A

She walked into the room, unphased by the world. Through her eyes shines a kaleidoscopic mind of fire and ice. With her magnetic beauty, she drapes herself effortlessly over the scenery. At her feet fall a myriad of lovers. In her nature wakes an ever-hungering beast, impatient and indecisive. She has this enchanting wit about her, full of surprises. And they all fall for the carousel of laughter—that pull of a siren’s song—as she recalls all the ships that have crashed on her shores. And it was this raw, animalistic darkness that made her truly dangerous. In my head, I repeated that paragraph over and over. It was a made-up pile of bullshit, but I lived by the “fake it ’til you make it” approach. My parents didn’t teach me shit, so I went with anything I could get a grasp on. Anything. It worked so well; I was so good at it that the fake versions of me preceded me, and my actual being hung far behind my capacities. I was about to enter my twenties, determined to catch up. I was about to create the woman of my dreams, whatever the cost. Murder, money laundering, sacrificial rituals. I hoped it would not have to be as drastic. In my mind, I came from nothing. I was chasing the American Dream. But I didn’t want to become an empty circus pony. I wanted to be someone people would remember. They should write me down in their history books. But instead of prancing around in front of cameras, I wanted to make games. Yeah, video games. Those piles of pixels had shown me powerful women, and I wanted to become them. Women of status. Women with men holding their shopping bags whilst she transformed her high heels into guns and her girlfriend picks her up on a red motorcycle in a red latex suit. My name would be Alma Arabella. I lived in a constant state of dreaming. Sitting in an Ikea chair, my legs folded in unhealthy origami, thick glasses hanging over a keyboard with years of crumbs and dust stuck into sticky liquids and fingertip sweat. That was how I was going to rule the world. Life is a circus of madness where the true score is measured by how much idiotic shit you can take. First, I needed to escape my parents. That was the reason I started doing any of this. At any point, the goal was not to become like them. I did not want to be a system slave, so the plan was to work for my passions. I was an A-grade student; my dad forced me to be, sure. But for me, the equation meant better grades equal faster independence. I wanted to run. Good grades for freedom. I was willing to walk over anyone. Fear made me a violent, hot-headed maniac. The perks of having A’s are that you can be an annoying ass without repercussions. Though I tested my luck one too many times, it did give me the kicks to test the system. I hated the system. I was waging war. I wish I knew it did not have to be that way. “You really need to become more diplomatic about this, Alma. “Fuck you.” I can’t say nobody tried to get it through to me, but I was a dumb child. I mean, a true rebel. I didn’t finish school with a perfect score, but I came pretty damn close. Only students who kissed their teachers’ asses got those. Or people who were good at math. I did neither. I wanted to become an artist. Not one of the starving ones, but a crazy famous one like Dalí. The Dalí of gaming. I worked every second of my waking life towards that goal. I was destroying my body and my mind for it. I was just a nerdy creep, ready to become Radiohead’s angel, floating like a feather in a beautiful world. A world I was willing to lift out of the ground with my bare hands if necessary.