Chasing hats
Alice hurried down the street, weaving her way in and out of the crowd. This time the object she was chasing had been spotted from the window of a cafe. A brown porkpie hat. Her latte abandoned she had rushed out chasing after said hat and the man under it. As she got closer she was able to see just who she was chasing after and her feet slowly came to a stop.
The man looked about sixty with graying hair and dark skin. Definitely not Hatter. The rush of excitement that had taken her over moments before was now replaced with familiar disappointment.
It had been two weeks of this. Two weeks since she had fallen back through the Looking Glass. At first it was just mild curiosity. She would see a fedora and found herself going out of her way to see what the man wearing it looked like. None of them had been Hatter. As the days passed she found herself scanning the crowd looking for hats of any kind, anything she thought Hatter would wear. At one point she had given chase to a brown leather jacket through the mall, of course, with the same result as all the others.
It was all getting out of hand. The thought that Hatter would just show up in her world was ridiculous. The fact she was looking for him randomly in crowds was even more absurd. As she stood there in the street, people still passing around her, she knew this had to stop. She couldn't go chasing hats the rest of her life.
She turned around and began making her way home. There must be something wrong with her. Mentally, she must be broken. She had a good idea of what was spurring this on. She knew her father was gone now and there was no longer a need to look for him. She had put away maps and files and closed her accounts on people finder sites. Now she was filling the void left from losing her father by jumping head first into a search for Hatter.
No way. There was no way she was going to put herself through this again. She had given ten years of her life to the search for her father and she would be damned if she was going to spend the next ten looking for a man who didn't even exist in her world.
She was a few blocks from her apartment when she saw another possible Hatter. He was ahead of her walking in the same direction. This man wore a gray coat matched with a black fedora. The hight was right, the hair color correct, although it seemed to be a bit too well kept for Hatter's taste. Normally he would have been a perfect candidate for her to chase down.
But she didn't, she stopped and watched as he continued walking away from her and disappeared into the crowded street. If she didn't stop this would only escalate. She had to move on with her life. The best thing she could do was forget about Wonderland and everything that had happened there.
Her decision made Alice hurry home keeping her head down and resisting the urge to look at the people around her. She stopped at the small grocery store on the corner of her street and picked up a few things for dinner. Rushing the rest of the way home she was relieved when she finally stepped into the lobby of her building.
It was a small steep but she felt better already. With a little self control she would be able to put everything behind her and finally get back to normal.
Alice made her way up the stairs to her apartment and paused to pull the keys from her pocket. She was about to put the key into the lock when her Carol opened the door. "Alice" Her mother said smiling at her and taking the bags from her arms. "You have a visitor."
Alice walked in and looked towards the living room. There he stood ,wearing a gray coat and holding a black fedora, the man that she had chosen not to chase after. It had been him after all.
"Hatter!" She cried running towards him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. She felt him return her hug, holding her just as tightly as she did him. "You have no idea how happy I am to see you."
His mouth was close to her ear and she heard him let out a heavy sigh. "Finally."