“Alice,” the
giantess shouts, “Alice, get up.”
I blink
once. Twice. And my eyes begin to focus on the face inches from mine, her eyes
wide with – what, fear? – for that few seconds until it is apparent that I have
not overdosed and am still very much alive, thank you very much.
“Tara,” I
croak, “water. Please.” I’m still lying pathetically on the floor – which
pretty much explains the roomful of giants.
“Jesus
Christ, Alice, are you trying to kill yourself? How many goddamn pills did you do?”
Tara licks
her red, red lips, livid; and I say, “enough to go to Wonderland”.
Wonderland,
where all sorts of magnificent creatures – gryphons and unicorns and even mock
turtles (which according to the Queen is what mock turtle soup is made from)
dwell. I want to tell her that it was a place where animals talked, like in
Narnia, and they sang rhymes and had the most outrageous croquet games. I want
to tell her that there was a Queen of Hearts, who was pudgy and rather stout
but oh, how she loved having people’s heads cut off. “Off with his head,” she
would say, “off with his head” because she liked the way it sounded, “off with
his head” because she can.
I could stay
there forever because they were all mad. Everyone was mad and no one cared that
monsters live behind my blue irises and my teeth were stained with blood. The
Duchess served me soup with too much pepper and put a baby in my arms who
turned into a pig. I didn’t want a pig any more than I wanted a baby so I
slaughtered it and made a pork pie. Everyone at the tea party enjoyed it and
the Mad Hatter pulled me aside and told me it was the best he had ever tasted
and he kissed me but his mouth was full of porcelain chips and they cut into my
lips and my tongue.
Only the
unicorn saw me for what I am. “You’re a monster,” he said but he got into a
fight with the lion over the White King’s crown and died with his flank torn
into ribbons before he could warn the others.
“I was in
Wonderland,” I repeat.
