by Cameron Jace
“So we’re going to this Dodo place?” I stick my head between them. “I hope it’s not far.”
“Not really.” The Pillar adjusts his hat, looking in the mirror. “Peru is just a few miles away.”
40
LONDON
Possessing an old man’s soul inside a pharmacy, the Cheshire watched the news on the TV behind the counter.
The pharmacy’s owner had locked his customers in, sheltering them from doomsday outside in the streets of London. The man had a soft spot for old people, so the Cheshire had to possess one, although he hated the slow walk, arching back, and the lost teeth.
“Some loon, that Lewis Carroll.” The pharmacist pointed at the BBC’s coverage of the Lewis Carroll man attacking another pharmacy, killing everyone violently because they couldn’t provide a cure for his migraine.
“Is that the man who spread the hookah plague?” An old woman pointed her cane in the Cheshire’s face.
The Cheshire kept his cool. No need to kill humans here while waiting for his phone to ring. He’d made some calls looking for someone to send after the Pillar and was awaiting a response.
“He is the devil,” the woman declared. “And he’s come for the end of times.”
“But he is dressed like a priest,” the pharmacist argued.
“They always do, those nasty devils.”
“I think he is Lewis Carroll.” The Cheshire thought the conversation was fun. “The real Lewis Carroll.”
“Who’s Lewis Carroll?” the pharmacist said.
“He wrote Alice in Wonderland.” The Cheshire was shocked the man didn’t know.
“That’s the devil’s book, too!” The old woman’s cane was up to the Cheshire’s nose now.
His old man's nostrils flared. One of the setbacks of possessing people was that he was sometimes limited to their powers. In this case, he could hardly slap this woman if he wanted to.
“Alice in Wonderland,” the pharmacist considered. “My kids love that book. I used to love it, too. Never paid attention to the author.”
“Why would you?” The Cheshire shook his weary shoulders—they ached. “I never knew of any of the names of the scientists who invented the beautiful medicines that cure us.”
“But how is this Lewis Carroll still alive? And why is he looking for this drug so bad?”
“Migraines!” The woman pointed at the TV. “I know how it feels.”
“So he is capable of infecting the world with a plague but can’t find a cure for his own migraine?”
“The irony of life,” the Cheshire commented. Like Carroll, the Cheshire was capable of being anyone, anytime he wanted, except one person, himself, because he never knew who he really was. “He wants it so bad he is killing people now.”
In his mind, the Cheshire couldn’t understand any of this. Sure, he knew Lewis Carroll in Wonderland, and he’d heard about the man’s severe headaches, which at some point contributed to his genius, but how did Carroll turn so violent?
Why did he call himself a Wonderland Monster?
“Look!” the woman said, pointing at the TV again. “People have started killing each other now. It’s all around the world.”
The Cheshire looked, and it was true. As much as he loved seeing the awful folks of humanity kill one another, he didn’t like the expanse of this plague. What started as people going mad had escalated to people turning into murderers all around the world.
Was this the real plague Lewis Carroll was talking about?
The Cheshire checked his phone again, waiting for that reply. He had to find the two Wonderlanders he was looking for. They were the only Wonderlanders capable of entering Mushroomland, along with the Pillar. The Cheshire needed to send them to help the Pillar find the cure.
How ironic, the Cheshire thought, all us Wonderland Monsters hating each other, now trying to collaborate against this Lewis Carroll.
His phone rang. The Cheshire picked up immediately and said, “So, did you find Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum yet?”
41
PERU
It’s the early hours of the morning. But instead of landing somewhere in Peru, we’re flying over an endless desert.
I don’t comment, sharing an anticipated moment with the Pillar and his chauffeur. So are the children in the back. They’re fascinated with the desert, which at first confuses me since there is nothing to see but sand.
Then I realize that the kids have never been out of Mushroomland. This, to them, is their first vacation abroad.
And boy, they love it.
“Where are we really going?” I ask.
“We’ve arrived,” the Pillar says, his eyes scanning the vast earth below. “We’re looking for our landing spot.”
“Couldn’t we just land anywhere? Besides, I thought we were going to Peru.”
“There is a bag with a lot of candy in it, kids.” The Pillar changes the subject. “Open it up.” Oh, he isn’t even talking to me. “And there are drinks, too.”
I watch the kids happily gorge on the candy, which is shaped like a caterpillar sitting on top of a mushroom.
I finish my candy. It’s delicious. I have the children with me, and we’re following clues to stop the plague. I think I’m good for now if only someone would tell me why we’re here in the desert, looking for that Dodo location.
All of a sudden, the dessert turns from plain void into an artistic land full of immense drawings. Large artworks that have been etched into the landscape. How? I have no idea.
“They’re called geoglyphs,” the Pillar says. “Best viewed from above. Actually, you wouldn’t grasp what the drawing is about if you stand amidst it.”
My candy drops to the floor. My mouth agape. I am stunned.
