Diary Entry

Date: Unknown

Time: Unknown

Place: My Cell

My name is Alice. In the real world, outside of the asylum, I have a father. I have a mother too, but she's a rotting corpse. I don't really know where she is now. Father never told me where she was buried.

I was put here because manic depression, mania, dementia…they say I'm fucking nuts. They say that when I'm better inside, I can leave this place. My insides were killed a long time a go, though, so I don't think I'll be leaving any time soon. Every day, I look outside of my barred windows at a slate gray sky. The clouds are the same every day. The grass is the same every day. Every day the view is bisected by obtrusive metal ribbons, ripping apart the one freedom I'm allowed: my eyes. So I sit on my bed, tailored especially for my derangement, complete with thick and ominous black, leather straps. In the ashen hues of the cell, I pass the time by looking at my new mutilations. I look at the veins, brutally collapsed by corrupt needles. I look at the bruises circumnavigating my wrists, the result of those intrusive straps.

I've been in this purgatory for what seems like eternity. Do you know what eternity is? It is time, stretched out on end, expanding across a horizon that can never be touched. It is the universe put into a spiral and pushed into the soil of the earth until it reaches the very depths of hell. I don't know how long I've been here for sure. The days tend to compound together: the drugs, the syringes, the barred suns and moons. They're all the same to me.

They tell me that when I was found in the bathroom, I was dead. My body was still warm. They deposited my carcass into an ambulance and frantically attempted to resuscitate me. Finally they shot colossal amounts of electricity through my body, driving the life force back into me. They gave me a blood transfusion. They sewed up my sliced wrists. The flesh is still puckered and raw, a jagged string navigating my arms. They say it was a miracle.

A miracle…

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A man in a white orderly outfit walks into the room. His face is littered with stubble and beads of sweat. He has a syringe and a plate of gray food.

"Time for your happy medicine, Alice," the man mumbles under his breath, as he sets the food near her bed. Alice sits, unresponsive. He takes Alice's left arm and rolls up the sleeve, exposing a milk-white arm and tapping gently on a vein that hasn't yet been destroyed. He is silent as he sticks the needle inside of her.

His eyes look over her callously, flicking across her breasts and neck. He leans in to Alice's face, and she can smell his rancid breath. The clammy stink of him seems to saturate the entirety of the little room, infiltrating every crevice. Alice grimaces.

"If you ever get lonely here at night with them crazies, doll, you know I'll be right outside yer door…" He chuckles to himself, his eyes gluttonous. The dirty man looks back toward the door before he begins to run his hand up her leg. He gets to her knee and lingers there, caressing it. Alice slams her legs together, crushing the disgusting man's fingers. The man stifles a howl and slaps Alice across the face. Already weak from the drugs pulsating through her bloodstream, she topples over across the bed. "Ya stupid bitch. I'll teach ya," he says in a throaty whisper, as he begins to hike up her shift, crushing Alice with his excess fat. He thinks better of it and instead slaps her once more. "Don' cross me, girlie," he says as he clamors off of her, "Remember I'm the one that's shootin' ya up. These drugs can git mixed up real easy, like."

Would that be such a pity? she thinks. Her face is already beginning to bulge and purple as the man saunters out of the room, slamming the heavy door behind him. A headache begins to ebb in her temples, turning her mind into an orchestra of pain. Just as her mind is reaching its crescendo, the cell begins to darken and reality begins to fade to the black of her eyelids.

//|^|\\

When Alice's eyes finally begin to flutter open, an undeterminable amount of time has been slain and buried, mourned over and forgotten. Darkness impedes over everything and blankets the world in a comforting ambiance. The only light is the dim glowing of a white, husky moon looking down on her cell with a careless reverie. If she gets very close to the barred windows, she could see the whole moon, with not a single stripe of containment destroying her view. She is too exhausted for that now, though. She simply lies on her iron bed, staring blankly at a mirror mounted on the ceiling. This was her reward for going two weeks without biting any orderlies. The mirror comforts her, reflecting back all the things in the world that are real, filtering out all deceptions that her mind tends to materialize. She sees herself in the mirror: a fragile and breakable little thing.

The elder nurse, Elaina, is frightened of her; Alice sees this in the woman's eyes. Elaina is always apprehensive as she creeps into Alice's room, half expecting the small Alice to be stiff with Death's grip. The nurse gently shakes a sickly Alice whilst she sleeps to confirm her breathing when she's on duty. Regardless of her fear, Elaina still has a special fondness for Alice. She comes into Alice's cell after blood-curdling nightmare screams wake the whole asylum. She strokes Alice's hair and comforts her back into a sound sleep, refusing to use the drugs.

As Alice stares at the mirror, she senses a glimmer about the cell for but a second. For only a fleeting instant, the world turns on its side, and she feels like she is drowning. She gasps for a breath, feeling her heart jump into the refuge of her throat. Her sanity seems to be sitting on the very eaves of reality. The mirror begins to glow in opalescent hues, and Alice suddenly knows exactly what is going on.

In the mirror, an ivory smile unzips itself and she hears the chuckling in her mind, seemingly coming from every direction. It is a resonate sound, bouncing off the walls of her skull, filling her head with something deeper and richer than darkest chocolate. The smile dances around the glass mirror momentarily before materializing into her old pal…Cheshire Cat.

Alice wants to close her eyes. She doesn't feel ready for Wonderland. She feels too preoccupied with trying to project herself as sane. But she can't close her eyes. She's transfixed.

"What the fuck do you want, Cheshire?" she asks, her voice is laced with suspicion and besmirched with bitterness.

"It's nice to see you too, my darling," the cat's words roll of his tongue like drops honey, tickling her earlobes.

"Stop the shit, Cheshire. Just tell me what you want."

"We need you, my little tulip. Wonderland is perishing under the noon day sun."

Alice's face is a scowl. "It's nice that you show up to aid me now. I'm just glad to see you took your time. I wouldn't want you to put yourself out on account of little ole me…"

The Cheshire gives a little mewl of discontent, as though someone is pulling his tail. "Alice…You know I wouldn't abandon you for anything but a good reason…"

"Actually, Cat, you seem to abandon me every chance you get. Whenever I need you the most, you suddenly seem to be very far away." Alice is venomous now, her emerald eyes spitting a glare of licking flames at the ceiling.

"Wonderland is a mere dandelion fluff away from collapsing. Things have gotten out of hand. The queen's gone mad, Alice."

"What the hell are you talking about? The queen was always nuts."

Cheshire seems to be getting agitated and exasperated. His body begins to fade, but Alice adds, "Cat, is it as bad as you make it sound?"

"Come, Alice. Come see."

Alice closes her eyes. Her headache seems to be returning. It is rhythmic, like the beating of a drum. It is a hastening beat. A beat. A beating. Beating her into submission. Beating her. Killing her. Raping her. Poisoning her.

Alice can feel the world turning on its axes, hurling her into tomorrow. Time is scalped clean and its diseased cadaver is eaten over a tribal fire. Space is moved and changes, all the while being scarred by earthquakes, and floods, and murderers. She is dead, yet she lives.

"Fuck you, Cat. Let's go."