THIRD EFFORT
Theme: Alice in Wonderland
Rated G to R
1. Keane – Everybody's Changing 3:39
Time was a funny fellow. He could stop for years if you really made him angry, and Hatter certainly had. An attempt on a fellow's life is not easily forgotten. So, while the rest of the world changed about him, Hatter stayed the same. Maybe a little more mad, but never truly different. Just Hatter. Hatter Always.
Being frozen at a tea table for all Time was not too much of a sacrifice. Not until the Alice came back. Then it was imperative that he make a move. The Resistance must become a Revolution and he must aid Alice. He rather began to think he would not go back to that tea table—except of course for teatime. Teatime at its proper time and not Forever Teatime.
But then, she had sipped from the vial and faded away right before his eyes, changing, while he was never to change. Growing and different and changing, while he was frozen. Forever.
Time, he realized, was not just fickle or funny, but downright unforgiving.
...
2. Owl City – Fireflies 3:48
Alice awoke, wiggling her toes and feeling as if she had just emerged from a marvelous dream. Her most favorite dream, she thought, pushing herself up on her elbows in the crisp white cotton sheets. It was a warm evening and a lovely breeze was wafting through the open window; a breeze carried all the way from Underland, she imagined, as she slipped from the bed. Hurrying to the window, she marveled at the amount of light the moon was casting. Not the moon, she smiled: fireflies. Her heart began to race and her cheeks flushed pink. The fireflies were dancing, reminding her of something that she teased out in her dreams. Something about a Hatter. Something she needed to remember or experience for herself.
Pulling her nightgown above her ankles, Alice raced out of her room and down the spiraling stairs of her home, her feet silent on the wooden floors. Driven by an impulse, she simply had to make her way to the gardens. She had to dance with the fireflies. This was not a night for sleeping. Dreaming, perhaps, dancing absolutely. But not sleep.
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3. Green River Ordinance – Come On 3:50
Mally pouted. Stupid Hatter. Stupid, slurvish, sex-crazed Hatter.
She pouted and stamped her foot, jamming her hatpin sword into the surface of the tea table, watching him retreat into the distance.
Clueless dolt had the nerve to smile—actually smile at her as he told her once again: I'm off to see Alice. She saw that smile in her dreams. She used to dream of scones and tea. Hatefully heroic Hatter with his little Hussy of an Alice. And She had to be so Helpful. First slaying jabberwockies and now regularly helping him emerge from madness, taking no thought to this having been Mally's job for years. Could the Alice not be just a little Useless? Just so in comparison she might seem a little more Useful?
Perhaps she could hide all his thimbles and then discover them somewhere very small, where the Alice could not reach. But then, the stupid girl was always drinking down pishsalver or gobbling up upelkuchen, so She would probably beat her to their recovery as well.
She had even seen the Alice don his Hat. Don his Hat! Mally had thought riding on the Hat was a privilege, and then She had come along and placed it on her head with a satisfied wink.
How long had she and he been friends? How much loss had they sustained together? How many tea parties and unbirthdays had they celebrated? And yet he chose the Alice. Johnny-come-lately Alice. Perchance Chess was right: one could never count on a human.
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4. Coldplay – The Scientist 5:09
"Still at work, hmm?" Chessur purred, materializing above the worktable. "At it all night?"
Hatter made one last pleat and reached for his bone folder to make the crease crisp, running it along the razor edge of the ivory paper.
"I'm not a figment, you know," Chessur advised him.
"I am ignoring you anyhow," Hatter mumbled, as he reached for his shears. "I am much too busy to chat with cats."
"Cat. Singular," Chessur corrected, licking one paw.
"I have already had to start over again ten times today due to impertinent requests for hat orders," he grumbled, making a snip into the paper.
He paused. His hands twitched to work quickly on the paper, but if he worked too quickly, it would not turn out appropriately lovely. Lovely enough to be Her.
"From the looks of this mass of papers," Chess said, rolling onto his back, "you have started many times more than ten."
"Ten times ten," Hatter said with a shrug. "Ten times ten more if need be."
"What do you intend to do with this little diversion if you ever have any success?" Chessur asked, as Hatter's scissors worked too quickly of their own accord and began to craft the desired shape. "You won't begin to talk to paper dolls as you did with the clothespins will you? We may all be mad, but you had begun to make some of us dreadfully uncomfortable with that, you know."
Hatter set down his heavy shears with a clatter and glared over the imperfect doll. "You have made me slip," he snarled.
"Oh heavens," the Cat drawled, "and I see you will require Mally's bandaging talents again. I'm beginning to think that fetching Her back would be less time consuming and less dangerous."
...
5. Gavin DeGraw – In Love With A Girl 3:30
Hatter frowned, feeling very much like smoke might pour out of his ears. But, Alice would not allow him to slip into the madness. The press of her cool palms against his face brought him back to this world.
This was why he loved her. This was why he always had. Even when she was Little Alice and he only wanted to entertain her with riddles and rhymes. He still very much liked to do those things, but Adult Alice understood him even better than lovely, lively, Little Alice had. She knew better than to allow him to run away with himself. She drew him back to calm and serenity when he wanted to smash things. It was not always as immediately satisfying, for breaking things provided its own kind of pleasure, but it was better for him. Much better.
