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IND The Quest for the Queen of Hearts (Ned's Adventure's in Wonderland)

There ain't anything we can compete. I mean you could go to a date with a girl and then come back home and spill your heart blood in the paper (or in the screen) and use like multiple more times than the date took to write a glowing review and the girls will be like, yeah thanks but where is my song?

I want to buy him a beer and beat him with old battery cables so bad and I don't know even which order.
... and I want to say and do all the things described by my medieval ancestor in this vid:

 
Nice tune!

What is the name of the cake shop?
Thanks! I'll have to defer to @User#8628 on the name. I was stealing glances at her as we entered and missed the sign. But they serve ginger ale and have poorly designed chairs that can't support a leather coat and heavy backpack hung on them at the same time.
 
NED, I swear, you are an amazingly talented writer. All these reviews need to be collected and published someday. :)
Thanks, bro! Maybe I should start a Kickstarter project to fund the research? :D
 
Last edited:
Nice tune!

What is the name of the cake shop?
Thanks! I'll have to defer to @User#8628 on the name. I was stealing glances at her as we entered and missed the sign. But they serve ginger ale and have poorly designed chairs that can't support a leather coat and heavy backpack hung on them at the same time.
It was l'occitane cafe above the l'occitane store (Shinjuku and Shibuya have it). @Jennifer Maddingly once took me there and i've been in love ever since. Sadly all their healthy and tasty looking meals have some kind of meat in it but their sweets plate is to die for.
 
It was l'occitane cafe above the l'occitane store (Shinjuku and Shibuya have it). @Jennifer Maddingly once took me there and i've been in love ever since. Sadly all their healthy and tasty looking meals have some kind of meat in it but their sweets plate is to die for.
Funny, I was going to say it was l'occitane but when I googled that name and saw that it was a beauty product store, I thought I must've been wrong.
 
And by the way I would like to make it official that I hate NED. First I was just envious of his writing but after realising he can sign and play too it's now plain hatred. I bet the fucker can dance and jump too?
I both dance and jump like an old white man. But if it counts for anything, I did hand build the guitar I played on the song. :p

Amazing how much free time one has when one's wife wants nothing to do with them.
IMG_0648.JPG
 
Cant resist asking you , who is your favorite rock guitarist?
 
Gentlemen, gentlemen. I'm flattered by the attention but this is a thread about Alice, who I'm sweet on.
I'll PM you... :kiss:
Damn , he's also good at respecting the rules! This guy is a Jedi! (And I'm a Sith lord bwaaaaaah ah ah :blackalien:)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Not Even Dave
While I can't bring myself to hate @Not Even Dave, I do worry that he has now raised the bar so high that no other TAG guy will ever be able to review @User#8628 or any of the board's active indies without feeling that he has to write a literary masterpiece, compose music, write poetic lyrics, build his own musical instrument and record a professional sounding performance! Gentlemen, what are we going to do now??? :eek:o_O:censored:

Maybe we should go back to just giving them numerical ratings on a 1-10 scale!? :D

-Ww
 
While I can't bring myself to hate @Not Even Dave, I do worry that he has now raised the bar so high that no other TAG guy will ever be able to review @User#8628 or any of the board's active indies without feeling that he has to write a literary masterpiece, compose music, write poetic lyrics, build his own musical instrument and record a professional sounding performance! Gentlemen, what are we going to do now??? :eek:o_O:censored:

Maybe we should go back to just giving them numerical ratings on a 1-10 scale!? :D

-Ww
Yeah, let's be Trumpish! Its also saving time for both writers and readers.
 
I think he may have gotten the idea because we talked about Mucha; hands down my favorite artist.
No one understands true elegance like he does.

Alice waits for you to meet her:
A412ABB8-484A-4A9A-B9F7-AAD06D31144F-3204-0000034718CC4687.jpeg


One thing that I picked up on, at least from his earlier work, is that there's almost always a circle behind his women.
 
Service and/or Provider's Name:
Alice in Wonderland

Date of Encounter:
April 17, 2017

Contact Method:
Email from her classified ad on TAG

Appointment Length & Costs:
3 hours (1 hour cafe/2 hours hotel), ¥90,000

Type/Location:
Hotel Pasha

Language Notes:
English, except when talking to the waitress at the cafe, and the LH front desk

Details of the Encounter:
My week of vacation was drawing to a close. I needed my heart broken one more time. And I had decided that Alice was just the woman to do it for me.

