She sat there on the crisp white sheets of her new bed. Her new bed. The bed she'd now sleep in for as long as they decided she was insane. The room was white like the sheets and like the clean hallway outside of her locked door. Like the ironed uniforms the keepers wore and like the walls and like the floors.
Even she was turning white now, constantly being surrounded by it and all.
But she knew that if she was to survive this white world she'd have to stay strong and trust these people to make her "better". She knew why she was here and these lovely people were only here to help her. Of course the Mayberry Asylum was hardly a place anyone would have a comfortable stay at, but Alice knew that this was the only way to make things right again. She missed her family and she missed Frederick. She would do whatever was necessary to be back with them again.
Alice was a woman now. Her yellow hair was brittle and fading and her complexion matched the walls but there was no denying she was beautiful. She was accomplished at the piano and she read a marvelous number of books. She was witty and clever. Was. She was desired and sought-after. She was talented and fair. But something went terribly wrong and she thought she saw things again like when she was a girl. Nobody thought it was as cute anymore.
She sat on her bed reading, waiting for the nurse to come in and take her to the dining area for supper. She was very hungry and she didn't like to be still in one place to long. She never had. This waiting and sitting for people to retrieve you was an unbearable punishment for Alice but she waited non the less.
There was a creaking sound where she knew to be and she turned her head to look but no one was there. That's funny, she thought, The doors never creak here. Everything was mechanical and precise. This hospital for the mentally ill was a scheduled and well-oiled machine. The thought a creaky door in this sterile environment was almost laughable to Alice but she refrained. No one but the crazies laughed here.
She turned around again to resume her reading. But Alice had read this book before. Three times, actually, and she thought she heard that noise again. She put it out of mind and was almost to the her favorite part when she heard it.
"Hello Miss Alice."
Alice dropped her book and couldn't stop herself from whirling around to stare at the Cheshire cat. He was grinning that delightfully insane grin and was precariously perched on the nightstand next to the door.
"You-!" She pointed her finger at the smiling cat and her lip started to tremble.
"Greetings Miss Alice-"
"No," she breathed, "You can't be here."
"How are you fairing?" An innocent question but he grinned, his yellow eyes were haunting and gleamed menacingly against the white-wash of the room.
"No." she said, "No, no, no, no, no." Alice muttered to herself, the panic in her voice evident. She looked away from the grinning feline and cradled her head in her long fingers. "No, no, no, no-"
"What's the matter dear?" Said the Cheshire cat in a jovial tone, tilting its head to the side, "You look like you've seen a gho-"
"This is your fault!" Alice cried. Her head snapped up and starred at the cat. "I'm here because of you! You and your-your wonder land of horrors! Leave me alone!" she demanded, "You're not real, you're not real."
"Come, my dear." The Cheshire cat cooed, "Are these really the proper manners for a young lady?"
"Shut up! Shut up and go away!" But then a sudden thought occurred, "No, don't leave! Nurse!" she shouted to the door, "Nurse! NURSE! Come quick, please!"
"Splendid idea, Miss Alice" The Cheshire cat jumped from the nightstand to the bed and landed gracefully not even upsetting the springs but Alice gasped, jumping from her spot and backing away. "Let's shout like a lunatic." he said, "That will for sure prove your innocence-"
Alice ran to her door and pressed her hands against the small window and banged on the glass. "The cat! The Cheshire cat! Like I've told you!"
"Hmm," pondered the cat out loud, "I wonder if they can get here by the time I'm gone," Alice twisted her head back to see the smirking cat start to uncoil his stripes into thin air. Alice remembered this trick and how in seconds he would be gone and any hope of proving her sanity would vanish with him. She couldn't plea for him to stop, she knew that. He was beyond reason.
"NURSE! PLEASE!" She screamed, "Come quick! He's HERE! I'm not insane! I'm not!"
"Alice," the cat's torso was nearly gone and he nuzzled his head into his front paws in an almost impatient gesture, "You were the only one who could see me in Wonderland, what makes you think anyone can see me out of it?'
"What?" A rather irritated-looking nurse was at the small window.
"The cat! The Cheshire cat!" She pointed to the head bobbing up and down above the bed and the nurse's gaze followed Alice's finger. The woman's irritated expression deepened as she glanced around the rest of the room. Alice's heart sank.
