Alarm number 4 rung loud and true; brush teeth.

There were 18 alarms for each day, all with sketchy ring tones. Organisation was not the point. Necessity took charge. No visitors all day, her focus was her own. Preparation was key for the tall task ahead.

She groomed her curiosity and festered on her points. Everything was in its place, ready to give function and brighten her world.

Pillars of papyrus wisdom, adorned her whitewashed den. Her 'hub of happening' was warm, like a buttered hot cross sun, set in a July sky of predictability. A little cluttered and sometimes upside down, but a safe space, one foot by two feet.

Used hankies and snack packets lined its corners. They memorialised lost time and absent thoughts. 'Cleanliness is next to godliness' was farthest from her mind. For close to her smooth pastel chest, between each breast, a verdigrised brass crucifix rested.

Her lesser loves slung accusations of night work. A vampire slayer most thought realistic. She jingle-jangled her cross with an irreverent swing and sung to a tune, that she alone could put demons to bed.

Shapeshifters were two a penny. She could stake out those charlatans with a few choice words, for literature and language lay at her feet. Those words bathed her ankles, alongside many books she had yet to meet.

Zoom calls were her happy time. Grinning longer and wider than a Cheshire cat, she'd out-stare her curious followers. Exhaustion would often melt their demeanour, as they attempted to defend their works. She took the time to strip them one by one, of their authorial dignity and laughed at their nakedness.

But she held a secret close.

ClattER-Clettar, cLttera ClattER ...

In the cobalt blue this night, she bolted upright. Inundated with imaginary texts, that she struggled to answer. Her talons sprung and ready. Fingers fixed for a keyboard battle.

Words. So many words. Big and long and bold and complicated.

Question upon question, her intestine would spill. Labyrinthine, with loops and u-turns, and forgetting to take turns! One-sided was her train of thought and she would take only prisoners.

Siding with her, felt like a late night fried feast, that rose up and down the chest of a freshman drunk.

Sentences ran forward and sprinted backward in a simultaneous unstable orbit of lunacy. She spewed words to tie the tongue and strangled any thought of creativity.

ClattER-Clettar, cLttera ClattER.

To disagree with The Keyboard Queen would be courageous—but pointless. For who truly wanted to break her, or tarnish her wings?

Set aside at sixteen, she was a self-made loner in her own right, with spinster goals.

The veiled Audrey was of delicate constitution. Pumped with laudanum to rid her of her pains, she had forgotten how to bleed.

A million bandaids had blessed her brow to stem her truth. The day walkers shunned her attempts to elicit sympathy, knowing too well that doing so, would rob empathy of running its natural course.

ClattER-Clettar, cLttera ClattER!

Arguing into the night, Audrey finally spread her tight-pursed lips to a grin. Fingers flicked to her chin and like The Hatter, she madly waited.

Username: Warplestinger-7heaven, had had enough. ‘No more mind games’. They had toyed with hard caps and chose not. Instead, they spun a simple riddle.

“Are you trying to Aristotle me or are you Plathing about?”

Audrey’s secret sanatorium shook, ceilings blinked and fuzzed their way to brightness. With the force of a steam piston, she hit Ctrl+C then Ctrl+V, sending 'Aristotle and Plathing' to The Great Beyond.

World-wide, social media began to seethe. Wayward emojis sprouted left, right and centre. The perplexed screamed for context. People pleasers with plastic thumbs dished pleasantries and platitudes rolled on...

Audrey found herself in nakedness.

As the moon's crest kissed the stars goodbye, and users made peace, her screen began to dim.

Misunderstood and ill-rested, her Mac had had its fill. Her sleepy silver shield against the world began to bat its lid. And like a soft closing toilet seat, ‘Audrey left the chat’.

The orderlies would offer pre-breakfast comfort and push her toward solace, with a knowing wink. Who knew solitude could be so wicked?

Audrey felt abandoned.

Until the dark drew near, loneliness would nip at her heels and chase her back to bed.

Contrary to her belief, the world had seen her secret struggle and loved her nonetheless.