I first emailed her, I'm ashamed to admit, while transitioning from staggering to blind drunk in a bar in Kabukicho on April 12. I had purchased the courage to email her one glass at a time, as I was finishing up my review of Manami/Anna. Every paladin worth an epic ballad has his fall, the better to rise again, and so sat I in Bar Acqua, missing the last train out of the city, feeling a bit lost and unpurposed after the day's events. Alice replied quickly, and was exceptionally sweet. Fortunately, considering my state, the fates did not allow us to meet. But her reply gave me the encouragement I needed to pursue her. I found that I enjoyed even emailing Alice, as we tried to find a day and time that would work for both of us. Seeing her name pop up in my inbox made me smile like a goofy teenager. Except we didn't have email when I was a teenager. But I digress. At last we were able to set a date, a morning encounter on a Monday.

Every good quest has a dragon, usually at the end. My dragon, however, was at the beginning. And I wasn't meant to slay it, just avoid it. Which was a bit tricky since I needed to get on almost the exact same train as it... I mean her, heading away from work (to which I always drive anyway) on a Monday in which she didn't know I was off. I had to leave the house at my normal time pretending to go to work without actually saying I was going to work, but get to the train station after her. So, I sat in a 7-11 drinking coffee, my nerves singing punk rock at 220 BPM until I thought the coast was clear. It wasn't, and I almost passed her on the road. Finally, her car was parked at the station, so I crept up to get a look at the small platform, practically peering from behind vending machines. I had a story ready, but it was awfully goddamn weak and better if I didn't have to use it. In fact, I was keeping "falling onto the tracks" as an option if we bumped into each other. But the coast was clear, the dragon was gone, and the world's most deceitful paladin was back on the quest.

Next to contend with was the Yamanote Line just past rush hour. I was fortunate to run down the stairs and right onto a train that was practically empty. Of course, it terminated one stop later. These things happen when country mouse goes to visit city mouse. No big deal, as another train was soon forthcoming, one in which I got a nice warmup by receiving standing lap dances from all kinds of strangers of both sexes. And then, one stop from Shinjuku with 10 minutes to spare, the train ground to a halt. The conductor said something about "emergency brake" and a hundred apologies, while I contemplated prying a door open and running the rest of the way (which I later read someone actually did that day on a different line, perhaps to meet an Alice of his own). After a few minutes, the train started moving, but apparently it was now being pushed by old Japanese men in fundoshi, as we were moving at about the speed of an o-mikoshi. I arrived at Shinjuku with about two minutes to spare and one helluva large terminal to traverse to get to our meeting spot outside the station. Challenge accepted. Like Sir Lancelot charging to the Swamp Castle to rescue Prince Herbert in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I dashed, I leapt, I pulled a hammy, but I emerged from the stairs into daylight at exactly our preordained meeting time.

I didn't have to look for Alice.

I couldn't have missed her.

She was standing all alone outside, leaning against a rail, spotlighted in the shadows of the station by a lone ray of sunshine that she must have hired for the day. Even if she had been in a crowd, she would have been alone to me. She did not look anything like the people or the city around her. There were still a thousand miles to cross from the exit to her, though it measured only a few feet in this dimension. I took it slowly. This is the best moment, after all. Nothing is over yet, she is in sight and the whole encounter is still in the realm of potential.

I strode those last few steps, and shoved my sword into the earth at her feet as I fell to one knee, looked up and raised my visor to look upon her. I couldn't get my head around it, though. It was her, clearly, but she looked so young, so... so human. And frankly, a little uncomfortable standing there, with me kneeling in front of her. So, we may or may not have said a few words to each other and off we went to find the cafe for the hour of getting acquainted time.

It was only a few blocks to the cafe, a nice little tea and cakes shop, where she indeed ordered tea and cakes and I ordered ginger ale. Alice sat in the corner, I sat across from her, and loudly knocked the chair next to me over with my coat and backpack, which sent the waitress scrambling to help, which made me want to hit the rewind button and do the whole coming back up the stairs from the train station part again. Alice and I looked around the room and then looked at each other. I tried to look into her eyes, but got intimidated and looked away. Her eyes... you can see them on the website. But in person... they are hard to look right into, and hard to look away from once you do. I kept getting a sense of awkwardness, like neither of us were completely comfortable around each other yet. It was kind of like meeting a blind date for the first time, that sense of "well, here we are... somebody said we'd like each other..." We made some chitchat. I talked about ginger ale. Ginger fucking ale. Sure, if we were speaking a language one of us didn't speak well, but in English the best I can come up with is the soda in front of me? What happened to the suave things I had planned to say? That stuff I had thought up didn't fit with her. It was frankly dumb. Though not as dumb as ginger ale. Meanwhile, our long pauses were peppered with apologies. "Do you want to eat this?" "No, sorry, I'm on a diet." "Oh, I'm sorry we ordered it then." "No, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before we ordered, it's fine."