"Can-can't you see him? The head? The cat's head!"
The nurse glared at Alice. "No." The woman reached to the clasp next to the window and slammed a tiny door over it shut.
My God. She thought. I've gone and blown it. Blown it up into tiny pieces. I'm never going to get out of here now. She slowly backed away from the door, in a state of disbelief.
There was a 'pop' and the Cheshire cat was fully back now beside her, licking it's paw.
"Well, now that that nonsense is over and done with-"
"What if I really am insane?" Alice breathed aloud.
"It's all perspective, I say-"
"You're a cat!"
"And you're a crazy locked up in the Mayberry Asylum." he paused as Alice sank down to the bed, "What is it you want to believe?'
She didn't even hesitate. "I just want everything to be back to normal." she admitted, "I don't belong here-these people, I'm not like them." She wasn't sure of who she was trying to prove it to when she said it. Her or the cat.
"There, there dear." He said in an uninterested tone.
"You can't be here." said Alice, "I want to be normal, understand?"
"What is normal?" Alice would have considered the question philosophical if not for the ever-present mad smile.
"Normal," she answered, "is a world where cats don't talk, rabbits don't wear clothes, cards aren't like people, and I'm not here. My husband-"
"Ex-fiance-"
"Frederick loves me!" She screamed suddenly. She had jumped from the bed and starred down at the cat in fury who didn't seem the slightest bit intimidated.
"How could he love a mad person?" The cat asked.
"I'm not mad, though." she said , "I know it. I know he knows it too. I know he does."
The Cheshire cat chuckled, "He put you here-"
"No!" This had been something Alice had been fighting with herself over ever since she arrived here. She couldn't accept the possibility that Frederick would betray her like this. "He didn' know what he was doing-"
"He signed the papers," said the cat, "he wrote the check, he left this building without you. Do you honestly believe he's coming back for you?"
"He has to." She muttered softly. He was the only comforting thought for her in this prison. Without him, there was nothing for Alice to hope to go back to. Her family didn't care about her anymore, she knew that. But Frederick wasn't like them. They both were so in love, there was no possible way for him to not love her when she still so desperately loved him.
"He said he'd love me no matter what." she said in a stronger voice, "He has to love me, He couldn't have lied."
"Let's come to terms with your reality, Alice." The cat was smiling again and Alice noticed how severely it creeped her out. When she was a girl, it was friendly and almost inviting, but now that she was older it seemed misshapen and grotesque. "You don't think you're insane, and I don't think you're insane." The feline's head swiveled about as it spoke, "Why does everyone think you are?"
"They heard me talking to you." she said, "I tried to tell people about wonderland all those years ago, but they just laughed. And I tried to find the rabbit hole again, I tried. No one would listen to me and I never found it." Alice remembered all those afternoons she wasted as a child digging in rabbit holes she found by the meadow. "I knew it had to be a dream. An over-active imagination. I was still a little girl, after all." A bubbling anger rose in her chest, "And then you came back!" She pointed at him and his grinning face, "You came back in front of everyone! I hate you! I had just been able to forget everything and then you make me seem crazy again!"
"Wasn't it just seen as a playful imagination then?" he asked, "Just say that's all it is. Surely-"
"I'm not a little girl anymore!" she yelled, "An over active imagination in an adult is considered mad! That's what insanity is!"
"Well, that's not entirely fair-"
"No one believes me!" she cried, "You did this! You came back on purpose, didn't you? This is your fault! You're why Frederick is gone, my family is in shame and I'm incarcerated in this place!"
"Keep shouting and they might come back to sedate you-"
"Shut up!" She screamed, lacing her fingers roughly through her fading hair, "I don't want to talk to you anymore! Just go away and don't exist!"
"How very rude." The smile seemed to grow wider if it were possible.
"I don't care!" Alice spat, "You ruined my life you stupid cat!"
The Cheshire cat merely continued to sit on the bed and stared. Grinning. Alice was breathing hard and wanted nothing more than to physically tear the grin from the cat's face and shatter it. She vaguely wondered if she could. This whole thing was strange.
"Miss Alice," the cat began politely, "Do you want to go to Wonderland?"
"What?" She asked. How could he ask such a thing?
"It's a simple question, really," he said, "do you want to go the Wonderland again?"
