Cartoon Eyes

by nikkilittle

A road trip story. Alice of Wonderland and Wendy of Neverland make a trip from the world of cartoons into the real world to lay flowers at the grave of Walt Disney.

Cartoon Eyes

by Nikki Little

Once upon a time lived a man who had learned how to cross the bridge between the real world and the world of cartoons. He lived among the cartoon characters and chronicled their lives in animated films full of wonder and fancy that delighted the imaginations of children and some special adults who kept a place in their hearts for fantasy. As is the case with all creatures in the real world, he grew old and died, leaving a hollow place behind for those who loved his flights of imagination. Of course, the company he left behind in the real world lived on, for corporations almost never die. However, without the "Old Man" at the helm, the films produced by his old company had none of the imagination, innocence, and wonder of the company's former glory. Two of the cartoon characters, Alice of Wonderland and Wendy of Neverland -- they were sisters, don't you know -- decided to make a trip to the real world to place some flowers on the old man's grave. You all knew that man as Walt. Walt Disney.

Now the passageway to the real world for the cartoons was a most unpleasant trip. It involved jumping down a bottomless well and coming out of a sewer in New York City. When you consider what the real world had become, arriving there by way of a sewer was a most appropriate entrance, all things considered. Alice and Wendy popped the manhole, climbed out, and surveyed their surroundings. Being in the real world, of course, they took the appearance of real world creatures, but their eyes, being the eyes of cartoon creatures, continued to see the world in the way of cartoon creatures. In all truth, this was a blessing that the real world creatures could have used.

Alice and Wendy surveyed their surroundings in New York's Times Square, and the first thing they noticed was that all the neon signs reached out and grabbed any poor unfortunate close enough by the ankles and shook him or her until a rain of coins poured out the passer-by's pockets. The greedy arms of the neon signs scooped up the coins and immediately grabbed the next nearby pedestrian. Alice and Wendy moved to the outer edge of the sidewalk and warily eyed all the signs. Of course, this being New York City, there were plenty of beggars around. Dog-like in appearance and with droopy faces, they held out their hats and all sang in unison "Brother Can You Spare A Dime?" They all sounded eerily like Bing Crosby.

Alice and Wendy discussed how to make their way to Disney World, where they knew the "Old Man" to be buried, and decided to use the subway train to get to the train station. Now of course, cartoon characters are not accustomed to using money, and Alice and Wendy swiftly came up against the problem of not having money for the subway fare. The subway turnstiles lined up before them, a row of one-armed bandits demanding coins for the priviledge of getting from one place to another. "Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie,…" they shouted. What to do? Remembering an old trick from their friend the Cheshire Cat, Alice and Wendy briefly vanished into thin air and reappeared on the other side of the turnstile. It was a most handy trick and they would use it often during their time in the real world.

While sitting in the train, Alice and Wendy noticed that everyone seemed plugged into radios and music players. The radios played right-wing talk shows and spewed never-ending clouds of insanity gas into the air. Any real-world person who came into contact with the gas became glassy-eyed and bobbed his or her head slowly and rhythmically to an unheard beat. To Alice and Wendy, they looked like sheep. The real-world people with music players glued to their ears looked like they were anesthetized. Alice and Wendy saw the music players as IV bottles on rolling stands with needles sticking into people's heads. "You'd think having a needle stuck into your brain via your ears would hurt," observed Wendy. Others gabbed endlessly on cell phones glued to their ears. Alice and Wendy saw the cell phones as cancerous tumors growing out of the sides of people's heads. "Oh dear," sighed Alice, "these people are in dire need of medical attention."

Alice and Wendy got off the subway at the stop leading to the New York City train station and sat on a bench to take in their surroundings. Real-world people dashed frantically in all directions -- no doubt with tasks of earth-shaking importance to complete. Alice and Wendy saw them as chickens scurrying around carrying their heads in their hands and squawking, not unlike a certain cartoon character with whom Alice was very familiar, "Oh dear oh dear I'm late I'm late I'm late for a very important date!" To Alice and Wendy, it seemed that everyone had lost their heads for no good reason. "What could possibly be so important?" asked Wendy. "It makes no sense at all!"

