by Cameron Jace
Before I go to look for Constance, I use my sword and swing at the Pillar’s hands, forcing him to drop the cucumber and mushroom.
“Maybe I can’t kill you, but they can,” I point at Fabiola and Cheshire.
I leave on the scooter. And since the Pillar’s limousine disappeared, the Pillar starts running as Fabiola and Cheshire give chase.
14
Earlier That Day: Yellow School Bus, London
Jack lay sprawled on his back with his legs either broken or severely bent under the weight of his body. The rest of his body had probably numbed to the pain, or he wouldn’t have been awake, still.
His eyes were open. That, he was sure of. He was staring at a window from a skewed angle.
A cracked window. Sharp edges of its shattered glass were still intact. The rest were jagged-edged, zigzags making way to the world outside.
Not that there was much to see beyond the window. Nothing but smoke and ashes around a mushroom-infested world. Even in death, the scene seemed funny. The world had become a hallucinatory version of what the Wizard of Oz would look like when stoned.
Jack tried to comprehend the voices around him. Outside, the world still swam in incomprehensible chaos. Screams and shouts plus the thuds and throttles shook the earth.
But inside the bus, no one talked or ached or moaned or screamed. Was he the only survivor?
With a painful twist of his neck, he looked sideways. It was hard to see anyone since the bus had toppled sideways and seats blocked his vision on both sides. He still could see ahead, only if he’d managed to crane his neck a little and look beyond his own body.
Slowly he did. It did not hurt as much as he thought it would. With death on his mind, these trivial human pains seemed weightless and subsidiary.
He skipped looking at his own body in case he had his stomach slit open or something. He managed to see his shoes. Well, one shoe. One leg. God only knew where the other one was.
Beyond his foot lay Lewis Carroll.
Unless Lewis’ nonsensical joking had exceeded Jack’s expectations so much that he had cracked his own skull open, the famous author was pretty much dead, indeed.
For shits and giggles - we all need those in dark times - Jack wondered why Lewis’ head didn’t spill out books or words or even tiny miniature figures of his characters.
Sadly the man’s imagination was only made of blood and membranes like the rest of us.
A shard of glass from the window squeaked above Jack.
Well, the case was closed. He would soon die like the rest.
This time Alice wasn’t going to save him. Because she hadn’t the strength to believe in him and keep him alive this time. Her powers had been directed to the March who can save the world. Jack was merely a lover. She had no time for love.
As the shard gave up its hold on the window frame he closed his eyes, waiting for it to draw the final stab. There was no going back. He was going to die.
What troubled him before dying was that the world behind his eyes wasn’t made of black. It was shiny and in full color. Like a movie.
A movie of Alice.
An older Alice running errands in her own garden. He watched her finish with seeding the flowers and go back inside her house. Someone was calling for her. Kids.
Alice’s kids.
The boy was Tiger. The Girl, Lily.
Was jack hallucinating? Was his mind playing wishful thinking on him?
But then another person called for Alice. Handsome man. Really handsome. A little old though.
Alice called him Hatter but wait...
Why call him Hatter?
Jack was confused. If he hadn’t been hallucinating before death, then he was seeing the future. He was remembering tomorrow.
He would have smiled broadly and wished Alice all the luck with her future husband.
Only if this Hatter didn’t look exactly how Jack would look like a few years from now.
15
Present: The Wonderland Wars, London
Running on a scooter in the middle of the world collapsing feels like I am in a video game. The hero character with a sword out to find a lost young girl and then kill the big bad jabberwocky.
I am amazed at how real life is actually like a video game. Same hassles. Same reasoning. Same shit. The only drawback is when the game is over, it’s really over.
But then it strikes me that this hasn’t been the case in my journey. How many people died and came back? How many nonsensical and absurd storylines? How many open-ended questions? I would love to tell myself it’s all about a journey but I beg to differ.
I like the journey, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that since the Red implied this is going to happen again or happened before I am working with the idea that my life is not just insane, but a video game.
Come to think of it, a video game isn’t that different from being a character in a book, from being a human brought into this world without being told why or what to do about it.
A thud of mushrooms wakes me up from my thoughts. I twist the scooter sideways and avoid them and then keep driving. Where you might ask?
I’m looking for a yellow bus.
Is it selfish to want to find Constance? To want to find a friend? A companion for life? Now that Jack is either dead or dead, the Pillar is evil, Fabiola is too conflicted to help, I need a friend. Constance would be the perfect deal.
She is feisty and hilarious at times. She loves me dearly, and she is younger. Maybe I can teach her things and spare her an adolescence full of angst and pain.
Or maybe I am just selfish, unable to face my final battle alone.
Maybe I’m still not up to the world’s expectation to kill the Jabberwocky.
I wonder what he looks like?
Is he just a human? A dragon? What does evil really look like? What kind of villain needs to be killed with a special sword?
The sight of the yellow bus interrupts my thoughts.
