Song of Alice

No one understood her. No one even tried to. She was a mystery, and untouchable mystery. She was too strange for any of us to comprehend. She would wander the halls every night, carrying a little, yellow box. Some times people would peek out of they're apartments as she passed. We never knew what she was doing.

One year, there was a huge black out. You couldn't see two inches in front of you. She went around to all the doors giving everyone candles. Everyone accepted them, but they didn't know what to think of it. They just used it against her in the end.

I remember one night. She was walking back home. I watched from my window as she stepped through the filth that littered the road, carrying her shoes in her hands. She was just this magnificent beauty, however strange I knew her to be.

I guess that was the difference between me and the rest of the people in the building. To everyone else she was a leprous mystery; untouchable. To me she was a beautiful mystery. She couldn't be understood, because she wasn't meant to.

When the fire happened, it was convenient to blame it on her. People made up excuses that could explain it. They made her out to be crazy. They all thought she was crazy, but I didn't. Sure she was odd, she had this sadness about her. But she had this light.

So they treated her differently after the fire. I could tell that she was hurt by it. She stopped wandering around the halls at night. Then, one day, she just disappeared. No one had any idea where she had went.

Later they said the girl's name was Alice. The whole time I never knew her name.