When I saw "Alice Through the Looking Glass" I actually was a bit disappointed and kept thinking that they could have made it much better. For example, I missed the Hatter's characteristic mood swings and changes between personalities. So I wrote this piece focused on that, as a scene of what might have happened while Alice travelled back in time.
Sound of ticking madness
An unbearable silence hung heavily in the dusty air while the madness kept lurking around every corner. Tarrant Hightopp desperately tried to look out for them as he nervously wandered about in the hat-shaped house. The old, wooden floor was playfully irregular; the floorboards changing in sizes and direction everywhere. As a result of that, it was very easy to trip over here and there. But Tarrant knew his floor. Although these familiar surroundings felt unusually dark and strange- a perfect summary of his soul nowadays. With slightly shaking hands he kept petting the tiny hat he had made as a child. His first hat. He remembered the pride he had felt over it, before his father nearly tore it to shreds before his eyes.
The mercury leaked out behind his nails and slowly dripped its way down onto the little hat. From somewhere in the distance (or well, it was more likely his living room), he could hear the lonely ticking noise coming from the big clock and it seemed to grow louder with each second. It grew so loud that it didn´t take long before it was all he could hear: nothing but a thundering "TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK, TICK-TOCK!" It took over his mind completely and made it impossible to think. Tarrant let out a growling sound from his throat and covered his ears with his hands. In the move, he accidently dropped the little hat on the floor without noticing.
"Aaargh!" he cried out in frustration and at the same time his bright green eyes began to change colour. The green turned yellow and the blue and pink shadows around, went pitch-black.
"Be quiet, yeh bloody ol' thing!" he shouted, for somehow the ticking still grew louder no matter how much he tried to shut it out. He stomped into the living room to face his new enemy. The clock was standing there, casually leaning against the wall as usual, but to Tarrant, it looked like it was grinning maliciously straight at him.
"Didn't I tell yeh teh be quiet?" he snarled, looking just as malicious as the clock. But the old piece of furniture kept ticking in the most teasing way. Without thinking, Tarrant grabbed a poker by the stove and threw himself against the clock, smashing it to pieces. Shreds of wood flew all across the room and soon enough there wasn't much left, just the Hatter in a small sea of clock parts on the floor. To his dismay, some of the mechanics still worked and he rose, stomping them flat.
"See? Now yeh're done for!" he said wickedly, the yellow eyes glowing. Gone were the green and the bright and replaced by darkness and fright.
The days of the clock was over. There was no more ticking but he could still hear it in his head like an echo. An hideous silence entered the room and he left the mess in heavy steps. Suddenly his eyes fell on the tiny hat, laying on the floor in the hallway. He sunk to his knees and picked it up. Some of the bright green slowly returned to his huge eyes as he studied the little item with a longing gaze. It rested innocently in his white hands, bright and colourful in a childish manner – probably the most common description of his former self.
Then Alice appeared out of nowhere and interrupted his thoughts. Or, more correctly speaking: the thought of her appeared; her silhouette of hope, always arriving in shades of blue and the muchness in her young eyes. But the last Alice who had entered his house hadn't been wearing any blue. Actually she had turned out not to be Alice at all and that fact tore at his mind and soul even more. He wasn´t even sure anymore whether she had come earlier this very day or weeks ago.
"And that's tellin' me somethin', I guess", he whispered to himself while the fraud-Alice kept dancing around in his head. He closed his eyes and his face began to twitch when he tried to shook her off without success. Again and again he tried. He rose and when he opened his eyes again, he looked straight into a large mirror. Tarrant stopped dead in his tracks and stared at his reflection. An unnaturally pale, haunted face was looking back at him. Around his tortured eyes were still shades of black and he glared at them, looking even more mad when doing so than he already did. He glared at that fact too. The mirror's golden frame was dusty but beautiful, made by old, traditional design.
"Yeh've gone off the edge now, haven't yeh?" he said to the reflection, which mimed the awful words back to him. The eyes started to change colour again into their mad yellow and the shades went black. He tilted his head on one side and vainly tried to focus on the mirror. He frowned in deep concentration as he tried to get rid of the oncoming madness, when suddenly the ticking noise returned to his head.
