"I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep."
- Walt Whitman
A sudden realization of one's place among the universe. A spark of enlightment that forces us to see the world for ourselves. A first step on a frightening road to self-knowledge. Romantic mages would say that an Awakening is very much like falling in love with the wrong person. In Alice's case, this was exactly what happened.
As a young teenager, she was all about Friday nights, Sunday mornings and everything in between. At night, the streets of Nottingham knew her as a reckless party girl, much to her parents disapproval. For Alice, they were a most unfortunate family. Arthur Pwetey, her father, was a methodic and clever accountant whose greater ambitions involved a career in banking. Margaret Pwetey, her mother, was a dim-witted woman who claimed to have conversations with God involving cooking and interior decorating.
Unawakened, Alice stumbled between her days as a dutiful daughter and her nights as a manic thrill-seeker and she thought there was nothing else in life besides this boring rotine of pleasure and suffering. Like any other girl of her age, she contemplated suicide and wrote bad poetry, but, above all else, she got more and more wasted and many times fucked, hoping that something, whatever it be, happened. She was not so stupid as she appeared to be. Young Alice, leaping into the void, was ready to embrace death.
In those days, Benjamim was an artist that didn't even bother to write poetry. Lving off the streets, he would go to any shady place, take whatever everyone was taking, win their trust, recite a few lines and earn some money, or at least somewhere to crash for the night. That was roughly how he met Alice. She didn't exactly have money or a place to stay, but Benjamim saw in her the loving muse that would make him a true poet and Alice - well, she saw in him everything else she could do with her life. They didn't have to make conversation, drink themselves up, or get down on each other. That night, she fell in love with him and saw herself, for the first time, as a woman with her own future.
When the sun rose, they were walking down the street and he asked her "Would you come to London with me?" while he held her hand. Alice, without a second thought, said yes and they left Nottingham in that very same morning. Their small savings would not take them so far, so they traveled both by road and by train. Benjamim showed Alice how he had no problems making friends and Alice showed Benjamim how she made her money last through the week. When they finally arrived, this odd couple was anxious to make a life for themselves in the great city of London. Alice remembers that night when all that glitering world was laid out in front of them. For the first time, they made love and Alice felt what love actually was. The next morning, she slept wonderfully and, when she rose, the day was unusually sunny. Savoring a sweet smile, she rushed to the park where, walking beneath the trees, Alice wondered if she ever had seen the sky so clearly. And thus she Awakened.
Life for a young mage and a struggling poet was never easy. Reality has a way to put itself before Art and both have their unique difficulties. Each in their own craft, Alice and Benjamim had indeed talent, but scarcely any recognition. For Alice, it was worse yet, for she couldn't even begin to recognize herself in any of the work from her peers. Indeed there were others like her, and true magic would have its own rules, traditions, covenants and politics, but Alice couldn't deal with any of it. Besides, they all thought she was stupid. Alice could admit to being stubborn or impatient, but Benjamim had already showed her that she was nothing like her dull mother and much more inteligent than her poor father. If there was such a thing as magic, she would learn it herself and, one day, she would show them what it really was about. Alice would bring the Awakening to the whole world.