In there is a wretch, and a storm
Wock, my petit--
Predictably, I have spoiled everything. I spilled the tea on my shoes--how lovely were the stains on the satin and ribbon, like tears! And a great hulking ostrich-beast with eyes of honey-cakes stole the envelope, and buried it in the sand. So I sleep the nights under the stars like spilled milk wrapped in the lock of your mane, which in its infinite color covers all my little body against the scirocco which bridles through each Tuesday at tea time. It has a colonial accent and tips its sagebrush bowler to me as it passes, making a briar of my hair. My hands have quite worn through. I tried to bandage them with crow feathers and limestone, but the bones are beginning to show and I think there is nothing I can do. There is never any doctor in the house and I devoured the velvet chairs in my starvation. I miss your ratatouille, the great copper vat you stirred with your emerald claw, the divine eggplant and onion smells which drove the Walrus mad. I miss our little house, our little lair all strewn with mirrors that reflected only us. Was there a time when I was a girl and not yours? I think it is an impossibility, a fairy tale told to frighten me. But among the dunes, there is nothing but disappearing flesh and the great chenille expanse of your mane, over and under me, guarding me from the pelting sand. Ever happily and after, Alice
