Alice was a man with the name of a little girl. He was employed as an inventor by the Magenta Bongo Music Group. Problems would come to him, written on white paper in black ink, and he would invent machines to solve the problems. For example, he once received a document describing a cracked maraca. He invented a machine that mechanically retreived each bead that slipped through the crack. Another man built the machine; Alice only invented.
Day in, day out. Alice never left his small office in the basement of the M.B.M.G. He never knew who the author of the documents was; they arrived through a slot in the door. Everything in Alice's office was black and white and he never received payment for his services. Occasionally he would receive a blank peice of yellow paper. He would stare at the vibrant hue in bewilderment. Afterwards he would be so stimulated that he could invent machines for a month. For nourishment he chewed the white paper, never yellow.
Alice only had one dream. In it he was dancing in the footprint of a giant. He was laughing, but when he woke up there were tears on his pillow.
He decided to quit his job. He invented a machine that would print out a letter of resignation. Later that day someone slid a sheet of magenta card stock through Alice's door slot. It was like nothing he had ever seen. He destroyed the Resignation Machine and awoke the next day to find his head resting on a crumpled magenta scrap, wet with dream tears.