Finally, you know what? I'm just going to address it.

"You seem nervous..."

We talked about it. It was sweet, really. I felt better about things, and anyway, the hour was up and we gathered our things and headed out the door. I was not in my part of town, though I know the area a little bit. Alice led, but even on the walk to the hotel, we seemed out of sync, weaving into each other's path, bumping each other as we changed directions. I was starting to panic. I was heading to a hotel with Alice in Wonderland, and I was blowing it somehow. Any second now I would step on her ankle and we'd spend the next two hours in an emergency room.

We arrived without incident or injury at the hotel, Pasha, which has really cool white egg-shaped seats in a waiting area of the lobby, like something out of a '60s British sci-fi or spy show. We couldn't decide on a room, leaving it to each other indefinitely, so finally I picked one that looked OK but at the front desk, the lady told us the tub was broken. Back to the selection thingy, a different room, looked just as good. This one, everything worked. We got the rectangular poker chip of a key and headed to the elevator. We hadn't even held hands to this point. I was pretty sure she disliked me. I had no idea how this hotel worked, either, with the push button room ticket dispenser and the key-that-wasn't-a-key, but I could sense that Alice was starting to settle down now that we were in private, so I started to calm down, too.

In the room, we got our stuff settled, talked a bit more comfortably than before, and then Alice took off her sweater and pants and stood for a moment in her very pretty lingerie, with a coquettish smile that begged me to ask her what she was thinking, but I was too distracted.

I had told someone before that I wasn't all that attracted to most of the photos on her site.
He said, "When you see her, you'll change your mind."
I saw her.
I changed my mind.

Her hair cascaded down her shoulders like a strawberry champagne waterfall. Her eyes, still hard to look into, still hard to look away, were the color of a storm over the ocean. Just like lightning, they could grab me, toss my smoking form across the room. She was taller than I expected, but with more than I expected everywhere it counts. She was like a well-thought-out Formula One track, all curves and straightaways calling for me to come take a ride.

We showered, we brushed our teeth, she went on ahead to the bed. When I got there, she was posed on the bed, her figure displayed perfectly, with her hair fanned out on the pillow around her head, just so. It was art, the halo of hair forming a circle behind her face like in a painting by Alphonse Mucha.

It's no wonder, then, starting with such a view, that kissing her was exalting, touching her was like touching the source of something long sought, never found and seldom understood. Everywhere I placed my hands, or my lips, or my glance, there was reason to linger. Sometimes, in a situation like this, I don't do much. Sometimes, I go to Disneyland just to see the shows. Sometimes, I'm so absorbed in an experience like Alice that it becomes almost meditative, and I don't want to ruin it by painting myself onto the canvas. Alice didn't seem to mind, and remained passive and patient while I indulged my eyes and hands and mouth. In particular, I found her neck and jawline to be hypnotically attractive and probably overstayed my welcome there, greedily wearing away any sensitivity I could have exploited in those areas. In other positions, too, I found that the unique curves of her hips and narrowness of her waist made for fantastic sensations for my wandering hands. When I went down on her, though I had a passion and reverence for it bordering on spiritual, I fear I didn't do a very good job. Undaunted, I will try harder next time...

And we talked. Only now it wasn't awkward. And I could look into her eyes and not shy away. And she told me some things about herself that helped explain maybe why she was a little shy at first, contrary to this image -- this creature, really -- that I had built of her in my mind leading up to our meeting. I had created an Alice that was smooth and distant, a little haughty, judgmental, impossibly cool, unflappably superior to everyone else around her.

That's not Alice. As someone more eloquent than me put it so perfectly, an encounter with Alice is a date with a real girl, not a ticket to a performance. Alice is sometimes shy, sometimes nervous, sometimes passive, always sweet. The people who really value Alice don't come to her only for sex, and usually not for a short time. We want a feeling that she can give us beyond the physical. A feeling that, maybe she doesn't understand why she inspires it, but she does understand that it's important to us. I don't know if that's making any sense. I'll move on, though there isn't much more I need to tell.

