Title: Get Thee To A Madhouse

Author: Clara Fox

Summary: Part parody, part fluff, part catalogue of British lit. Ophelia takes the place of Alice in a Looking-Glass world inhabited by classic British characters and authors, and absurdity wins the day.

Premise: I guess you could categorize this as a challenge fic, with the challenge being to create a parody of a great work of parody, and replace all the original characters with other characters and authors from classic British literature. Although it does start in Elsinore, it's really based on Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll, so I've categorized it as Alice In Wonderland.

Disclaimers: I've taken characters, and lines, from many, many works, and I've included some real authors, some of whom are still alive. The portrayals are meant to be exaggerated and humorous; I've only bothered to include authors I have great respect for. If the authors and characters weren't presented as caricatures of themselves, there would be no room for them in as farcical a piece as an Alice story. Also, anybody who is actually able to pick out which authors I'm talking about will necessarily be familiar enough with their work to not be misled by the one-sided portrayals. In other words, it's all in the spirit of fun, so please don't start thinking libel.

Reader Beware: You probably won't appreciate this is you aren't at least fairly familiar with the Alice books, and I will be incredibly surprised if you recognize even half of these characters and authors. I might eventually post a list, if anyone really cares to know, because although everyone in this story is from (or wrote) a so-called "Classic" work of fiction, some of them are pretty obscure.

Chapter 1: In Elsinore

"And so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night..."

Ophelia's distracted voice echoed through the Great Hall of Elsinore, sending sweet echoes scattering across the flagstones and thinly-draped walls. On the King's order, Horatio followed her out of the room and through the corridors, catching fragments of her mad song:

He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
And at his heels a stone.

The song died away suddenly, and Horatio turned the corner to find the hallway dark and eerily silent, save for the rustle of curtains at the far end. Worried that some harm might come to the girl, he hurried to find and calm her, and in his haste failed to notice the half open library door to his right.

From behind a stack of books, Ophelia peered out, breath held, to see if Horatio had gone. "Finally," she thought, "I can stop this insanity nonsense. I can hardly see how good Hamlet keeps it up—it tires the mind so." She stood up and looked around her, in wonderment at the sheer number of books lining the shelves in the room.

She approached the nearest shelf with a little trepidation, as she had never before been let into the library without the supervision of her brother or father—the former who kept all but the most innocent and banal works from her supposedly pure blue eyes, and the later who prevented her from reading simply through his incessant lectures about the value of the pastime itself.

There was a book lying before her on the floor, and Ophelia picked it up and began turning over the leaves. It seemed to contain verses written by a person called Z.B. Marion, but many of the words seemed strange and the story rather fantastical. This was the poem that Ophelia read:

Grendlewocky

'Twas brillig, and the slithy halls
Surrounded and protected us;
The frilty moss on all the walls
Gave odors of enchanting musk.

My only son, so hoaffly strong
Away from barb'rous men had run
He'd gorged himself, did nothing wrong,
But they still chased him from his fun.

He only ate but one or two,
And killed them well before his meal
But they did as all humans do
And strove, a fatal blow to deal.

And none could pierce his instifal hide,
Save one, a king from Babylesh,
Whose strength was shrukered far and wide;
He could renunder monsters' flesh.

For meverold hour this king, he walked,
In darkness evercompassing,
And meverold time in fear he squawked,
His courage lost to redundancy.

Down through the mank'rous roof he broke
(The darkness made him outgribe still)
But having gave my son one look,
He swore this creature not to kill.

"For could I seek to harm," quoth he
"A creature with the hair and girth
Of my best friend, no no, I see
The frabulous potent' of your worth."

Although vertwixt and much vertrout,
My clomwart son laid down his claws
He strove to hear the stranger out,
And was then justened for his pause.

The strak king took him up to land,
And overthrew the Daincient throne
Acreed him head of sea and sand,
Gave me the magic of the Stone.

So we then all Dancientia took,
Ate bluicey fleshburgs every day
While yon king left, and elsewhere sook
The wedgeworth gods who had him made.

"It seems quite a good story," Ophelia said after she finished reading it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see, she was reluctant to admit, even with no one else around, that she hadn't been able to make much sense out of her very first book.)

"I can tell that somebody appointed something to rule over the land, only I rather think he wasn't such a nice choice for a king. It seems almost as if I have heard that story somewhere before, but the ending is changed."

"But oh!" thought Ophelia quickly, "they will be quick to find me, should I stay here. I surely ought to quit the castle." And so saying, she jumped up, ran her hands through her hair to make it stick out wildly in all directions, and flailed her arms wildly as she ran toward the glassy brook.

x x x x

Ophelia peered into the stream, looking at the girl with disheveled hair and an armful of flowers who gazed back at her from just below the surface. The girl's left hand moved up to her face as Ophelia raised her right arm to push back her hair, and Ophelia wondered why her reflection, which looked exactly like her, should make all the opposite movements.

"It is almost like the way, in the poem," she mused, having since remembered more of the real monster's story, "everything is switched from what it should be. I wonder, if I could go to the other side, would I see everything backwards?"

She leaned forward, trying to see more of her surroundings from the new point of view, but she very nearly lost her balance, and jumped back in mild concern. "For had I fallen in," she thought out loud, "I might have had a nasty time of it. I had better take hold of the sturdy branch of this weeping willow." Grasping one of the thin tendrils of the tree, Ophelia leaned farther over the water, and, of course, promptly fell into the brook.

Splashing furiously, she called out to the figure that had just appeared on the bank: "O dear Gertrude, O sweet Queen! Lend me your hand! Get me some aid, for I shall drown!" The stately queen smiled calmly in reply, but made no move to help.

"I know you are not mad, Ophelia. I know you are fully in your senses, just as I know my son is sane, and my husband is guilty. I know more than you could dream, Ophelia. I shall be eloquent and piteous when I bring the news of your death to your brother, but for now I will be brief. You got in my way, complicated my plans to get rid of my son and to gain the throne. But luckily, you will never be able to tell anyone of this. Sweets to the sweet, Ophelia. Goodbye!"

Surprised and rather overwhelmed by this revelation, Ophelia sat in the brook with her mouth open for a moment before her skirts became heavy with water and pulled her under. She fell slowly through the sunlit water, seeming to see her reflection still above the surface, looking down at her, wondering why the hand clasped to her mouth was the right, and not the left.

x x x x