It’s ironic how it rather glows in the gloomy London streets. Is that why children’s buses were painted yellow?
I stop the scooter and take a deep breath. Here I found it again, collapsed sideways and battered with shards of glass and a couple of parts on fire here and there.
The world is an intolerable sum of noises, but the bus is dead silent. Everybody must be dead inside.
Did only Fabiola survive it?
Walking toward it, I count my steps with anticipation. Once near it, I have to climb through a window to enter.
When I look inside... oh well... I didn’t expect that.
16
Present: On the Road, London
Fabiola and the Cheshire were on the Pillar’s trail. The sneaky man with a hookah disappeared beyond the grey fog and they were left lost again.
“What now?” the Cheshire asked.
Fabiola panted, “I will find him. Just let me think.”
“You look like you’re dead already,” he snickered behind the mask.
“I should be if it weren’t for the ...” Fabiola caught her tongue in the last second. She wasn’t going to share crucial information with the Cheshire. “Let’s just make it clear that you and I will never be friends.”
“Ain’t looking for friendship, White Queen,” he said. “All I wanna do is purr chaos:”
“You do not sound British when you talk like that.”
“Well it's a mad world isn’t it,” he said. “Also I am sorry for not warning you before the Duchess made you hurt yourself,” he teased her. “Poor White Queen.”
Fabiola hadn’t the slightest interest in playing games with the Cheshire. Sometimes the best thing with cats is to ignore them.
“Look,” the Cheshire said, pointing at something on the asphalt.
“What did you find? A bowl of expired milk?”
“Not funny.”
“Well, the cucumber was dead funny.”
Now, the Cheshire ignored her and knelt down to pick up something from the floor. Fabiola s
aw him stand up and wave the item at her. A hose. From the Pilar’s hookah.
“He left it behind,” the Cheshire said. “Hallelujah.”
Fabiola skeptically eyed the hookah then looked at the footsteps marked on the asphalt by the ashen powder from the fire.
“He must have entered this building,” she said.
“Then we go, White Queen, and kill the old butterfly.”
“He is not a butterfly yet,” Fabiola explained, though the Cheshire was just being sarcastic. “We have to kill him before he transforms.”
“What the smokey smokes are you talking about, woman?”
“No one knows the Pillar like I do. If we don’t kill him before he transforms, he will turn into a gigantic beast.”
“What?” the Cheshire scratched his head. “Are you telling me he calculated everything? Even his death?”
“I think so, or why do you think his skin is peeling off? From Pillar to Butterfly.”
“But that’s not what your sister told me.”
“When did you last speak to her?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he wasn’t going to tell her he dug her sister up from the grave. The White Queen was too sentimental. She still wouldn’t have liked it.
“Ah, I guess she is the one who told you that you can kill the Pillar with his own hose?”
“Yeah,” he itches his mask out of nervousness. “Anyway, she said that anyone who kills him will be cursed.“
“Oh please,” Fabiola snatches the hose from the Cheshire’s paws. “All those rumors. I know how he thinks. Let’s not waste time. Go inside and kill him.”
“You know that’s an amusement park behind those doors?” he pointed at where the footsteps led them.
“Makes sense. Where else would he hide?”
“I always wanted to eat ice cream on a roller coaster.”
“Shut up and follow me.”
“I usually shut up and purr, but whatever you say, White Queen.”
“And one last thing,” she turned to face him, “after we kill the Pillar, I am going to kill you. I don’t like you.”
“I don’t blame you, woman. Sometimes I don’t like me.”
17
Present: Yellow School Bus, London
The bus is empty.
It takes me some time to register what I’m looking at. There is blood and chaos everywhere. But there are no passengers. None. Nada.
How is that possible?
Did someone steal the bodies? For what? And if they all survived? How? Where did they go?
I jump in and look for clues, wondering if anyone left something recognizable behind. All I see is blood on the seats, floors, and windows. Also fragments of mirror shards.
If they lost so much blood how are they alive?
I feel stupid, standing in the middle of the bus with my sword. Either I’m too dumb to understand or I have to accept that the nonsense will never stop.
As I’m attempting to climb out, I hear someone calling my name.
“Alice,” the voice says from behind a seat in the back.
I shiver in place. Not only does this sound like a scary scene from a horror movie when a ghost from the past calls your name in that hissing tone, but there is something about the voice that is truly unsettling.
Frozen in place I can’t even move. I don’t bother turning around. This isn’t happening. This. Isn’t. Happening.
“Alice,” the girl’s voice behind me whispers.
My knuckles whiten, gripping my sword.
“Turn around and look at me.”
I don’t turn around. Where have I heard this voice before?
“It’s time, Alice,” the girl says. “Did you really think we were never going to meet?”
“Not like this,” I tell her, listening to her move. She is probably standing up behind me. Does she have a weapon? Even if she has, does it matter?
How is this possible?
I know this is a mad world. I know I have good and evil in me, but how can this be happening?