We had made sure to hire a room with a working Jacuzzi, so we put it to use. We talked about movies and music and other stuff. I loved hearing her voice, and even the way she sometimes lets a sentence trail off like she just got self-conscious, which made me think she was uncomfortable around me back in the cafe, now it made me smile because it is Alice. The real Alice. A lovely Alice sitting next to me in a Jacuzzi, flashing those silver-blue eyes and pulling the champagne hair from her face. An Alice who would all too soon have to leave.

We dried, we dressed, we packed, we exited. On the street now, this time, we held hands. We got to the road where we would have to separate. This is the part I hate. The part where she says goodbye. I asked her, still holding hands, if I may see her again. Her smile was a gift, and she gave me a quick kiss there on the sidewalk, and said, "Of course!" And then she was walking away, but I was still smiling. The way she had said it, the way she had kissed me, it felt like hope as I watched her hair bounce as she continued down the street, like a college boy with a hopeless crush.

When she was gone from view, I turned to walk back to the station. It was early afternoon, but with Alice gone, the way in front of me was only darkness, and cold. I looked down at the heart I had brought for Alice to break, but she hadn't broken it. Visible behind the existing cracks both old and new, there was a faint image, hard to make out as the darkness swirled around me. Only the vaguest details: a glimpse of strawberry champagne curls, a flash of eyes like lightning on the water. I clutched the heart tightly in my fist, and plunged ahead into the darkness. A paladin looking for a goddess. An artist searching for a muse.

Final Thoughts:
Recommended, Will Repeat.

Closing Comments:
The beginning felt a little rocky.
The middle was euphoria.
The end always comes too soon.
I will book her for longer next time, to stave off the unwelcome moment of her departure. That moment when Alice says goodbye.
Ultimately, though, I found my muse.


Good night, Internet.

Service and/or Provider's Name:
Alice in Wonderland

Date of Encounter:
April 17, 2017

Contact Method:
Email from her classified ad on TAG

Appointment Length & Costs:
3 hours (1 hour cafe/2 hours hotel), ¥90,000

Type/Location:
Hotel Pasha

Language Notes:
English, except when talking to the waitress at the cafe, and the LH front desk

Details of the Encounter:
My week of vacation was drawing to a close. I needed my heart broken one more time. And I had decided that Alice was just the woman to do it for me.

I first emailed her, I'm ashamed to admit, while transitioning from staggering to blind drunk in a bar in Kabukicho on April 12. I had purchased the courage to email her one glass at a time, as I was finishing up my review of Manami/Anna. Every paladin worth an epic ballad has his fall, the better to rise again, and so sat I in Bar Acqua, missing the last train out of the city, feeling a bit lost and unpurposed after the day's events. Alice replied quickly, and was exceptionally sweet. Fortunately, considering my state, the fates did not allow us to meet. But her reply gave me the encouragement I needed to pursue her. I found that I enjoyed even emailing Alice, as we tried to find a day and time that would work for both of us. Seeing her name pop up in my inbox made me smile like a goofy teenager. Except we didn't have email when I was a teenager. But I digress. At last we were able to set a date, a morning encounter on a Monday.

Every good quest has a dragon, usually at the end. My dragon, however, was at the beginning. And I wasn't meant to slay it, just avoid it. Which was a bit tricky since I needed to get on almost the exact same train as it... I mean her, heading away from work (to which I always drive anyway) on a Monday in which she didn't know I was off. I had to leave the house at my normal time pretending to go to work without actually saying I was going to work, but get to the train station after her. So, I sat in a 7-11 drinking coffee, my nerves singing punk rock at 220 BPM until I thought the coast was clear. It wasn't, and I almost passed her on the road. Finally, her car was parked at the station, so I crept up to get a look at the small platform, practically peering from behind vending machines. I had a story ready, but it was awfully goddamn weak and better if I didn't have to use it. In fact, I was keeping "falling onto the tracks" as an option if we bumped into each other. But the coast was clear, the dragon was gone, and the world's most deceitful paladin was back on the quest.

