floor slowly came into focus. The dirty white tiles were warm; there was something dark red out of the corner of his eye, blood. Something went wrong. The old man rolled over onto his side, reached up to grab the sink, and pulled himself standing again. He felt light headed, the images of the bathroom swam before him, the blood filled sink, the razor blade on the counter, next to it, an old photograph of a pale teenage girl with shockingly white hair and sunken eyes. His eyes filling with tears, the old man swung his arm at the photo, causing it to fall to the floor, he fell beside it. Trembling, he reached out and touched the pale face, something went wrong, but he would try again tomorrow.