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Short Story / Alice.
Alice (A Monologue)
By
Romilly Edwards
Hi my name is Alice, you’re probably thinking why is she talking to us with those filthy asylum clothes on. Well listen it starts probably after I was born into this weird world. I knew I was different from other people, at boarding school the girls would taunt me.
Your ugly!
Your selfish!
Your pathetic!
But I had no idea why they were doing it, and why I was sent there. Until…until she told me.
Even at primary school I had no friends, but then one day a person came, she wasn’t a girl or boy, she had no name either. She was a woman, a mean woman at that. She was fat, as big as a house, every time she would tell me off; she’d put those fat arms on her thighs and growl at me. I never looked at her face, I was too scared. I tried to confide in the other children, but they had seen a woman…they hadn’t seen anyone with me.
Only me.
I was the only one that could see her.
I was in my own personal hell.
But boarding school was worse, the woman never left me alone, she was with me everywhere! At bedtime, the lights went out, she would moan and rant about the girls and teachers, saying that they were mean and that they needed to be taught a lesson. The wrong sort of lesson from my view. I followed her to the headmistress’s room and she was sound asleep.
Scissors lay on the side table, she told me to cut every single hair from her head.
Chop!
Chop!
Chop!
Went the hair, she looked like one of those old dollies, she stirred in her sleep, her eyes snapped open, it scared me, she looked she was going to choke because she was so scared, she screamed and started tugging at her hair, pulling the most miniscule hairs from her head…well what was left of her hair. I dropped the scissors and ran, ran back to my bed.
“You’re in trouble, you’re gonna get punished, you’re gonna get kicked out!”
The morning after I was sent home, my parents faces all covered in anger. I was sent to my room…again she would taunt and sing. I tried my best to ignore her, she would make me clean my room; scrub the floors…until my hands were red raw.
After a week or so, I had been good, good as gold. My parents opened the door to my room and I was allowed to roam free.
Then it turned nigh time, I woke from my sleep, hearing noise downstairs, I grabbed my lit candle from my bedside table. I went down to the kitchen, but it was her, with that growl on her face. I’d done something bad, she told me my parents had done something bad and that I had cleaned for a whole week, but she never told me what my parents had done. She said they needed to be punished; she looked at the candle in my hand and told me to drop it. I panicked, her voice got louder so…I…I dropped it.
I ran back to my bed and curled up in my covers, shutting my eyes from her laughter and everything went black.
KNOCK!
KNOCK!
“Alice!”
My eyes snapped open, my parents were shouting from the other side of my bedroom door:
“Alice! Get out Alice! The house is on fire! Get out!” I tried to open my door but it was stuck, I could hear their coughing. “Get out Alice!” I grabbed my nearest teddy bear and smashed my bedroom window with my fist and jumped out onto the soft grass.
I crawled behind a turf, my house was a blaze, those red hot orange flames eating at my home, the fat woman eating at my sanity. Tears streamed from my eyes, I’d never cried that much before, I cried so hard, my head began to hover, I went weak and soon all of the lights seemed to go out.
I felt a sharp pain in my arm, I struggled…but I couldn’t move. A person was holding me down, it was a woman all dressed in white smiling down at me.
“Where am I?” I murmured.
“You’re in a asylum, you’ve been a bad girl,” she spoke snidely. “No I haven’t,” I pleaded. I struggled again, but she held me down even more, then I saw a man with large rounded spectacles zooming upon me, he held a clipboard and from time to time would scribble stuff down. “Where’s my Mummy and Daddy?” I panicked. The nurse let go of me, and I felt relaxed.
“There not here Alice, they died in a fire,” I shook my head, I didn’t believe them. “Why am I here?” I yelled. “We looked at your school record, you were a very lonely child, and sources say you started to have imaginary friends, you had outbursts, violent ones. Parents sent you to boarding school, you still were very lonely, bullied and then you assaulted a teacher,” he spoke from behind his glasses. I couldn’t take it all in, when did I have violent outbursts?
“I did no such thing….she….she told me to do it!” I confessed sobbing. “Who?” he asked. “My friend,” I replied. He scribbled down more on his clipboard. “What is your friend like?” he asked. “She’s a woman, she’s fat and can be…a bit mean.” I replied. “Does she have a name?” he asked, I shook my head, and he scribbled more down. And then he took it out…..a large needle, I grew scared. “Don’t be scared Alice, this will make your friend go away.”
I grew tired, all the lights went out, I awoke shakily and I saw her, she was angry.