Next to contend with was the Yamanote Line just past rush hour. I was fortunate to run down the stairs and right onto a train that was practically empty. Of course, it terminated one stop later. These things happen when country mouse goes to visit city mouse. No big deal, as another train was soon forthcoming, one in which I got a nice warmup by receiving standing lap dances from all kinds of strangers of both sexes. And then, one stop from Shinjuku with 10 minutes to spare, the train ground to a halt. The conductor said something about "emergency brake" and a hundred apologies, while I contemplated prying a door open and running the rest of the way (which I later read someone actually did that day on a different line, perhaps to meet an Alice of his own). After a few minutes, the train started moving, but apparently it was now being pushed by old Japanese men in fundoshi, as we were moving at about the speed of an o-mikoshi. I arrived at Shinjuku with about two minutes to spare and one helluva large terminal to traverse to get to our meeting spot outside the station. Challenge accepted. Like Sir Lancelot charging to the Swamp Castle to rescue Prince Herbert in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I dashed, I leapt, I pulled a hammy, but I emerged from the stairs into daylight at exactly our preordained meeting time.

I didn't have to look for Alice.

I couldn't have missed her.

She was standing all alone outside, leaning against a rail, spotlighted in the shadows of the station by a lone ray of sunshine that she must have hired for the day. Even if she had been in a crowd, she would have been alone to me. She did not look anything like the people or the city around her. There were still a thousand miles to cross from the exit to her, though it measured only a few feet in this dimension. I took it slowly. This is the best moment, after all. Nothing is over yet, she is in sight and the whole encounter is still in the realm of potential.

I strode those last few steps, and shoved my sword into the earth at her feet as I fell to one knee, looked up and raised my visor to look upon her. I couldn't get my head around it, though. It was her, clearly, but she looked so young, so... so human. And frankly, a little uncomfortable standing there, with me kneeling in front of her. So, we may or may not have said a few words to each other and off we went to find the cafe for the hour of getting acquainted time.

It was only a few blocks to the cafe, a nice little tea and cakes shop, where she indeed ordered tea and cakes and I ordered ginger ale. Alice sat in the corner, I sat across from her, and loudly knocked the chair next to me over with my coat and backpack, which sent the waitress scrambling to help, which made me want to hit the rewind button and do the whole coming back up the stairs from the train station part again. Alice and I looked around the room and then looked at each other. I tried to look into her eyes, but got intimidated and looked away. Her eyes... you can see them on the website. But in person... they are hard to look right into, and hard to look away from once you do. I kept getting a sense of awkwardness, like neither of us were completely comfortable around each other yet. It was kind of like meeting a blind date for the first time, that sense of "well, here we are... somebody said we'd like each other..." We made some chitchat. I talked about ginger ale. Ginger fucking ale. Sure, if we were speaking a language one of us didn't speak well, but in English the best I can come up with is the soda in front of me? What happened to the suave things I had planned to say? That stuff I had thought up didn't fit with her. It was frankly dumb. Though not as dumb as ginger ale. Meanwhile, our long pauses were peppered with apologies. "Do you want to eat this?" "No, sorry, I'm on a diet." "Oh, I'm sorry we ordered it then." "No, I'm sorry I didn't tell you before we ordered, it's fine."

Finally, you know what? I'm just going to address it.

"You seem nervous..."

We talked about it. It was sweet, really. I felt better about things, and anyway, the hour was up and we gathered our things and headed out the door. I was not in my part of town, though I know the area a little bit. Alice led, but even on the walk to the hotel, we seemed out of sync, weaving into each other's path, bumping each other as we changed directions. I was starting to panic. I was heading to a hotel with Alice in Wonderland, and I was blowing it somehow. Any second now I would step on her ankle and we'd spend the next two hours in an emergency room.

We arrived without incident or injury at the hotel, Pasha, which has really cool white egg-shaped seats in a waiting area of the lobby, like something out of a '60s British sci-fi or spy show. We couldn't decide on a room, leaving it to each other indefinitely, so finally I picked one that looked OK but at the front desk, the lady told us the tub was broken. Back to the selection thingy, a different room, looked just as good. This one, everything worked. We got the rectangular poker chip of a key and headed to the elevator. We hadn't even held hands to this point. I was pretty sure she disliked me. I had no idea how this hotel worked, either, with the push button room ticket dispenser and the key-that-wasn't-a-key, but I could sense that Alice was starting to settle down now that we were in private, so I started to calm down, too.

In the room, we got our stuff settled, talked a bit more comfortably than before, and then Alice took off her sweater and pants and stood for a moment in her very pretty lingerie, with a coquettish smile that begged me to ask her what she was thinking, but I was too distracted.

