How to survive

Today I have decided to inform everyone on how to survive in Mirabili.
First thing you have to do is forget everything you once knew about latin. Not only will this assist when ignoring the words of the priest during the mandatory mass that is held every Sunday. The mass where we are told that all we must do to be healed of all that ails us is to believe in a man who lives in the sky and controls all our lives. It will also enable you to ignore the humour that is presented by the amusing contrast between the name of this place and what it actually is.

Secondly you should either take the pills they give you, or become adept at slight of hand and pocketing them to be disposed of later. If you resist, or are caught disposing of them then you will be placed in the dark box, and mother will treat you to the best of her abilities. Of course her abilities are all centred around the administration of medicine through any means necessary and in restraining troubled patients. It took me many encounters which resulted in my brain feeing fuzzy and my body hurting before I learned how to hide the poisons and dispose of them without being caught.

The next thing you must become adept at is lying. This not only helps when you have to convince the doctors that you are feeling fine and do not need more medicine, but also when one of the other patients insists on talking to you about nothing at all. For example the only thing one can do when the Mad Hatter decides to talk to you for hours about hats is either to actually listen and die from boredom, pretend to be dead already, actually care about hats, or my preferred option, pretend that you have ran out of medication and no longer speak english. Although you may be reported to the Dormouse, it is better to lie to him more than it is to listen to a madwoman talk about hats for days.

Finally you should find a kindly nurse and make sure to associate with them, I have only been able to find one who actually seems to be willing to talk to a phoenix like me. I call her the Gryphon and she is very kind. You should also find a nurse who will be friendly towards you, but not her, she is mine.

Now that you have been told this you should be able to survive here, as long as you do not break any of the secret rules of survival, but I can not tell you about those. The Dormouse is quite clear on the subject of creating militias and arson, and because of that there are too many other rules to list. Since the nurses tell you those rules I do not think it is the best use of my time to tell you about these rules.

Physician's notes
Alice has been cooperating with treatments recently and seems to be on the mend. She is no longer fighting against taking her medicines and has not had to go to the monitoring ward for several days now. Her kitten is growing, and she is letting one of the younger female nurses help her with some parts of the care of the kitten. I will keep monitoring the situation, but I am hoping for Alice to calm more so we do not have to worry about adjusting her medications as much.

Meme

What the cat thinks about the physician's most recent advice is quite clear indeed.

My favourite poems part one

Sekhmet the Lion-headed Goddess of War

Written by: Margaret Atwood 
He was the sort of man

who wouldn't hurt a fly.

Many flies are now alive
while he is not.

He was not my patron.

He preferred full granaries, I battle.

My roar meant slaughter.

Yet here we are together
in the same museum.

That's not what I see, though, the fitful
crowds of staring children
learning the lesson of multi-
cultural obliteration, sic transit
and so on.


I see the temple where I was born
or built, where I held power.

I see the desert beyond,
where the hot conical tombs, that look
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
and bones, the wooden boats
in which the dead sail endlessly
in no direction.


What did you expect from gods
with animal heads?
Though come to think of it
the ones made later, who were fully human
were not such good news either.

Favour me and give me riches,
destroy my enemies.

That seems to be the gist.

Oh yes: And save me from death.

In return we're given blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.


Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed.
 But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.


I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.

Alice's notes

I have discovered that there is a book of poetry that was snuck in by one of the other patents here. They have since succumbed to the influences of the cards and moved off to the secure wing so I now own this novel. Sneaking into their room and stealing an item is basically the same as owning it in the first place anyways. I am going to share my favourites to all of you out there, the Dormouse says that you do not exist and that I am just talking to thin air, but I know you are out there, as does the Cheshire Cat. I hope that you will enjoy these as much as I do, and I will try to read you more whenever I find a good one.

I particularly enjoy the mythological basis for this poem. In Egyptian mythology the goddess Sekhmet was both a fierce warrior, as well as a healer. She had blood on her hands, yet she is also able to heal others. I think she was the one who made the Phoenix possible, the one who healed as well as the one who kills. She could have been the one who set the fire that killed my father, as well as the one who allowed my mind to heal so I did not care for him once he was dead.