“This desert plateau stretches more than eighty kilometers long. Geologists prefer to call it the Nazca Lines,” the Pillar continues. “Many believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture around 500 BC.”
“It’s that old?” I say while the kids compete for the best view from the top.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the Pillar says. “Makes you wonder how such an old civilization possessed the craft and knowledge to create something like that.”
“What does it mean?”
“That’s the centuries-old multi-million dollar question. Just look at the hummingbirds, spiders, monkeys, fish, sharks, orcas, and lizards meticulously crafted on the bed of the earth. No one has any idea what they mean.”
“How were they made then?” one of the kids questions.
“The real answer is ‘We don’t know.’” The Pillar bites on his cigar. I wonder if he’s going to stuff this one in someone else’s throat. “But common assumption is that the shallow lines were made in the ground by removing the reddish pebbles and uncovering the grayish ground beneath.”
When I look closer, I see hundreds of other shapes, most of animals; birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, monkeys, or human figures. There are also what look like trees and flowers. What strikes me as odd is that most of them look like a geometric design, carefully planned and executed.
“This is incredible,” I say. “How did the drawings survive all the time?”
“Again, common knowledge is that it’s due to its isolation and the dry and stable climate. There is hardly any wind in this area of Peru,” the Pillar says.
“So they have been naturally preserved?”
The kids ask me what this means. I try to explain while listening to the Pillar continue his education. Then one of the kids asks the Pillar, “Did the Nazca have planes?”
“Smart kiddo,” the Pillar says. “No, they didn’t—or so we think. And although the lines shouldn’t necessarily be seen from planes—they can be seen from surrounding foothills, too—it still poses the bigger question...”
I cut in and say, “Why were they created and for whom?
42
NAZCA DESERT, PERU
“It’s a complicated question with a complicated answer,” the Pillar repl
ies. “In short, we have no idea what the Nazca desert was really meant to be. We just stare at it like primitive monkeys and try to make sense of it. Photographing it, analyzing, and puking theories. Just like Wonderland. It has secrets of its own.”
“So why are we here, then?”
“The Executioner told us the meeting took place in the Dodo, right?”
“Yes?” I grimace. “I don’t see the connection, other than that it’s the same name as the company that manufactured the hookah.”
“I am beginning to see the whole picture now. But before I tell you about the connection, I need to make sure you know all about the Dodo,” the Pillar says. “Not the one we’re looking for but the one in the Alice in Wonderland book.”
“What about him? I thought he was a silly lovable character, although I never understood the significance of his appearance.”
“The Dodo is Lewis Carroll’s alter ego,” the Pillar says. “You remember his real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, right?”
I nod. Of course I remember.
“So Lewis used to stutter a lot—I’ll get into why he did later. Usually, when he tried to say his name was Dodgson, he’d stutter and say Do-Do-Dodgson. Get it?”
“Do-Do,” I repeat the words. “The Dodo. That’s where it came from?”
“Exactly. Except that this is the kind of stuff historians will tell you,” the Pillar says. “I’m not saying he didn’t pick the name to reflect on his stuttering. But that wasn’t just it.”
“There is a bigger picture?”
“There is always a bigger picture if you open your eyes. The dodo is also an extinct bird. And it couldn’t fly. There are only records of it, and some claim they see it every now and then, but without concrete evidence.”
“Are you saying Lewis was pointing to the bird, too? Why? I don’t see a connection.”
“Of course you see a connection, an immense one, for that matter.” The Pillar points downward, right underneath the chopper.
I look, but it takes me a moment to see it.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s huge. Immense, like he said. But that’s the reason I couldn’t grasp what I was seeing at first.
But now I do. There is no question about it. One of Nazca Lines is of a Dodo. And I am staring at it right now.
43
ST PETER’S, THE VATICAN
The White Queen couldn’t believe her eyes.
Standing at the basilica’s entrance, the world in front of her had slipped into chaos. It had begun a few hours back after Alice left yesterday. A few tourists began shouting and fighting with one another. But it wasn’t much. The police took care of the matter immediately.
And then last night the news of the plague had spread everywhere in Italy. Rome, in particular, had spiraled into a mad hole of swearing and kicking, something its people were naturally attracted to.
Then the madness escalated at the speed of light.
People everywhere were simply trying to hurt others. You couldn’t really make out what the fighting was about since it was usually caught in its last stages, where fighters uttered no coherent sentences.
It reminded Fabiola of all the wars in the history of the world. Wars that last as long as thirty years, if not more. At some point in, you’d ask either side what they were fighting for, and you could not get an answer. Because none of them remembered what had started this.
This was what the Vatican was turning into. The world was turning into.
Now Fabiola was standing before the basilica, appalled by the fighting taking place in the piazza.
This was a place where people from all over the world came to share common beliefs. This wasn’t a place to fight one another, let alone kill one another.
But she had made her decision.
She was allowing the uninfected people to enter the basilica for shelter—it was easy to pick them out; they simply didn’t want to hurt anyone else.
