A/N: This is a product of boredom so I wont be surprised if you are going to be bored to death while reading it. Although I did enjoy writing it, so I hope you enjoy reading it, too.
Disclaimer: No, I do not own Alice in Wonderland, 2010.
Six Occasions of Madness
I.
The people saunters around her like she is invisible. But they are also invisible to her, and so are the sounds and scent that crashes and swirls around her.
Everything is different, however not the kind of difference she is looking for.
She wanders aimlessly through the market, oblivious to the unfamiliar tongue of the yelling merchants, the leering stares of the men in the alleyways, the putridity of the horse dung that littered the ground.
Unaware and uncaring, she reaches the end of the village and catches a glimpse of a white that flashes through the bushes. She follows it. It pops into a hole in the ground.
She stops, weighing her decisions. Then, she moves to kneel only to be wrenched up by a gentle hand. Offended, she glares at the man, and the rage falters under the soft, pleading eyes. She lets the man lead her back to oblivion.
II.
The newspaper lies on the table, waiting to be read. She steals a cookie her mother prepared for afternoon tea from the cookie jar, picks the newspaper up and skims through it. And then, she lays it back down, paling and gulping.
Man Beheaded For Stealing The Queen's Tarts!
Nervously, she looks at the headline again, checking if it's still the same. Then, she marches out of the room, fist clenched, throat dry.
III.
There is a tinkling of glassware, a crunching of biscuits, and a playing of soft, broken music in the drawing room. The sounds beckon for her, and she comes obediently and bewildered. She pokes her head inside the room, beaming.
Then, she leaves.
The room contains nothing but stillness.
IV.
Her sister cooks soup as an experiment and stirs, and stirs, and stirs it around the pot.
She watches from the safety of the counter, from time to time glancing at the ingredients disorderly sprawled on the counter surface. She wonders if soup could have fingers for an ingredient, and urine, and coins.
Her sister glides up to her, holding on a spoon containing steaming liquid to her mouth.
She blows and drinks the soup, and then clutches at her dress.
V.
She sits outside the mansion, watching the branches sway and the leaves rustle with the wind. Her eyes flicker to the blossoms, and she smiles.
She counts the times the butler appears, the times he tries to speak to her, turn away, and walk inside again. Fourteen, she thinks. But she remembers, as the butler appears again, that she had already counted twenty. Or was it twenty-three? Twenty-eight?
A blue butterfly flutters across her vision, making her forget her musings. She rises from her seat and turns expectant. Her eyes follow it, until it flies past her and out of sight.
VI.
The party flows without her. She lets it and sits in a corner. Ladies and lords greet her, and she greets back. They leave her and she stays where she is.
Children runs around her table, playing.
"Stay back, foul beast," one child says. "Or I shall slay you!"
"Never," another answers. "For I shall slay you first, my greatest adversary!"
They leave her side. She stays still, observing the foul beast with hawk-like, predatory eyes, waiting for it to come back within her reach.