"Oh, no, no, no, no!" he cried and squinted towards the living room, afraid of what he was going to see.
"Yehredeadyehrdead! Yeh're dead yeh bloody tick-tock! I slayed yeh meself!"
The face staring at him in the mirror was now horrible and Tarrant smashed it with his fist, making his face looking misshapen in the broken glass. He didn't feel the blood trickling from his knuckles. Instead he carefully approached the living room for the second time. He hardly dared to look but the moment he stepped over the threshold he was greeted with a very strange sight:
The clock was intact and stood on its usual spot against the wall. Tarrant winced but stayed focused. That was when he saw it: the small pointers spun around and around with terrific force. The hours went by within seconds. It was way past tea time, for what was probably the twentyfifth time being.
"What do yeh think yeh're doin', eh?" Tarrant asked the clock and slowly stepped forward to get a better look. He stopped when he was only inches away from it and to his great surprise, the clock stopped as well. The silence came back and Tarrant could hear his own breathing. The heart thumped loudly in his chest.
"Why did yeh stop it?" he said and bent even closer. "Ahre ye tryin' teh give me a sign?"
But the clock remained quiet this time.
"Oi! What ahre yeh waitin' for? Speak up! Or 'tick up'! I don´t mind which because… er, deducin' from the bare fact that I'm talkin' teh a bloody clock most likely very much prove that I'm completely OUT of me mind! Bonkers! Lost it! Madmad! Raven desk! Or was it writing desk? Er, fez."
"Tarrant?" a soft voice came from somewhere.
Tarrant squinted worriedly at the clock.
"So yeh're talkin' now too, ahre yeh? Well, that's ought to be bad. Or mad. Or both. Madbad."
"Tarrant, wake up", came the voice again. Soft and friendly. Not nearly as evil as the clock. It made no sense at all, Tarrant thought. Only nonsense.
"Hasn't he woken yet?" came another, male voice from the distance.
"Woken, has he?" came another tone, which sounded identical to the first one. But Tarrant somehow knew there was indeed two of them…
"Oh, my", a third voice, big and embracing, seemed to enter his mind.
"I'm hearin' voices?" Tarrant muttered. "That can't be good."
"… he looks rather bad, I'm afraid…" the big voice went on. "And no wonder… where's his hat?"
In that exact moment, Tarrant's eyes snapped open:
"CHESSUR! Yeh filthy dog!" he cried and was met by a large, toothy grin and enormous, blue eyes.
"Good morning, Tarrant", the cat greeted him. "Welcome back to our so called reality."
Tarrant's eyes darted around in confusion. He was lying on the couch in the kitchen and there was no sign of the clock or the spinning pointers. Instead he was surrounded by his friends, everyone except Alice. Mirana sat by his side and right behind her were Thackery, Mally, the Tweedles, McTwisp, Bayard and of course, Chessur. Mirana's dark, friendly eyes stared into his soul.
"Er, hello everyone", he said awkardly and tried a little smile. He turned to look at his queen:
"Your majesty."
The others didn't smile back though, except for Chessur. Tarrant studied them and became a bit anxious. He couldn't really tell what they felt. Worry? Sadness? Or fright?
"Am I going mad again?" he asked. "My eyes… Are they black?"
Hearing this, Mirana quickly shook her head and actually smiled back.
"No, they're not, Tarrant. Back to green."
Tarrant nodded.
"Oh, that's good, isn't it?" he said in a slightly shaky voice. "Where is the tick-tock?"
If it was even possible for the Tweedle twins to look more dumb than they always did, they did it now. They stared at Tarrant, completely dumbfounded before the shrugged at each other.
"Still mad", Tweedledum said.
"Still bad", Tweedledee agreed.
Although Mirana sighed and looked at him, worried and tired. Tarrant noticed it and he didn't at all like the thought of being a weight on her shoulders.
"We found you in the hall, crashing furniture", she said. "The clock was broken too. It still is."
"It is?"
Everyone looked surprise by the sound of hope in his voice. "It really is?"
"Yes!" Mally answered from the kitchen table, where he dug into a large chunk of cheese. "It's all a mess in the living room. What in the name of Jabberwockys were you up to, Tarrant?"
Tarrant frowned and concentrated. Then his eyes suddenly fell on his bandaged hand.