Fabiola was about to face a peculiar decision. In a few moments, she was going to close the doors to the basilica and shelter herself with the uninfected. Something she hated to do because she hated to give up on anyone, even the damned – like her.
44
NAZCA DESERT, PERU
Landing in the middle of the Dodo artwork, I am starting to feel like the Alice in Wonderland in the book all over again.
I mean, most of my journey is about meeting up with the weirdest of the weird characters like in the book. It’s like my mind is being opened up to so many ideas and worlds it’s driving me crazy. So many times, I find myself an observer, yet I can’t help but want more.
Curiouser and Curiouser.
“So let’s get this straight,” I ask the Pillar as we stand alone in the middle of the desert, the chauffeur having taken off again with the kids, “Lewis Carroll knew about this Dodo mark in Peru and decided to mention it in his book?”
“No, that’s not it.” The Pillar has picked up his cane again, looking around as if searching for an address in this endless maze of desert sands. “The Dodo is Lewis’s alter ego, sort of mocking everyone who mocked his stuttering, but at the same time, Lewis knew something about the Nazca Lines.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t you get it?” The Pillar stares back. “Lewis Carroll knew something of the creation of this world. Like his knowledge of Wonderland, he knew of the past secrets of this real world.”
“Let’s just hypothetically say that’s true.” I don’t buy any of it. “What does this place have to do with it?”
“I don’t know what it is exactly. All I know is that the drug industry in the world was created by the likes of the Executioner, who was once a Wonderland Monster—“
“And I assume you’re one of them.”
“Yes, Alice. I was a drug lord,” he says as if it’s about the norm. “And when I was in the business, the Dodo was a major meeting place to pick and hand over certain packages and money. Don’t ask me why. What matters is that we’re waiting for the man who met with Lewis Carroll and told him how to cook the plague two years ago.”
“Okay.” I calm myself, trying to cope with too many puzzles. I remind myself that finding the cure is my priority. “So, this man who met Lewis here is supposed to just arrive?”
“He usually does when he sees someone waiting here. It’s not like you’d find two people arriving here every day.”
“I suppose so,” I say. “So who is he, the man we’re waiting for?”
“He is a nobody.”
“Excuse me?”
“Like I said. We’re waiting for nobody.” The Pillar points at the vast emptiness.
“Excellent,” I resist rolling my eyes this time. “I see nobody on the road.”
The Pillar turns to me with a smirk on his face. “Funny, that’s exactly what Alice said to the King of Hearts in the book, Alice Through the Looking Glass.”
45
Surprisingly, I do remember this part in the book, when Alice tells the King of Hearts, ‘I see nobody on the road.’ It’s in the chapter called The Lion and the Unicorn in Alice Through the Looking Glass.
In the book, the King of Hearts replies and says, ‘I only wish I had such eyes. To be able to see Nobody! And at a distance too!’
The whole idea of that part is that Lewis Carroll had listed Nobody as a character at the end of the book. Talk about Carrollian madness.
“One of the most underestimated characters of Wonderland.” The Pillar points toward a hazy figure arriving on a bicycle on the horizon.
“That’s Mr. Nobody, I assume,” I say. “The man who we’re supposed to meet.”
“Here is the catch,” the Pillar explains, flashing a wide fake smile at Mr. Nobody. “Those few men who pass valuable information through the desert are all called Nobodies in the drug industry. Why? Because you’re not supposed to know their names or see them again. Get it?”
“So you drug people used Lewis Carroll’s book references in your sick business.”
>
“On the contrary,” the Pillar says. “Nobody and the Executioner lived in Wonderland once.”
Before I can comprehend this, Nobody arrives.
He is a bald man, sweaty, too heavy for the meek bicycle he’s riding. He grips a large handkerchief, the size of a beach towel, and uses it to mop sweat off his forehead.
Who drives a bicycle in the desert?
“Nobody looks exhausted,” I comment.
“That’s a double entendre, dear Alice.” The Pillar amuses himself. “Do you mean Nobody looks exhausted, or nobody looks exhausted?”
“What’s your business here?” Nobody demands in a suspicious tonality.
“The Executioner sent us,” the Pillar begins. I assume the word hasn’t spread yet about the Executioner’s death. “We want to ask you about a certain man you met here two years ago. The one who asked you to cook that hookah plague.”
“Ah.” Nobody grins. “I remember him. I’ve also seen the plague’s effect on the news. So what’s in it for me? Why should I tell you about him?”
“What do you want?” I say. “Money?”
“I have enough of that,” Nobody says. “Offer me something I can’t resist, or I will tell you nothing.”
The Pillar and I exchange brief glances.
“What can a somebody offer a Nobody?” The Pillar rubs his chin.
“If I were you, I’d make it fast,” Nobody says. “In case you haven’t heard, the plague has wreaked havoc all over the world. At this moment, people are killing each other in the streets. Whole towns are at war with their neighboring towns.”