Alice and Wendy pulled their disappearing Cheshire Cat trick to board a train for Orlando, Florida without any money. By real-world standards, they were quite a pair of thieves. They wandered a bit waiting for the other passengers to get seated and then grabbed a pair of unoccupied seats. They observed the world passing by from their train windows. Things got interesting, and a bit unsettling, when they entered the agricultural areas of the South. "Why look there, Alice," said Wendy. "I do believe those field workers have chains around their wrists and ankles." Yes, indeed. When Alice and Wendy looked outside their train window at modern day Hispanic field workers on America's farms, they saw scenes that could have come from "Gone With The Wind." Alice looked over at Wendy with wistful, sad eyes and asked, "Didn't this country abolish slavery in 1865? Didn't they fight a civil war over this?" Wendy peered intently out the window and observed, "It does look like the South won after all."

Being healthy young girls with healthy appetites, our two travelers walked to the dining car and took a seat. A waiter came with a menu and placed it before the two girls. "Something to drink for the young ladies?" he asked. Both girls, being quite health conscious, asked for grapefruit juice without looking at the menu. "We don't carry such items," politely informed the waiter. "We have soft drinks, tea hot and cold, coffee, and wine which you are both too young to drink." The two girls ended up ordering iced tea as it seemed the least unhealthy thing to drink. They were expecting the tea to be unsweetened, but instead they got some sickly sweet syrupy concoction which they both found to be nearly undrinkable. The waiter left them to look at the menu, and our two girls had another unpleasant encounter with the real world. As they read the food items on the menu, of course, their cartoon eyes translated real world gobbledygook into the language that they understood. "Heart attack with gravy, Heart attack with cream sauce, Deep-fried Breaded Heart Attack, Country-Fried Heart Attack, Fried Heart Attack with All White Meat, Stroke in a Basket, Exploding Gall Bladder in a Bowl,…" read the evil laminated menu. "Goodness Gracious!" exclaimed Wendy. "Is there anything here that won't kill us?" On the back of the menu down in a corner the two girls found "Grilled Salmon with Garlic and Heart-Attack Sauce." Alice and Wendy looked at each other and had the same thought. They ordered the grilled salmon and, after it arrived, made a quick look around to see if anyone was looking. Our two health-conscious travelers then tilted their plates while holding the salmon in place and drained the evil "Heart-Attack Sauce" where it belonged. On the floor. When finished, Wendy, always the polite one, left a tip for the waiter in the form of three marbles. Then Alice and Wendy pulled their Cheshire Cat disappearing act to avoid paying the check which they couldn't pay anyway as they had none of that paper stuff that real-world dwellers value above all else. The waiter, disgusted at not seeing a few dollar bills and some quarters for him, tossed the marbles into a trash can in anger. Alas! Poor fool! He did not realize that the ever-so-polite Wendy had given him a gift of great value: on those three marbles had been a generous coating of pixie dust. Enough for one flight of fancy for anyone who could find a happy thought.

Now seated back in a car quite distant from the dining car, Alice and Wendy whiled away the hours to Orlando observing the slave plantations which passed by one after the other. Neither girl said a word, as the plight of the slaves which they saw on almost every farm except the smallest ones saddened them greatly. When the train pulled into the station, Alice and Wendy pulled their Cheshire Cat trick to disembark, and headed out into the street. The City of Orlando was full of neon signs and advertisements that reminded the girls of New York's Times Square. Both girls kept to the outside of the sidewalk to avoid being grabbed by the coin-hungry signs. On their way to DisneyWorld, they passed through the business district with many towering buildings that housed the headquarters of enormous transnational corporations. Out of the tops of buildings, Alice and Wendy observed what appeared to be octopus tentacles reaching out over vast distances. Like umbilical cords, they constantly appeared to be sucking something into the corporate headquarter buildings. "Money?" suggested Wendy to Alice. Alice nodded her head. "What else could it be?" she said. Wendy observed that the sucking all seemed to be in one direction only. "Of course," said Alice. "I believe the business experts call it globalization when wealth travels in one direction only."