"I… I think I might have crashed the mirror", he mumbled. "How… wait, when did you all come here?"
"Well, time is an unpredictable thing", Mirana said in her usual, dreamy tone. "But still, I should guess that we came about an hour ago."
"A… An hour?" Tarrant stuttered. He sunk deeply into his mind as he tried to clear things out. That seemed to alarm the others, though, because suddenly Chessur was sitting on his head.
"Keep yourself on track now, please", he begged tiredly. "I don't appreciate those black eyes of yours."
"Chessur! Shush!" Mirana warned him.
But Tarrant hadn't heard any of them. He looked up and said:
"So, I guess it didn't start ticking again, eh?"
"No, of course it didn't", Mirana said calmly. "Did you think it did?"
"Yes… but all is well now I suppose. Or…"
"Or what?" Mirana wanted to know.
"Did I ruin anything else? I mean, besides the tick-tock and the looking glass?"
His eyes darted around the kitchen. Nothing in there looked broken at least…
"Oh, Tarrant…" Mirana began carefully. "You don't remember?"
"Not what I can remember, no", Tarrant said, looking afraid. "What happened?"
"Well, you killed some darn paintings for once!" Mally cried out before Mirana could stop him. "Two chairs and and a bunch of old candlesticks too!"
Tarrant's huge eyes became even more huge upon hearing this.
"I… I did all that? No, no. Not possible. I was in the living room and talked to the clock!"
"Tarrant, calm down", said Mirana softly. "The clock was broken, like we told you."
"Lucky that", Tarrant agreed and swallowed hard. "That bloody ticking noise drove me bonkers. But… ah, wait, Chessur was right; where is my hat?"
"On the shelf, of course", Malley sounded surprisingly annoyed.
Tarrant glared at him. It was the first time they actually looked at each other since he woke up.
"Not that one", he muttered. "My first hat! Where's it?"
"Oh no, not again…" Mally sighed. "Gone."
"GONE?!" Tarrant practically screamed into the air and shot straight up like a rocket. "Gone?! Unthinkable! It can't be gone!"
"It isn't", Mirana assured him. Then she turned to Mally and gave him an uncharacteristic piercing glare.
"Mally, would you be so kind to go and get Tarrant's first hat for him? I'm pretty sure I saw it on the floor in the hallway."
"Alright…" Mally mumbled and trotted out of the kitchen.
Suddenly, Chessur was on Tarrant's head again.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, a bit too kindly.
"You really know how to choose the right moments of questioning, Chess", Tarrant replied.
"Oh, I'm sure of that, dear", Chessur said in a flattered voice and began to purr. Not before long, Mally came back, carrying Tarrant's tiny hat, which looked quite big in the dormouse's tiny paws. Reluctantly, he handled it back to his friend who immediately took it.
"Well, now, Chess, at least I feel quite relieved. And get off me, will you!"
"Oh, but why, Tarrant? Your head is so comfortable… This orange mop is like fur…"
Tarrant quickly bent away as far from the cat as possible on the narrow couch. Meanwhile, Mally jumped around in the kitchen, looking through one cupboard after another.
"What the heck! Don't you have any tea in this house!?" he squeaked.
Tarrant let out a high-pitched chuckle.
"Oh, Mally, what an insult! You see… I have got my own storage down in the cellar. But I bet you could find some in this couch as well. None of the cupboards are big enough, I'm afraid."
"What did you say? In the couch? The one you're lying on?"
"Yes… just you wait..."
Slowly, Tarrant rose to his feet and the sudden feeling of exhaustion overwhelmed him. A reminder of his oncoming sickness. He supported himself against the couch as he opened it and smiled proudly at what he saw.
"Here you go", he said.
Everyone leaned forward to have a look. A dozen of different, wonderful scents flew through the air, coming from jars and jars of tea from all over the world. Mally and Thackery immediately jumped in (with a cry of "yippie!") to pick their favourite kinds while the others eagerly searched through the various sortiment. Tarrant himself sat down in one of the big chairs and closed his eyes.
"Would you like to go to bed?" he heard Miranas ever so sweet voice. But he shook his head.
"Not before I've had my tea."
Hope you liked it! Reviews are always welcome :)