The Un-Reality of Reality
~Pockymonx3
Chapter One- This Man
A.N: Hello there, chibi-dears and others. So, I've decided to put all other writing projects on hold as this newest idea has taken over my mind. This is a story about what would happen if the Cheshire Cat (made human for sake of this story) were to be sent to a psychiatric ward due to his, for lack of a better word, insanity. Now, sprinkled into this ward will be the Mad Hatter and the March Hare (also made human for the story), and whomever else I see fit to throw in. And as I stated in the summary, this is told from the point of view of the Cheshire Cat.
I ask that you please review, and hope you enjoy the story.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters used in this story or Alice in Wonderland in any way, shape, or form. If there is already a story out there like this, I would not know and did not intend to copy the idea from said story.
Nothing ever before in my life has been so surreal to me as people trying to convince me that something called the "real" does, in fact, exist. They have been trying to for years and failing for as long. There has been some flaw in either their mind or mine—and I'm assuming mine seeing as the general majority say that the "real" exists—that causes for these conflicts to begin. I can't remember exactly how long I've felt this way, it's just been there as far back as I remember. Then again, if you knew my memory then that wouldn't seem as impressive. The fact of the matter is this: I don't believe anything is real and everyone else does. One million to one and years of fighting has finally placed me in the one place that those who believe in the "real" see fit for apparent "lunatics" such as myself.
The man across from me looks just about as thrilled to be in this situation as I am. His hair is a pale, washed-out brown to match the color of his eyes and is parted to cover up his growing bald spot. His hair, not his eyes, I mean. Not clarifying is what got me here in the first place. Or, I think it might have been. I don't even know anymore. But I have no time to ponder this because he fixes me with those brown eyes of his with impatience. It's not the first time that I've zoned out while talking to this man.
"Mm?" is the only thing I can say in response before my mind is repossessed by other thoughts apparently far greater in importance to what this man is saying. About how I've never really found out the answer to the riddle why a raven is like a writing desk, or how I can't remember the last time I counted using my fingers and toes, yet I hear about people doing this often. The thoughts are all consuming and I know that this man will only get more irritated as I continue to space out. It's not like I intended to be distracted by these random words and phrases and ideas popping into existence in my already-cluttered mind.
"Chessur," his tone is stern and now I know that I've just tripped some wire I should not have. Not once has this man used my name, though I am still convinced it is because he fears if he does he'll shatter whatever mental stability I am projecting to the outside world. I am not a house of cards, I would like to tell him though he doesn't seem that bright and I fear I may do nothing but confuse the poor man further. So the thought remains locked up like all the others, a dam ready to burst. Another thought: Will I say, "damn" when the dam bursts? Will it be out loud and cause this man to ask why I've sworn? Will he be offended? What was his name again? Is it just "This Man"? I think that this figment of my mind will appreciate it if I remember his name, but I just can't seem to bring myself to. So "This Man" he shall become forevermore until I remember what his real name is. Or maybe even if I remember, he will still be This Man to me. It's an identity, is it not?
"Chessur," more persistent now, a hand a feather-light existence atop my own. He should have known, This Man. He is part of my mind and so he should have known, touching is not permitted.
I bear my teeth and spring at him, snarling like beast the whole way as I take him down. Incisors meet flesh and riprip tear, This Man is now No-More This Man. Or, that is how it goes inside my mind. Outside my mind I simply shrink away from the touch and duck my head, attempting to show through action what words will allow me to say. Sorry, This Man, I cannot be touched. It is not allowed. The words are forbidden to speak; because once they leave my mind they will enter what people believe is the "real". And then it will no longer belong to me. Snatched up by invisible fingers recording every word I speak, every movement I make…
"I'm sorry," I manage to say before the tide of thoughts pull me under once more. It's a tide now, is it? Does that mean the dam has burst? And I didn't even say, "damn". Damn. No, focus, I scold. Pushing the thoughts away is harder than one could imagine, a feat of Olympic proportions but I'm able to do it for a few moments to tack on another half-sentence as the thoughts wait for when I let my guard down in a few moments. "You said…?"
He leans back in his seat to examine how I am perched in mine. Sitting at the edge of it, back curled into a near-perfect 'C' shape- like the first letter in my name, and gnawed-upon fingertips digging into the bolted-down cool metal I was forced to be seated on. I feel that I am trembling, know that it is visible to him. Can I tell This Man that it is because I can't control my own mind, that I am physically aching from the effort it takes to hold back the thoughts I have? No, I can't, I answer my own question. It would only emphasize why I am to be here in the first place.
"It says here you were planning on killing yourself?" he asks, only clarifying the fact that I was unable to clarify when with shaking hands I held the phone to my ear and only barely managed to choke out the thought from the last hour- Sixteen hundred, my brain interjects, in military time for some strange reason or another. With an exasperated sigh I imagine walls of pure steel blocking out more thoughts from slipping into my mind so that I can answer what This Man has said, to correct the error he has made.
"Look, This Man," I say and earn a confused, if not angry look from him as I use his given name. Oh no, I seem to have gotten it wrong. The small smile I allow to play across my lips is purely for myself and I feel as though a secret battle has been won. If he didn't believe what I said was real, like I do, he could have erased it from his mind. But instead, as he lives in the "real", he now has to live in shame that he is so wholly unremarkable that even I cannot remember his name. Waving away the thoughts and packing them semi-neatly behind my steel blockade with the others, I start again.
