10 years later, Alice appreciated everything she had in life. It wasn't perfect, but it made her appreciate perfection when some things were imperfect. She even wrote a book about how to appreciate life, explaining that when you waste your life dreaming of perfection, you are even further away from it than when you began. She strongly believed that perfection could be one of the worse things to wish for. That dreaming should only be done in your sleep, so you don't waste your days.

Alice gathered her stuff, dressed to the nines, and walked out the door. Driving to her first book conference at a small bookshop in London, she thought about how much she loved her life, even though she was alone. Turning up the radio, playin Gardenia by Malice Mizer, she has never felt better. It wasn't sad that she didn't know the people who wrote the song, she was just happy that she could enjoy such a beautiful song.

She pulled up at the store. When she arrived, the employees were so nice. They set up a table for her to sit and handed her a pink sharpie to sign books.

Just as she got situated, people started piling in. "I loved the story" "It changed my life!" she would hear people say as she signed their copies with a smile.

She looked up and saw a fimiliar, content looking face. "Alice, what makes a human?" He asked her. Alice, stricken by his beauty, replied "Nothing but a being of malice and misery" she said, "but it is that malice and misery that makes their beauty mean so much more" Alice said with a smile, and the man smiled back in agreement and walked away.

She knew what her next book would be titled: Gardenia.

~the end: thank you all for reading~