DisneyWorld loomed ahead, and so our two girls went looking for a park to pick some flowers for the grave of dear old Walt. They found some brightly colored wildflowers growing and picked them -- and were promptly stopped by a police officer. The police officer pointed to a sign that forbid picking wildflowers. Wendy and Alice looked at each other and then the police officer. "This is a public park, isn't it?" The police officer nodded assent to the two girls. "Then should it not be possible for the public to pick a few wildflowers? They always grow back anyway, you know. Most people call these flowers weeds." The police officer stuck out his hand demanding the flowers. Wendy got out her bag of marbles -- the ones coated with pixie dust -- and gave three to Alice, three to the confused police officer, and took three for herself. With mischievous smiles, Wendy and Alice flew off with their flowers as Wendy shouted to the police officer "Think a happy thought!" Alas, the poor police officer was angry and unable to think of any happy thought. Like the waiter, he did not recognize what was truly of value and what was not. He threw the marbles away.

With flowers in hand, Alice and Wendy now flew into DisneyLand and stopped just outside the Alice in Wonderland ride. They both knew the location of the secret chamber where the grand old man of animation was actually buried. Right beneath the Wonderland ride! Alice and Wendy entered through a narrow passageway into the vault, and there lay the coffin of the builder of an empire of imagination.

"Oh Walt!" cried Alice. "You would be heartbroken if you knew how much your world has changed! The magic and innocence have all left! There is only cynicism and money-grubbing!"

"Walt," said Wendy, "you would not believe what your own company has done with your beloved classics. The Disney of today has churned out an endless series of horrid sequels for the sole purpose of milking your old classics for every penny that can be gotten. Cinderella is so depressed that she has been hiding out with the Seven Dwarves to avoid being hauled in for another sequel."

It was at that moment that both our travelers noticed that one of those octopus-like tentacles was attached to the grand old man's coffin. It appeared to be sucking something out of the coffin. "Will you look at that!" exclaimed Wendy. "That tentacle must be from the Disney Corporation. They won't let him rest until they've sucked out every last dried-up cell of his body!" Now Walt was a clever fellow, and had himself interred right next to an entry to the world of cartoon characters. Wendy looked at a highly decorated antique mirror of Victorian design in the room and asked Alice, "Is that what I think it is?" Alice walked up and poked a finger through. "It most certainly is!" Always a clever girl, Wendy shook the pixie dust from her remaining marbles onto old Walt's coffin and the two girls pushed his coffin through as they made their return trip to the world of cartoon characters. Old Walt was rescued from any further bloodsucking. He now resides in Neverland where Peter Pan, Wendy, the Lost Boys, and even cranky old Captain Hook come once a month to pay their respects. Once a year, all the residents of cartoon land find their way to the grave of Old Walt. "Second star to the right, and straight on till morning."

Back in the real world, an abandoned house cat, miserable and hungry, found the three marbles tossed aside by the policeman in the park in Orlando. A bit of pixie dust sprinkled on his fur with each bat at the marbles. Playing with the marbles reminded him of the little girl who used to take care of him and let him sleep on her bed at night at her feet. Sometimes she got down on the floor with him and rolled marbles for him to chase. For a moment, the cat forgot his hunger. He savored the memory of a happier time. And flew.

The End

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This story is based on the Walt Disney interpretation of the classic literary characters. Walt Disney Corporation holds the copyrights. The literary characters themselves are, of course, in the public domain. Also a nod to the film "Enchanted."