I had told someone before that I wasn't all that attracted to most of the photos on her site.
He said, "When you see her, you'll change your mind."
I saw her.
I changed my mind.

Her hair cascaded down her shoulders like a strawberry champagne waterfall. Her eyes, still hard to look into, still hard to look away, were the color of a storm over the ocean. Just like lightning, they could grab me, toss my smoking form across the room. She was taller than I expected, but with more than I expected everywhere it counts. She was like a well-thought-out Formula One track, all curves and straightaways calling for me to come take a ride.

We showered, we brushed our teeth, she went on ahead to the bed. When I got there, she was posed on the bed, her figure displayed perfectly, with her hair fanned out on the pillow around her head, just so. It was art, the halo of hair forming a circle behind her face like in a painting by Alphonse Mucha.

It's no wonder, then, starting with such a view, that kissing her was exalting, touching her was like touching the source of something long sought, never found and seldom understood. Everywhere I placed my hands, or my lips, or my glance, there was reason to linger. Sometimes, in a situation like this, I don't do much. Sometimes, I go to Disneyland just to see the shows. Sometimes, I'm so absorbed in an experience like Alice that it becomes almost meditative, and I don't want to ruin it by painting myself onto the canvas. Alice didn't seem to mind, and remained passive and patient while I indulged my eyes and hands and mouth. In particular, I found her neck and jawline to be hypnotically attractive and probably overstayed my welcome there, greedily wearing away any sensitivity I could have exploited in those areas. In other positions, too, I found that the unique curves of her hips and narrowness of her waist made for fantastic sensations for my wandering hands. When I went down on her, though I had a passion and reverence for it bordering on spiritual, I fear I didn't do a very good job. Undaunted, I will try harder next time...

And we talked. Only now it wasn't awkward. And I could look into her eyes and not shy away. And she told me some things about herself that helped explain maybe why she was a little shy at first, contrary to this image -- this creature, really -- that I had built of her in my mind leading up to our meeting. I had created an Alice that was smooth and distant, a little haughty, judgmental, impossibly cool, unflappably superior to everyone else around her.

That's not Alice. As someone more eloquent than me put it so perfectly, an encounter with Alice is a date with a real girl, not a ticket to a performance. Alice is sometimes shy, sometimes nervous, sometimes passive, always sweet. The people who really value Alice don't come to her only for sex, and usually not for a short time. We want a feeling that she can give us beyond the physical. A feeling that, maybe she doesn't understand why she inspires it, but she does understand that it's important to us. I don't know if that's making any sense. I'll move on, though there isn't much more I need to tell.

We had made sure to hire a room with a working Jacuzzi, so we put it to use. We talked about movies and music and other stuff. I loved hearing her voice, and even the way she sometimes lets a sentence trail off like she just got self-conscious, which made me think she was uncomfortable around me back in the cafe, now it made me smile because it is Alice. The real Alice. A lovely Alice sitting next to me in a Jacuzzi, flashing those silver-blue eyes and pulling the champagne hair from her face. An Alice who would all too soon have to leave.

We dried, we dressed, we packed, we exited. On the street now, this time, we held hands. We got to the road where we would have to separate. This is the part I hate. The part where she says goodbye. I asked her, still holding hands, if I may see her again. Her smile was a gift, and she gave me a quick kiss there on the sidewalk, and said, "Of course!" And then she was walking away, but I was still smiling. The way she had said it, the way she had kissed me, it felt like hope as I watched her hair bounce as she continued down the street, like a college boy with a hopeless crush.

When she was gone from view, I turned to walk back to the station. It was early afternoon, but with Alice gone, the way in front of me was only darkness, and cold. I looked down at the heart I had brought for Alice to break, but she hadn't broken it. Visible behind the existing cracks both old and new, there was a faint image, hard to make out as the darkness swirled around me. Only the vaguest details: a glimpse of strawberry champagne curls, a flash of eyes like lightning on the water. I clutched the heart tightly in my fist, and plunged ahead into the darkness. A paladin looking for a goddess. An artist searching for a muse.

Final Thoughts:
Recommended, Will Repeat.

Closing Comments:
The beginning felt a little rocky.
The middle was euphoria.
The end always comes too soon.
I will book her for longer next time, to stave off the unwelcome moment of her departure. That moment when Alice says goodbye.
Ultimately, though, I found my muse.


Good night, Internet.


I miss Alice!​