The night was silent except for the occasional rustle of leaves. Alone in her room, Alice watched as the curtains formed waves with the wind. It looked like they were alive and breathing, going up and down. She turned to look at the clock. 'Thirty minutes to twelve', she thought. 'That’s more than enough time.'
'What is my life?' she thought, chewing hard at the end of her pen. 'If I could describe my life in one word, what would it be? Sad? Tiring? Resentful?' But none of it seemed to fit. 'If my life could tell a story, what would it be?'
The dark figure looming was over at the corner of her room. She could sense its stare piercing deep into her skin. She looked over to where the figure stood, expecting something to happen. But it only tapped its wrist and stared back at her, its eyes slightly glowing under the dim light.
Alice turned back to the empty page in front of her. After a few minutes she smiled as she wrote, "I’ve always felt that my life is a series of unfortunate events."
'Sounds a little cliché, but it does have a good hook to it,' she thought with satisfaction. 'Honestly, unfortunate is the best word to describe my whole life. It all boils down to how much of it you can take. Damn, was I always this negative?' She looked over to the corner once again. The figure nodded in approval. Feeling proud of herself, she continued:
"My whole life I was constantly advised by everyone I met. And I took it all to heart to build the perfect daughter, the perfect student and the perfect life. Everything I did had to be perfect. There was no room for mistakes. Oh no, mistakes were for losers. The ones who lacked discipline. Because, like my mother said, if you’re disciplined, you won’t waste your time making mistakes. Everything was perfect until I turned 15. Suddenly everything around me seemed different somehow. I had begun to form thoughts and ideas of my own, which was strange because I was only taught to follow what I was told. I became aware of the fact that what the real Alice thought of the world and herself was completely different from the Alice that I had invented and perfected for 15 years. The real Alice wanted to study only what she liked and when she felt like it. But perfect Alice studied 6 hours a day no matter what happened and even pulled all-nighters when she could. The real Alice wanted to let her hair flow freely and liked bright colours, but perfect Alice always had her hair in a ponytail and wore dull colours because it drove attention away from her. The real Alice wanted to laugh out loud and make mistakes, but perfect Alice was always calm and collected and always knew what was right. The real Alice wanted to say exactly what she thought of things, while perfect Alice kept her thoughts to herself."
"Within a year, it turned into a tug of war between both Alices. Around people I was perfect Alice, but when I was alone I became the real Alice, and I hated every minute of it. Soon the real Alice started to make an appearance whenever she could. And boy did people hate it. I started to hear the phrase, ‘You have changed a lot. You weren't like this before'. Slowly I began to hate the real Alice because she kept ruining my perfect image and always seemed to get me into trouble. The real Alice made me say no to things I didn’t like. The real Alice made me disagree with things that I didn’t think were right. She even had the nerve to make me talk back to my parents when I was mad at them. I started to feel like I didn’t know who I was anymore. I wasn’t used to being myself, except for the perfect girl that I had invented. But why was I trapping the real Alice from ever coming out? Because accepting me for who I was meant that I could never be the perfect girl that everyone liked and praised. No more ‘you’re such a nice girl’, no more ‘why can’t you be more like her’. Being the real Alice meant that I would be the one standing out in a crowd. Being the real Alice would make me the girl that does what she likes without considering what others might think. Being the real Alice meant that I would be my true, chaotic self. No, I needed to be perfect. It was what I was supposed to be. So I never let my guard down, fearing that the real Alice would escape my clutches."
"And for a while it was okay. Things seemed to go back to normal. I was perfect again."
"Unfortunately, things began going downhill when I moved away from home for college. Everything was new here. The real Alice had managed to escape my prison, and she was unpredictable. I felt like I was losing control of my life. Before I knew it, I had become detached from my friends, my family and everyone who was ever in my life. I had convinced myself that I was conning everybody with my real Alice/perfect Alice bullshit. The more time I spent alone, the more of me I couldn’t stand. The resentment began to build up over the things I didn’t do, of things I could have done and of not putting myself first. All I could think was that I wouldn’t be in this mess if I had been more disciplined. And how do you enforce discipline? With punishment. So that’s what I did. I badly wanted to show the real Alice how much I hated her for ruining my life.”
She dropped her pen as her hands began to shiver. Tears were welling up in her eyes. She looked down and saw the series of thin, shallow scars smiling back at her. From her arms. From her thighs. From both her ankles.
A finger tapping loudly on her table brought her attention back to the page. The figure had stepped out of the shadows and was now standing right beside her. She turned to get a full view and felt like she was looking into a mirror. The figure had her same skin. The same hair. The same face. But the eyes were different. They were lifeless. It loudly tapped on the table again, urging her to continue writing.
‘Which Alice are you?’ She thought as she picked up the pen.
“I thought it was the right thing to do. Perfection never comes easy. I had to discipline myself so that I could be my perfect self again. But the more I tried, the harder it got. In my pursuit to attain peak perfectionism, I lost myself. Who am I now? Was I perfect Alice? Or was I the real Alice? More importantly, who did I want to be? I realise now that I was wrong about everything. I don’t deserve to live like this. It’s time I put myself first.””
Alice sighed heavily.
“What do you think?” She asked the figure who was now looking over her shoulder. “Perfect?”
“Not perfect enough.” The figure replied in its drab, lifeless voice. “Doesn’t look like the perfect goodbye to me.”
Alice could feel its cold hands on her neck now. She sighed heavily again. “How much time do I have?” she asked, shuddering a little.
“5 seconds.” It answered
“Will I feel it?” She asked. But before she could find out, she felt herself gasping for air. ‘So that’s it? That’s really how my life ends?’ she thought as her vision became blurry.
Suddenly something in her changed. She found herself fighting its harsh grip. But the more she strained, the tighter it became. ‘But this can’t be it. It just can’t end like this…'
‘Am I too late?’
Alice woke up screaming for her life. It took a few minutes before she came to her senses. She jolted from her bed and ran to the mirror. The curtains danced in the afternoon breeze as she desperately tried to figure out if the bruise on her neck was real or a trick of the light. Still dazed, she answered her phone when it rang.
“Hey, Alice. It's Priya. I got your number from Tom. Listen, could I borrow your English notes? I was absent on Friday and—”
“Are you free today?”
“What? Well, yeah. You don’t sound so good. Are you okay?”
Alice couldn’t control her tears anymore.
“No,” she replied, sobbing. “But I want to be.”
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