☕️ Alice’s Mad Tea Party Presents:
🫖 Alice Spills the Tea on: The Tell-Tale Heart
Darlings, have you ever been so annoyed by someone that you thought, “You know what? I’m just gonna smurder them real quick”? No? Well, congratulations on your mental stability. Because today’s tale? Oh, it’s a masterpiece of petty, paranoid chaos.
Let me pour you a nice hot cup of The Tell-Tale Heart—Edgar Allan Poe’s ode to guilt, madness, and why maybe we should all just try some deep breathing instead of smurder.
Our narrator? Completely sane, according to him. (Which is the first red flag, red flag 🚩. He tells us repeatedly that he’s not mad—like, a lot. And nothing screams "I’m totally fine" like obsessively explaining that you’re not crazy while detailing how you meticulously planned a smurder because an old man had a weird eyeball.
Yes, you heard that right. The victim wasn’t evil. He wasn’t cruel. He didn’t wrong our narrator in any way. No, darling, his only crime was having a vulture eye—you know, one of those pale, milky eyes that just... stares.
It freaked our narrator all the way out. So naturally, he decides the best solution is to sneak into the poor man’s room every night for a week, watching him sleep like the world’s creepiest bedtime fairy. And on the eighth night? Oh, that’s when he strikes. With precision. With confidence. With the kind of smug flair that says, “I watch way too many true crime documentaries.”
He hides the body under the floorboards. Easy peasy. No mess. No fuss. He even welcomes the police when they show up, all smiles and smooth talk, like he’s the victim here. But then... oh, but then, darling.
He hears it.
The heart.
Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
Louder.
Louder.
The old man’s heart, beating beneath the floorboards. Except—plot twist—it’s not actually beating. It’s all in his head. That’s right, the guilt starts screaming, and our narrator? He cracks like cheap porcelain.
He confesses. Bursts out with the whole truth. “It’s the beating of his hideous heart!” he shrieks, which is such a dramatic way to end a monologue, I swear Poe was part theatre kid.
And there you have it—The Tell-Tale Heart. A story about guilt, madness, and the consequences of letting your inner drama queen run the show. Moral of the story? Don’t kill people over eye aesthetics or anything else. And maybe talk to a therapist instead of hiding bodies in your parquet flooring.
Sleep tight, my darlings. Don’t listen too closely to the ticking in the walls. It might just be the pipes.
Or… it might be something else.
Forever watching,
- Alice