All the same…
"Ah wid verra much lik' tae strike him doun wi' mah sword," he growled.
"For asking me to dance?" Alice asked with an arched brow. "Do you not think that a little barbaric?"
Hatter leaned into her, grazing her ear with his breath, "Ye said ye liked that."
Pulling back a hairsbreadth, he could see Alice fighting not to smile.
"Yes, my dear Hatter, but just when it's the two of us."
...
6. The Fray – How to Save a Life 4:24
"It is time for a Serious Talk," the Queen advised, sitting opposite him with calculated calm.
She was always so composed, he mused. So opposite of himself.
"Of cabbages and kings?" he asked flatly.
"Perhaps another time," she said, pressing her hands together.
Hatter laughed, high and nervous. He had no wish to talk with the Queen about anything but hats and tea. Those were on his list of Officially Safe Subjects for Conversation. He had begun to collect them in a little yellow journal. The list was admittedly short.
"You don't seem yourself, dear Hatter," the Queen began.
"Mad? I am still, quite. Never you worry, Your Majesty," he said, adjusting his cuffs.
"Well, yes, I can see that, but I have begun to worry. I am told you have stopped seeing your friends—all of them."
"They don't approve of my peculiarities," he said, absentmindedly running his fingers along the brim of his hat.
"What peculiarities are those, Hatter?" Mirana asked quietly, as if she might be afraid to hear the answer.
Hatter blinked, knowing his eyes had gone dark. "To explain, I'd have to show you what I keep in my hat, and you wouldn't like that."
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7. Eric Hutchinson – Rock & Roll 3:59
Stayne had not been able to use his charms for anything satisfying in ages. His ample charms had only been employed in the great hassle of charming his charmless sovereign with her giant head. But Um was lovely, large in all the right places. Lovely, long-legged Um from Umbridge. Turning his charms on her would be anything but a hassle, and he was unconcerned that his charms could have lessened over time without a pretty person to practice upon. He possessed such skills at getting what he wanted, and what he wanted was Um.
He would very much enjoy pressing her into a wall and breathing down her neck, moving his hands up her sides, tasting those lovely ruby lips—rouged by nature and not heavy makeup like these twits at court. He wondered if her hips would move in time with his or if he would have to coax her. Never mind, either way would be wondrous after years of scraping at the feet of the Queen.
He felt a little spring in his step that had not been there in many moons. Seducing Um would be such a pleasure. He would do whatever he liked and she would respond in kind. He would be in total control. He would possess her. He did not care how it came about. It would be.
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8. Elliott Smith – Needle in the Hay 4:17
"There is a cure," he reminded himself.
If he wanted to be cured of this feeling of emptiness, Hatter knew exactly what to do. Of course, each trip to the back of the workroom brought him that much closer to being closed out from this world forever. Funny cure that could kill or send one right over the brink like a log over a waterfall. His tongue itched thinking about a release from these relentless Thoughts. He had been troubled by Terrible Thoughts for years. How many he was not sure, since Time had abandoned him, but it felt like several lifetimes. It had never occurred to him that after Frabjous Day things would not be Restored, Redressed, Resplendent. But, so it was—for him, at least.
"Leave me alone," he growled at the voice that was crawling up his back.
All he wanted was to be quiet with himself. To find that loathsome needle he had buried somewhere in a desperate attempt to keep himself from indulging in the dirty retreat.
There is a cure.
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9. Incubus – I Miss You 2:49
She was there beside him, but he missed her. Alice was asleep; asleep on his pillow. Several times during the night he had woken to watch her and pinch himself—hard—to make sure this was Real.
She had assured him that she felt as he did. This wee laddie loved him: he, the Mad Hatter. That could not be Real, and yet, it might be out of line to repeatedly wake her from her restful sleep in order to query her and tell her that he missed her. Desperately. He could see her, smell her, but she was in a dream world he could not access. Alice eyes, Alice smile, Alice kisses, Alice words of love closed off to him except in Memory. She would wake soon, but he wanted her to know…
Wake, wake, dear Alice, he silently projected at her. I miss you.
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10. Counting Crows – Goodnight Elisabeth 5:20
Waking up was never his Favorite part of the day. Asleep was his cherished Time. Asleep they were together. Asleep they walked the paths of Underland. He showed her things he had not yet had a chance to share with her. They spent their days in endless amusement and then counted the stars until they drifted off to sleep, lying on the dewy grass with her head pillowed on his shoulder. Always the same.
He would whisper, "Goodnight, Alice." Even though he never wanted to say it, for he knew that when he said his goodnights, he would wake to a world Absent of Alice. He could not help but say the words: Alice deserved to rest quietly, and he should be the one to wish it for her. Even if she was not coming Home—Home to Him.
Nevertheless, he would wait for her. Wait for her at the tea table. Wait for her in the workroom. Wait for her while she was Above with her Responsibilities. He would make lovely things to wrap her in when she returned from being Queen of Above to him, the King of Pain. She of Great Importance and he just a clown, a joker, a fool, really. A silly Hatter.
If only she would fall from Above, tumble into his lap, fall down on him. Surrounded by friends, until she fell, he was all alone. Except in his dreams.