Alice looks lovely sitting at the back of the bus. She had a haircut – buzzsawed round the back, colourful feathers and screwed dreads in the bulk of it. To hell with a black 60s hair-helmet of sheen, she thought. Welcome Alice, to a new stage. She is drawing on the condensation, nonchalantly as a child, when Nietzsche comes over and sits next to her silently, respectful of what she is involved in. He waits for her to finish her drawing of a dog. She turns round.

‘Nietzsche! God. You scared me then.’ She leans her head against the window. ‘So I guess you wanna talk about philosophy?’

He nods.

‘Um. Existentialism right? Will that do?’

He closes his eyes and nods.

‘Well. I feel. I mean. I see the world we live in, even outside of here, even outside of
Canada, as uh, well as a mine of possibilities?’

He makes a face like ‘go on’.

‘And moralistic values shouldn’t um, stand in the way, of. Exploring. These possibilities.’

Nietzsche looks insistently at Alice, morosely and seriously. She hears his voice in her head: ‘Did you read Beyond Good and Evil?’

She smiles happily. ‘No sir.’

He looks impatient. ‘Can you even quote anything I have said?’

‘Yes. And stop it. I know some things about your life. "A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love." You said that, right?’

He nods like ‘I’m vaguely impressed’.

‘Yeah. There’re websites with loads of your quotes. I liked that one cuz it kinda rationalises love. But it still respects it as a force that can’t always be penetrated by science? Because it’s only "sometimes".’

‘Well done Alice. Well done.’ she can hear him say, but he sounds sad.

At the party, Dennis has too many glowsticks for anything to make sense anymore. Alice drags him outside, to the table where eight candles are melting down, the wax making a mound of itself in the evening. The patio has some Aztec stuff on it; it’s like a mosaic at a stretch Alice supposes.

Astley is there with a book of poetry by Charles Bukowski, and Mez is there, looking annoyingly beautiful as she always does, with her big hair and tight good taste, a thinly striped shirt, subtly handsome cardi and a big gold chain with Aztec-looking stuff on it. What a coincidence. Astley is ignoring Alice today, telling himself there are plenty more fish in the pond. Dexter, the mirror image of Mez, is there, and why oh why aren’t they together.

‘What, Al, what?’ asks Dennis, his limp mohawk lying on his face.

‘Well,’ Alice sighs like what she is going into is something no one here will understand; ‘I spoke to Nietzsche today.’

‘What like, the Prussian philosopher?’ asks Dexter, leaning on Mez, putting his shades on.

‘Yes Dex.’

‘He’s dead Al.’ says Mez, in a faux-caring voice.

Alice breathes out furiously, then contains herself. ‘He was. On the bus. With me.’

‘Did you have Frederick Nietzsche’s corpse on the back of the bus did you Alice? Did you? Is that what happened?’ moans Dexter.

‘Yeah are you being ironic or what?’ adds Mez.

Is Alice being ironic. She steps back suddenly, lets her body sit there, lets it look into the glow of those eight candles, let’s her mind follow its own odd, frayed rope in the darkness. She thinks about Mez’s question. She thinks about all her actions. What does she mean by all of this, really?

‘Alice. Hello. Nice to meet you.’ says Dennis, waving his hand around her eyes, following the music back to where everyone is raving in the house.

‘Am I what?’ says Mez.

‘Huh?’ Alice says.

‘You just said something Al.’

‘No I didn’t? I’ve just been looking at the candles thinking about what you said.’

‘Oh yes. Yeah. You have been doing that.’ says Mez.

Dexter giggles.

Nietzsche is swirling, literally swirling, round Alice’s room at night. He is trying to take in everything about it – all the photos pinned to the board, one of Astley and her, when they were in the cabin, cosy, four of her sister Maurelle throwing snowballs at their dad (it was a burst shot), pictures of knives, pictures of the insides of avocados. Then there’s her books and music and films in a pile. Nietzsche is unhappy to find the best-selling book in the world, the Bible, in the pile. He doesn’t say anything. Then there are hoards of different coloured washing pegs, lined up on string like Christmas cards would be at certain times. A small dog bed with an overwashed check blanket in.

‘This girl.’ Nietzsche probably says, although his voice is quieter in Alice’s head this time, distant.

‘Mm? Yeah that’s my sister Maurelle. I used to live in France, well I mean, I’m French, but I live here now, in Canada. I used to spend a lot of time over here, and since there’s so much French spoken over here anyway I thought yeah I can do that, I’ll go and live in Canada. My dad was so angry, but he’s. Well.’

‘Dead.’

‘Yes. How did you know Frederick?’

Nietzsche smiles at her usage of his first name. ‘You probably want me to say I know him in the afterlife. Well I’m not going to say that Alice.’

‘Okay. Don’t say it if it isn’t true.’ She leans back on her bed. Nietzsche sits at the end, by some socks.

Alice closes her eyes and opens them, her left hand clings to her right.

‘Frederick. There are some problems with this relationship.’

He makes a face like ‘go on’.

‘You are probably a figment of my imagination. So anything that I imagine you saying isn’t like, accurate, because I don’t know enough about you to know what you would’ve been like.’

‘That is a problem.’ Nietzsche probably says, but his voice is barely audible now, to Alice. ‘Why Alice? Why?’ he screams.

‘Out of boredom Frederick. I was so bored that I had to like, I had to basically involve myself in these conversations, out of boredom.’

‘Who bores you?’

‘Everyone bores me Fred. Everyone. No one has any color and no one has anything to say.’

‘Maybe you are not looking and maybe you will never listen. That is a tragedy Alice.’ He looks piercingly at her from the end of the bed.

She considers. ‘I can shut you up whenever I want.’ she snaps.

‘Hey Astley. Um. Yeah it’s Alice. Okay yeah, you okay? Cool yeah that’s cool. Hah, yeah he’s okay. No he’s fine. Um look. I was wondering. Hh. Well I was wondering if you wanted to come over. My uncle and aunt aren’t here. C’est tranquille. No! Trop tranquille. Quiet. I’m. I’m. Lonely really. I love you.’

Astley storms over to Alice’s uncle’s place, where she lives, with his hunting hat pulled under his chin, taught. It isn’t as cold out as he thought and this makes him optimistic.

‘Oh hello Astley. Hello.’ Alice says, holding him instantly in her arms and feeling his clothing. ‘I need to talk to you. Do you want some water?’

‘Um. No no. I’ll be alright, I’ll be okay.’ He watches her go into the kitchen. ‘But thank you.’

They sit in the old glow of her Aunt’s tv, the green, kinked digits floating in the darkness. Astley is uncomfortable but happy in this. Alice is in a different zone. She is clinically absentminded.

‘Al, what’s this about?’ Then Astley thinks he might have been too gruff: ‘I love you.’

‘This is about Frederick Nietzsche. In a ways.’

‘Jesus. I can’t believe I thought you wanted us back.’ Astley says, standing up and putting on his orange jacket. ‘This is totally shitty. You’re heartless.’

‘SIT.’ Alice wretches, jumping on him and pushing him into the couch. ‘I don’t know what I care about anymore Astley. I don’t know what I believe really. I’ve been sitting at home making things up in my head, and then when I come back to like, life, I don’t know how to act. I don’t. Know. I don’t know. Anything. Jesus.’

‘Jesus. Okay. Come here Al.’ He takes her in. She rustles on his jacket as she curls up on him. ‘Tell me all about it.’

‘I can’t.’

©Andi Smith