"I-"
"You should." He said and Alice stared confused.
"Why do you want me to go?"
"Did I say I wanted you to go? I'm giving you the option."
"No..." she said slowly, beginning to understand, "You want me you go, don't you? That's why I'm here." She waited for a response, a denial, but the cat just smiled. "Isn't it? You did all of this on purpose so that going to that ridiculous Wonderland of yours would be the only option I had." Her voice was rising with every accusation and to her infuriation, the cat just grinned.
"...As silly as you think it is," said the cat, "Yes," he said lightly, "I think it would be in everyone's best interest for you to go back to the Wonderland." The Cheshire cat's smile flickered for a moment, which sent a shiver down Alice's spine but returned quickly. "Things are happening there and It's agreed that you could be of some use."
"No." She blurted out. "I won't do anything for you." She was furious at the nerve of this cat. Of this cat. "You make my life a living hell, ruin everything I've ever had going for me and you expect me to turn around and help you with a few vague and preposterous riddles?"
"Well, that was the idea-"
"Absolutely not." she seethed. "I hate you."
"How rude."
"I was happy." she said, miserably. "I could have been so happy."
"People with potential can't be happy." the cat grinned madly, "They have things to do."
"Couldn't you just find somebody else?" She pleaded. "Because I'm not going back there. I won't."
There was a pause. "Hmm." The cat's appalling grin faltered again but as soon as it had gone it was back, brighter and more gruesome than ever.
"Alright." he finally decided, "I'll just leave you here then." With an agile leap from the bed to the nightstand, his tail slowly began to vanish. "Good day, Miss Alice."
At first Alice was relieved. And then a little shocked it was going to be that easy. She was never going to see this dreadful animal again. But what was she going to do if he left? Wait here? After that little episode, the nurses probably saw her as a crazed, paranoid schizophrenic. How was she going to get out of here now?
"Wait!" she said quickly, "Aren't you going to fix this then?"
The hind legs were gone and the stomach was slowly deteriorating. "What's broken?"
"My life!" she shouted, appalled, "You muddled everything up! Change things back to the way it's supposed to be!"
" 'Supposed to be'? But it is how it is supposed to be." The torso reasoned, "That's why it is-"
"Enough games!" Alice screamed, her voice ragged and crazed, "Fix this!"
Alice was horrified. Her eyes were large and hysterical and her thoughts were flitting through her mind so fast she could think straight.
Everything was hideously out of tune. This was her only chance at escaping this and she knew it. All in one instant she realized Frederick would never come back for her like this. Her family would forget about her and pretend she never existed. The nurses would keep her locked up and she would definitely become the mad person everyone thought she was. Or was she already? The only thing she could understand was that if Cheshire cat left now, then things would never be back to normal.
"Please." She begged, tears welling in her eyes, "I don't want to be like this. You did this, change it, please-"
"What do you expect me to do?" The distortedly beaming face was slowly melting away, like ink off of paper. "What's done is done." he said, "I can't rewind time."
Alice stared hopelessly at the chuckling smile that remained.
"What do you think I am?" it asked, "Magic?"
The grin faded into nothing but the chuckling grew louder in Alice's ears and became a howling laugh that chilled her to her core. She backed away and pressed her back and arms against the porcelin-white walls. The cackling rang through the room, a noise no one else could hear, and Alice covered her ears in an attempt to drown it out.
She wanted escape, she wanted the annoying and ludicrous laughter to stop. She wanted to be engulfed in a white noise and leave this horrid place. She wanted the nice white noise, like the nice white sheets and the walls and the rabbits and the nurses and the floors and the cards and the caterpillars.
The laughter was dying down but still present and she opened her eyes to scan the room. There was no cat. The sheets weren't even ruffled where Alice knew the it was sitting. She knew it. And Alice realized that the only way to survive this place was to forget everything. She'd pretend that she never saw the cat. Anything. She'd take any medicine the nurses gave her and she'd do anything they'd ask to get out of this terrible prison. She'd go back to Frederick who would be waiting for her and they'd live far away from meadows and rabbit holes. It'd be beautiful.
She had a feeling that this was not the last time she'd see the Cheshire cat but she would ignore him. She'd forget him. Just like the nurses and dotors had said. She'd do anything they asked and would agree with anything they said. But she knew in her bones that she was not insane.
Fin