“You little rat bag! How could you tell them about me!” she threatened. “I know the real reason why your Mummy and Daddy aren’t here?” I struggled. “You killed them.” Those words still hang in my mind, even now. I shook my head, “You told me to do it, and you told me to drop the candle! Because they had done something bad!” I screamed at her. She paced towards me, I scrambled backwards onto the bed, her face was so near, she was hideous, “Your gonna pay for what you did Alice!” she said. “I haven’t done anything; you’re the one that tells me to do these things…I want to know what my parents did….or…I’ll…I’ll wish you away!” I shouted. “Tell me now!”
She smiled darkly, “What did they do?” I threatened. “Nothing,” she said, and smiled again. She had been playing me all of these years, anger started to bubble up inside of me, my fists clenched and I ran and attacked her. She started laughing, I grabbed a pair of scissors and started to stab her over and over again, but she kept on laughing, “Get out Alice! The house is on fire!” she sang. I kept stabbing her until her laughs went quiet, I felt moisture all over my hands and face, I looked down they were red, a bloody mess lay in front of me, I looked to see who it was, it was the nurse who had been mean to me earlier. Next to me was a syringe, there was no scissors, I had killed this nurse with the syringe that she was going to inject me with.
“You see Alice, you can’t wish me away, I’ve been apart of you for so long, it’s like I’m apart of your family…well I’m the only one left.” She kneeled by me, “And look what you’ve done, if they find you like this, you won’t be able to go out, you can’t play with your teddy bears. Let me help you, I don’t want them to find me either, but I’m apart of you, I live in you.” She spoke softly, this was the first time she’d ever spoken like that. “Now pull yourself together, and help me and I’ll give you something special,” she said. I turned, wiping the tears away from my eyes. “What’s so special,” I asked. “You’ll see,” she smiled, this made me smile too. She held out a hand for me, I grabbed it and felt there was a ruckus or a magical connection, my body started to shake. ‘Calm down,’ I murmured, I opened my eyes and she had vanished, no where to be seen!
The door to my cell was unlocked; I crept through, down the deserted corridors and tried to find the exit. But sadly all of them were locked, I saw one of those emergency axes that are used in fires, I smashed it and heaved the huge weapon out of its cabinet, and tried to hack at the lock on the exit.
CHINK!
CRACK!
The noise had disturbed a few people, I heard nurses coming out of their boxes and rushing to my room, then came a scream, and the nurses rushed back into their boxes, screaming words into their telephones that a nurse had been murdered and I was on the loose. I was in a room, with mirrored cabinets, swung it open what stood there was bottles upon gallons of liquid, used for cleaning and were highly flammable. By the side of me I noticed was a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, I grabbed the lighter, and flicked the mechanism then sprouted a beautiful flame; I gazed into the flame, my eyes glittering. I grabbed a few bottles of the liquid, heaving them on my shoulders, with the lighter tight in my hand. Unhooking the caps of the bottles, I grabbed the axe and started to hack into the bottles, liquid going everywhere, I guess I nearly filled the whole place, nurses galloped and shrieked:
“Alice dear put the axe down,” they said. I smiled flicking the lighter and the flame opened up, “Goodbye,” I said, and through the lighter into the middle of the room. It was extraordinary, like a huge firework, different shades of yellow, red, orange darting from different places in unbeatable speed. I slipped backwards and grabbed my axe and ran back into the room I had broken into. The screams of the nurses and patients echoed in my head making me laugh, I looked at the walls and saw a window, ‘I could escape’ driving the axe into the window, I hurled the axe through and jumped up, just missing the shards of glass left on the sill. I was outside on the grass, I started laughing, scarping back the hair that was dangling in front of my face. Walking a couple of paces, I looked round at the building, it was just like my house, the picture of it warmed me inside, I smiled. I turned round and stared at the wilderness in front of me, and began to trot the long journey I was going to take.
My name is Alice, I found freedom in the most unlikely of places, having no friends, being with my teddy bears, the chop of the scissors, the swipe of the axe, the chink of button, the smell of a flame burning. I have heard stories about myself, the insane girl, the scitzo that escaped an asylum, leaving her mark, the flame.
I don’t know where I shall go, or where to turn, it’s all thanks to that pal of mine locked inside my brain, she is now free and so am I.
Thank you for hearing my story…….and goodbye.
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Lunsford reviewed Version 1 -
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Dainakat reviewed Version 1 -
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I didn’t quite like the ending. It just left me hanging. I can see this as a monologue but if there was more of an ending this would be a great short story.
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February 11, 2007
Deleted User
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sctizo = schizo.
This was a very engaging story and I actually found myself moving towards the edge of my seat to find out what happened next.
I enjoyed the repeated sound effects. It really gave the reader a sense of what was happening. It was really interesting how you linked each item to what seemed like reality and incorporated it into the story.
As a child, there is always a very thin line between what is reality and what is imagined. You captured this perfectly.
Also, I enjoyed how you managed to use her escaping the house as her way of escaping the asylum.