"Look… you,"-not much of an improvement-"I was not planning on killing myself. I had what I've been told is an 'irrational' thought, which resulted in the altering of my mental state from one of stability to one of panic. I had begun to believe that my death was imminent and inevitable and whatever other in- words you feel fit to place in succession to those two. In a state of perfect clarity and clear self-preservation instinct, I called the phone number that had been given to me by That Man or, as you who believe he is a real, just, and good man call him, Phillip, and told him the 'irrational' thought. I had no intention of harming myself in any way when I called him and still do not. As you can clearly tell by now, this was just a mistake. May I go now?"
The words do not matter to me and so I feel all right that I am wasting them on such a man as This Man. Though they apparently they matter quite a lot to This Man, as he sits and ponders for what I assume must be three hours, because it sure does feel like it. I am waiting very patiently, being a good little boy, until This Man decides and carries out the verdict. Not guilty. His lips part as he begins to say the words I've predetermined for this facet of my imagination and I prepare myself to rise from my seat and tell him it is alright, I forgive his lapse in judgment, and allow him to leave my mind as swiftly as he had entered it.
"Still, the fact that you had this thought concerns me. We're going to keep you here for a little bit to make sure you are feeling alright," he says and I feel my blood run cold. It is only in very, very rare cases do my imaginings disobey something I have told them to do. When it does occur, catastrophic events will be sure to follow. As I decide that remaining in this place will become if I am to be here for more than a few hours.
The sign that had resided outside this building announced it to be a "Adolescent Psychiatric Care Facility" or something to that accord. I had become offended at the injustice of being labeled as an adolescent, as clearly I was older than my birth certificate—flimsy piece of nonexistent paper it was—stated. Now that I was to be staying here for an indeterminable amount of time—"it all depends on how you're feeling", was This Man's way of telling me—the injustice had been driven home as I was escorted to what was to be my room.
The walls were the palest blue that I had even perceived before, a single, square window at eye level greeted me from opposite the door, and there was a bed that I assumed to be bolted to the ground pressed snugly into a corner. There hadn't been anything I had brought with me, as I assumed I would not have been making an extended visit to this place. So I stood in front of the window, staring out at the cheerful bright sky that awaited me once I convinced This Man that there was nothing wrong with me. Now that I was away, I dropped the steel wall to allow the thoughts to give me some company. The wall melted away and with cautious steps they crept before warm arms wrapped around me, a scolding voice in my ear telling me I should not have kept them waiting so long. But I know they are not really mad at me, for if I were to cast them out, where would they go? They have made a home in my mind and I have stepped back to allow them space. They whispered at first, when I was young. And now they gather in hordes, never ceasing their noise even as I lay my head down to rest.
It is the thoughts that prevent the medication handed to me to calm me down—"you're shaking, you need to calm yourself," I was informed by That Nurse—from working. They burned away the sedation before it could lull me into a thoughtless slumber, one more nonexistent thing among another that I could not even remember. To feign the calm that had been made apparent in the short duration of my stay was the key to curing my "illness", I lay in the bed and closed my eyes. One thought, a small child of a query, wanted to know what the ceiling was like. It kept asking, asking, asking me just for one little peek and as I denied it this self-assumed right it's soft voice grew into a dying shriek until it was taken over by even more ideas. The request to see the ceiling was soon forgotten amidst all the others.
It was only when the sun had gone down and I saw the picturesque mural of stars in the sky just outside my reach did the thoughts cease. It was for only the slightest split of a moment, yet in that silence the thoughts had bowed down, given way to a noise not inside my mind. Outside the inside of my mind. In the "real".
It was a laugh. The quietest chuckle, really, that I first I had thought it was just in my mind. But I could tell, especially when it sounded again and caused the thoughts to hold in their endless demands, riddles, questions, and laments, that it was real. Not real… in the "real", in what others, the other figments that snuck out of my mind and into this blank canvas, painted it with their own "independent" ideas. The laugh was one of those ideas and I began to wonder which thought it had started from. I'd never, in my meager memory, known one of the thoughts, one of the figments, to laugh. Yet it was there and it was almost as if the thoughts were afraid of it, this figment. The reprieve from the flow of thoughts was strangely welcome, as if the laugh was what was needed to fill the void to allow for a moment of peace.
Once it was gone, though, they returned one hundred fold. It began as multiple chains of laughter, each one attempting to mimic what I had heard in the "real" and not remotely coming close. Once it faded, though, it became clear. They were angry this time, though not truly angry. Angry at the fact that I had stopped them twice in one day. I made my apologies and allowed them free roam of my mind, of my environment. After a time, though, I began to weary and asked for a moment to escape the confines of the "real". With a joint sigh that echoed and swirled around my mind for what seemed like ages, they acquiesced.
I closed my eyes and willed myself to disappear.
Well, please tell me what you thought.
And for those of you who have read some of my work before, I realize that this style is different from what I wrote the other fics with. It just seemed to fit with the way I wanted this to be expressed and I think it worked out well. Tell me which one you prefer, though. But I doubt I'll change it for this one. Maybe another.
Thank you for reading!