I am suffering from an emotional anorexia. I am a crushed soul, an empty hollow husk of my former shadow, and though I walk everywhere, I used to fly and in the skies, I had danced, but now I have run out of sky. I am beginning to crack, but that is somehow alright. I have been told by a wise man that everything has a crack in it, that's how the light gets in, shivering upon the darkest corners of our hearts, illuminating our darkest movements and moments, radiating warmth like a perfect blanket on a cold, cold night.

I was desperate for love, constantly searching for the solution to my equation: [í<3u = (a)l²+1]. I've tried everything I could think of: physics tricks; chemical concoctions; emotional distortions — nothing worked. I came close to giving up and falling back on the d standby, the old answer to every problem known to humanity: The Hemingway Solution.

As a final bid, I left a letter, a note really, upon my door, in the hopes that someone would be able to settle this debate within me because even though Hemingway had the answer to it all, it wasn't the one I wanted yet. So the letter was made, simply saying:



Dearest,
I am writing you
this letter to inform you
of my unbreakable nature.
That's all.
— Love Me

















P.S. Be yourself, I love you like that.

P.P.S. Can you help me solve x³+y³=z³? I'm dying to know the answer.
That's what I wrote. That's what I taped to my front door and then went to sleep with Hemingway's deviously simple solution resting on top of my dresser.

When I awoke the next morning, Hemingway's answer was still waiting patiently to be employed, but I ignored it and went to my front door to check on my letter; my distress call; my last bid for — I don't know, something, anything! But I found nothing. My letter was gone, tape and all. Maybe someone took it home; maybe the wind blew it away and is now resting in some oil-filled puddle on the side of some crumbling road. Was there any wind last night? I don't remember. I'm not going to ask Hemingway either, he doesn't have the answer to that question. Will you look at that: I found something that Hemingway's Solution doesn't solve. Maybe things are looking up?









*KNOCK*


*KNOCK*


*KNOCK*







Maybe not.

I walked back to my front door and opened it, without checking on who it might be through the people peephole, only to be greeted by an elegant woman who introduced herself as Alice. Not unlike Wonderland. She said she saw and read my letter, and had wanted to meet me. She claims to have wanted to come sooner but didn't know if I would be home.

I apologized for not leaving more vital information in the letter, such as how to contact me, and I invited her inside.

I offered her a seat and she gladly took one on my beat-up couch, smiling wide the entire time. She sat there staring at me with her piercing dark honey eyes, highlighting her cheeks and forehead. Her face was encapsulated by a space helmet of warm waves of hair. Her long delicate fingers rested on the knees of her crossed legs, like some sort of X-chromosomed alien Buddha. Her caramel bronze skin appeared to glow with an ancient radiance seen only by a chosen few, filling my humble abode with an aura of mystery and intrigue; while her tan, pastel-colored lips parted slightly, concealing her teeth.

It looked like she wanted to speak, but only a comforting silence came in the form of whispy...