“All you have to do is look at me,” the girl’s voice is so real it kills me.
I don’t answer back.
“Don’t worry,” she says. “No mirror’s needed this time.”
What she says explain it. Still, I have to ask. “What do you mean?”
“The rabbit in the mirror,” she says. “The one that makes you fear mirrors. The one that makes you drive yellow school busses over bridges and kill people you love.”
“What about it?” my mouth is dry. The question I asked isn’t quite a question. Who am I fooling? I know what she means. My God, this voice of hers. How I have known it for years. How it’s been in my head. In my heart. In my soul.
“I’m the rabbit, Alice,” she says in a voice that implies subtle mockery. As if she has already won this round between good and evil.
“I know,” I nod my head. “I just hadn’t put two and two together. I should have known.”
“You’ve always known,” she is approaching me from the back. Soon I will have to turn and face my darkest fear.
“I have,” I admit. “Only I never thought we’d meet.”
“We’ve met every day,” she is right behind me, whispering in the back of my neck. Her scent is so familiar. More than familiar.
“We did,” I shiver to her unwelcome breeze. “I never thought we’d meet like this.”
“It had to happen,” she says. “What do you think the mushrooms represent in this world?”
I’m not sure what she means. Goosebumps are all over my arms and I weaken my grip on my sword.
“Mushrooms bend reality by penetrating the earth from its core and splitting it open,” she breathes in my neck, even closer now. “And what happens when we’re split open, Alice?”
“We’re exposed,” I agree.
“Our darker side shows,” she says. “Cause none of us is who we think we are. None of us is one person. We’re always two, Alice. Always.”
This is when I turn around, slowly.
If I’ve cried an hour earlier at the Pillar’s doing, I am not going to cry now, but I was almost going to vomit, looking at the girl up close and personal.
Nothing special about her looks. I knew how she would look. I’ve known her since long ago.
It’s her eyes that scared me.
It’s my eyes that scared me.
It’s her that scared me.
It’s also me.
The girl in front of me was simply me. The Dark Alice in me had split into a physical presence. The same that happened to Lewis with Carolus when we both returned from the Looking Glass.
“Alice!” Another sweeter voice calls from behind me.
I turn back without hesitation and head back to Constance. I squeeze her so hard in my arms, I’m about to chalk. She wants to speak. To tell me what happened, but I give her no chance. It doesn’t matter. What matters is her being Alive.
“Alice, you’re chocking me,” she laughs.
“Sorry. I thought I’d never see you again. I was trapped her with this…” I turn around to look at Malice, but she is gone.
“Talking? To whom?”
I shrug and look back into Constance eyes, “No one. I must have imagined stuff,” I shake her shoulders. A crackles escapes me. “Tell me all about you, little Warrior. Tell what happened here.”
18
Present: Amusement Park, London
The Pillar managed to make the Ferris wheel work.
Riding it all alone was all the fun he needed. Soon Fabiola and the Cheshire will come. This time Fabiola might kill him.
And it was okay.
Just one last ride on the Ferris Wheel. Circling the sky up high and looking down upon the world he will soon have to leave.
One last examination of his skin confirmed his fears. How much longer did he have? Hours? A day or two? Was the world going to last a day or two?
It didn’t matter.
He let the air slap him in the face. It felt so
good on the skin that he hated. On a soul that he loved.
A smile curved itself on his face. His job was done. It’s been a long ride, and the Ferris Wheel was the perfect ending.
The first time he had been bullied as a kid was in a similar amusement park-- back in Wonderland? He wasn’t sure, really. For a man who’s lived so many times and having seen similar things over and over again, he couldn’t be sure. What mattered was that every life he lived started with him being bullied as an orphan child. Somehow this part never changed--the same like Alice’s yellow bus never changed.
He remembered the kids that hung him from a car in a ferris wheel and let him spin.
As a kid, he hadn’t seen the darker side of the world. His foster parents always called it madness and insanity. Words he didn’t understand. Until he grew older and needed to defend himself. That’s when he realized the greatest trick of life. Pretend you’re mad and you get away with anything.
Not that he continued this way from the beginning. Worse things made him who he had become. In the beginning, back in Wonderland, he wanted to entertain children. And he did it for a long time. They loved him.
Until darkness dawned upon him.
From this high, he could see Fabiola and Chesh pointing up at the Ferris Wheel spinning at the end of the world.
He wasn’t sure if they saw him, but the spinning of the wheel will soon come to an end, like everything in life. And he will have to face them.
Fabiola in particular. She will want to kill him. And she can. Not because she is stronger than him. But because he will let her.
Not that he wanted to.
He wished he could tell her the secret. He wished he could make her see him for whom he really was, but he couldn’t. His reasons were strong enough he didn’t mind taking them to the grave.
Oh, the grave…
He laughed so much at the mention of the grave. He still remembered when he dug one and buried someone six feet under. How that night changed everyone’s life—for the better or worse was a matter of perspective.