I would try and cut down on the “she said” and other quote tags. Overused, they tend to pull away from the rhythm of the story. Might want to keep an eye on the run-on sentences as well.
Example : “Then it turned nigh time,” (I kept the misspelling in there on purpose) ends up being a long run-on sentence just begging to be broken up.
Take a look at the first sentence, as well. Instead of “you’re probably thinking why is she talking to us with those filthy asylum clothes on.”
Try “Hi, my name is Alice. You’re probably wondering, ‘Why…’”
Overall, it was a good piece of work and seemed to convey the items that you had wanted to present. Excellent ability to show what child-like thoughts are like, since most of us forget them by the time they’re your age.
Good luck and thanks for sharing.
MatthewMarquis reviewed Version 1 -
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From the get-go, be very mindful of your grammar and punctuation.
“Your ugly!” You’re.
“Well listen it starts…”
Well, listen, it starts…
“But boarding school was worse, the woman never left me alone, she was with me everywhere!”
These are independent sentences. Replace your commas with periods. Check your work for other instances of this.
Aside from various technical issues I have to say that your story was superb. Please go back to it and fix the problems. I can’t wait to see what happens when you do. Really a terrific story. It held my attention from the beginning.
Nice work!
SoulSide reviewed Version 1 -
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Interesting work but needs punctuation to make it more readable. I don’t want to deflate your efforts, so keep getting out everything onto paper, just stop now and then and read up on the mechanics.
lord_of_fools reviewed Version 1 -
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I guess your story’s okay, if a little clichéd. It needs a little work. I didn’t get much sense of the character. She seems more like a passive narrator. Instead of simply sayings things like, ‘I did this’ or ‘she was this’, try to include notes on her emotions; describe them to us. Her confusion and frustration need to be tangible. Include her own commentaries. You need to use other words for ‘mean’ and ‘grabbed’- these are used far too frequently. The narrative itself moves too quickly and I think this has to do with the style. Try writing this in third person, try to show us Alice’s emotions, then, if you are still set on first person, you can do that again. Right now, the narration seems passive and Alice’s character is vague and defined only by her ‘schizophrenia’ and pyromania. There has to be more to her than only her mental illness.
Don’t start a story, particularly one of this style, with ‘Hi my name is’; for one thing it is a dull first sentence, for another thing it leads the reader to believe they are about to get a full-blown description, a la Babysitter’s Club books or any other teen serial. We don’t really need to know her name from the word ‘go’. Use your dialogue to introduce her name. The last sentence is also unnecessary. The lign ‘she is free now and so am I’ is powerful by itself and the final paragraph only takes away from that. Throughout this story you tell us what people are feeling rather than showing us. For example, when Alice learns her parents died, all you need to say is ‘I shook my head’. Don’t immediately tell us that ‘she was angry’. The sentence about her parents’ faces ‘all covered in anger’ is particularly in need of attention. Try ‘covered in scowls’ or darkness or something like that.
There are a few basic rules of writing that need reviewing here as well:
- Always (with a few exceptions) start a new paragraph when someone speaks
- Apostraphes. The taunts made me cringe. I don’t mean to offend you by saying that- it’s simply that I am oversensitive about that sort of thing. It is ‘you’re’- short for ‘you are’, and ‘your’ implies ownership.
- put a gap between the fire scene and Alice waking up in the asylum. It happens too quickly and there is no dramatic tension. This would also slow the narrative, which in this case would be extremely useful.
Tabris reviewed Version 1 -
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i. Make sure the reader can be empathetic with the writing. For instance: What in God’s name is ‘asylum’ clothing? I understand the point you are trying to make, but it’s absurdly alientating and that’s the first-impression I received.
ii. Steer clear from the text, ‘My world is different than yours, I’m unique’, etc. This tends to make the reader immediately align the work with cliche’ writings. Choose different wording, and you’re set. —Beneath my immediate, negative first-impression I saw something good.
riotinto3 reviewed Version 1 -
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Hi…I’m not here to pee in your cornflakes and I commend you for your efforts/work. There is however, a need in this piece to go back through it and look at the “tense”...
“Hi my name is Alice, you’re probably thinking why is she talking to us with those filthy asylum clothes on. Well listen it starts probably after I was born into this weird world. I knew I was different from other people, at boarding school the girls would taunt me.”
In the above senstence, you move from first person to third and back to first…stay in the first person, ie “I am Alice and I have a story to tell you. You are probably wondering why I am going to tell you this story, etc etc…see what I’m getting at? Hope so…the problem occurs throughout the piece and to make it readable, you need to fix that glaring error…sorry for the harsh comments, but I do wish you luck and I’d like to see this once more after you’ve rewritten it..and rewritten it so on and so on…keep writing…it’s a process that evolves slowly, with patience and a willingness to face the critics…ciao
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