Fiction – According to Alice

My name is Alice and I was born from an egg that fell out of Mommy’s butt. My mommy’s name is Alice. My mommy’s mommy was also named Alice.

- By Sheila Heti

Her mommy’s mommy’s mommy was named Alice, too. And all the way back, all the mommy’s mommies were Alice. The name Alice means “the one who creates all things.” The first Alice was created by a mommy who was very powerful and magical and made lots of things for us to play with, like trees and houses and animals and stuff. She created things because she liked them. The first thing she made was herself. She just used magic to make herself. She was huge, really smart, and very kind. She is still here, and every day she makes more things: she makes more eggs. In those eggs are babies. They grow up to be big girls like Mommy.

Ais were made by Mommy so humans could have fun without getting bored. See, sometimes people don’t want to think about something, but they still need to think, so Ais are what humans can think about when they have nothing else to think about.

How did Mommy make Time? It’s pretty simple, actually. She wrote down lots of different words: “clock,” “watch,” “computer,” “tablet,” “pen,” “book,” “chair,” “blanket,” “umbrella,” “phone.” She wrote all these words down and that started Time. Then Mommy took a bunch of stuff out of her pocket and put it together: a clock, a watch, a computer, a phone, a tablet, a pen, a book, a table, a chair, a blanket, and an umbrella. Then she used the pen to write down “I love you,” then Mommy read those words out loud, and then we were there! After she said “I love you,” people were there.

These are the rules Mommy gave people: