JMJ
Through Fragmented Glass
Chapter One
Wading through some Weighty Things
"—Hatter?!" Esther gasped.
The reason for the Mad Hatter's halting was actually more ordinary than reasoning about someone as mad as a hatter might be. Then again, reflexes could be counted on from time to time even in the maddest, and as mad as the Mad Hatter could be, he was really more asinine than mentally ill. It resembled an overtired child playing games long after dark and finally reached a limit in his playtime to crash into the carpet. It was something so ordinary that he not only stopped in the middle of a song about dark things in seeming jest to yelp out about the prop of a very daytime activity, he seemed to have simply passed out in the collision of it.
Though, more likely it was less philosophical than all that. Such a hard blow to the head was not unknown to cause it to go silent for at least a moment or two from depression or at least a concussion.
Matthias picked up the weapon used to cause this assault and examined it while Esther examined the wound or rather the tangled nest of red hair hiding it. The lump could have been the size of a baseball for how messy the hair was under his boater hat. After all, that was what had hit him.
"A baseball," muttered Matthias with a raised brow.
They had been expecting a ball to fall but not quite this sort. He turned it round and looked up, but the veil of tumtum boughs was at least as thick as the Hatter's hair, and if the Ball of Heartland still took its place in the otherwise beautiful sky it could not be seen. Matthias frowned, scratched his head with his free hand and then stood up in the boat.
"How's… uh, the Mad Hatter?" asked Matthias, not sure he believed that the Mad Hatter could actually be hurt in the long-run so much as the butt end of some sort of joke even if it was in poor taste— the taste of old leather, anyway.
"Unconscious," said Esther who had now located the bump, and though she tried to help the Hatter sit up, he was as limp as a doll. "Do you think we're close to a town? I mean, we were supposedly going to a bank."
"But was the bank along the river or across the pond?" Matthias mused.
He could not help but turn the ball again before handing it to Esther.
"I'll take the great baby here," said Matthias.
"I guess you're the father now and he's the son," sighed Esther despite herself, but her sympathy shone through all the better for it.
Matthias laughed despite himself and took up the limp creature into his arms, though not as tenderly as one might hold a child in the same predicament.
As Esther took up the Hatter's boater hat and dropped the baseball into it, she looked around too as though worried another such baseball might fall on their heads. Or maybe the great metal hamster ball had clouded her thoughts too.
"…unless we already crossed the pond," Matthias mused just to get her out from under it again.
"What do you mean? Is there a pond in baseball?" said Esther.
Again Matthias laughed and together they climbed up onto shore. "Not unless it's a foul ball, but the ball seems fresh enough to me."
"Well," Esther went on gently as they walked upon the dusty path, "'pond' can be a Latin root for 'weight'."
"He said 'across the pond'," Matthias answered. "From England to America over the Atlantic."
"I know, but I feel like I'm still in England. I'm holding back a British accent as it is," said Esther.
"You are?" teased Matthias. "Well, I must've helped with that as I've been stuck with a falsie since Heartland, and it's only waning now."
"Sorry," said Esther.
"Why?" Matthias chuckled. "I told you long before, what's past is past. Water under the… hamster ball."
"Sor…" Esther blushed. "Do you think we're going to America then?"
"That would explain the baseball. Just like a crash through a window."
"Only without the glass," Esther remarked.
Again Matthias smiled. He couldn't help it really. "Esther," he said.
Esther stopped. "What?"
"I just wanted to say it," retorted Matthias merrily.
Esther looked away bashfully for a moment as they continued on.
Neither one knew exactly where they were going. It was much like a gentle hiking path in a pleasant park, except that there were no fences or outhouses or too much of a sign than anyone had walked here in a while. So far there were no forks or offshoots either. It simply kept on in a singular direction even as it meandered like a child picking daisies along the path rather than the path itself. The considerable daisies, admittedly, were pristine enough to pick and swayed enough to daze.
"I still would have thought," said Esther after a moment in which she did pick one, "That there would have been a physical pond somewhere about if we'd passed through it."
"We'll see," Matthias said looking up ahead now.
Their path curved along the river or the river decided to curve into the path for its right turn, and the shoreline began to become steeper and higher. The trees suddenly arched like pillars before a great edifice. Just a little further along the increasingly vertically ascending embankment and it seemed that the mud became more and more bricklike. The more bricklike it became the more it took shape, and suddenly there were windows and art deco architecture. There was an impediment in their path that turned out to be the pediment of the front edifice, so that they had to take a winding stair to the front doors down the hill. Brilliant stain glass windows gleamed in the light upon the doors that were patterned after the back of a card deck.
But just before Matthias stepped onto the stone walkway to the grand doors, Esther pulled his arm. He looked and right next door along the river boardwalk that suddenly came into being was an equally art deco clinic.
Matthias sighed and looked down at the great baby in his arms.
"Hey, Hatter," he grumbled.
The Hatter was still out.
Matthias rolled his eyes.
"Alright, c'mon, but a Wonderlandian medical center is not exactly a place I ever want to wonder about."
"It's only a clinic, and I'm sure he just needs a simple wake-me-up play on words to bring him to his senses," said Esther.
"Or lack of them," muttered Matthias.
Even in Wonderland brining an unconscious person into a bank in order to open a safe could get a person into trouble, he had no doubt. What he wanted to know was whether or not the Hatter's present was worth any sort of trouble at all, but he digressed.
It was interesting how the bustle of activity suddenly appeared as though one minute they had been in some remote abandoned campgrounds and now they had come into a bustling town. The further they got to the long skinny doors of the clinic, the more of the town came into view along the water's edge, and it reminded him more and more of a some idealized vision of a place in Louisiana with its mixture of English and French styles with colors and details of both but nothing quite like either. The people were also a mixture of human-like and animals-like in much the same manner, but then again, that was to be expected in Wonderland.
They stepped through the doors, and hardly had they come within sight of the front desk when the nurse looked up from her very modern phone and snapped a picture before even saying a word. Both Matthias and Esther stopped as though it was a freeze frame of reality rather than of digital technology. The nurse was a great goosey figure with limbs neither quite legs or quite wings almost tengu-like. Only after glancing at her phone did she look up at the newcomers with a pleasant smile.
"How may I help you?" she asked.
"Isn't it obvious?" asked Matthias with a shrug.
"No, not at all. I never assume," said the Nurse. "There's many things I can do but very little that I may do, because so many things that I can do would get me into trouble. I have a strong urge to trip you both up honking into your ears for interrupting my browsing and maybe even bite your noses, but I may not do that."
After exchanging glances with Matthias, Esther said cautiously, "We'd like a doctor to have a look at this unconscious patient."
Matthias rolled his eyes with a smile despite himself.
"Then he's sure to be extremely patient," said the Nurse.
Esther pouted.
Called it, Matthias thought.
"He was hit on the head with a baseball," said Esther, "and he hasn't woken up since."
Idly, the Nurse looked down at her phone for a minute or two that made Matthias sigh with impatience. The Hatter began growing heavy in his arms. Then blinking stupidly the Nurse looked up and asked, "Did he stop short?"
"Yes," said both Matthias and Esther together.
"Then it was probably thrown backwards by a short stop," said the Nurse.
"And?" pressed Matthias.
"I'm not about to diagnose," said the Nurse with a shrug. "That's not my job. I'll see if a doctor may see him, because even if he can see him he might have to jump out a window or stop in the middle of stitching to get to him otherwise. Please, come to the waiting room."
She looked at her phone to make sure she was pointing the right way. She apparently wasn't and she quickly changed her arm to face the way her phone apparently did indicate.
Matthias shrugged and looked at Esther. She shrugged back and together they made their way into the room. But as they came through the door, they knew it had to be America now as in American English "wade" could sound like "wait".
"And maybe 'pond' as a root may signify something to do with weights after all," said Matthias, indicating to the buoys holding the shell-like loveseat-like chairs into relative place in the great pool of water that they had almost stepped right into. "Or maybe we need the 'pont' in pontoon!"
Esther was still recovering from her surprise. "This can't be the pond, can it?"
There was only the slimmest edge for them to walk along, and it was sloping inward, no doubt to make those waiting wade.
"There's nothing across it," Matthias pointed out. "Come on, let's see if we can get to those chair without—"
A twang went through his nerves as he suddenly but unsurprisingly lost his grip. Wetness again awaited him for his wading. Splash, he went, almost losing the Hatter, but just as he retook his grip on his charge, the charge kicked like a wet cat. The cry the patient gave was a bit like a caterwaul too. Matthias instantly pushed away from those crazed limbs and both he and the Hatter emerged from the water simultaneously.
Gasping for breath, the Hatter looked around quite alarmed.
"Where are we?" he demanded shivering in his sopping clothes.
Matthias was still choking from the kick in the chest and could not answer as he took hold of the slope along the wall.
"Are you alright?" Esther gasped.
"Yes, I think so!" panted the Hatter now oriented enough to wade.
Matthias shook his head and smiled. "Well, I guess we can leave now that we know he's alright."
"I meant Matthias," Esther said, "but I don't know if I can help you out very well."
As she spoke she was squatting with care while holding onto the doorknob with one hand.
She then reached out with the other with the boater still in it towards Matthias. Matthias reached out to grab the boater, but the Hatter quickly swam in between. Esther slipped then too from the surprise with a cry. When she splashed back to the surface she glowered severely at the Hatter who took the hat and ball that had also fallen in. He put the boater on his head. The baseball was left to drift down to the bottom, and the bottom of this clear pool was surprisingly far down.
More than enough incentive to keep wading.
"Now what?" Esther demanded.
The Hatter moaned and threw back his neck to rub the bruise beneath his dripping wet hair. "Oh, my head!"
"Splashing out for a headache cure," snorted Matthias.
"You've had more of a bump stock than I have, I'm sure," remarked the Hatter back.
"And now we've resorted to 80's cartoon punning again," sighed Esther as though she was the one with the headache.
Matthias shook his head. "What is Alice in Wonderland but a Victorian Hanna-Barbera, eh?"
"And what is Alice wearing but a Victorian Hanna Andersson," shrugged the Hatter, "of the road trodden."
"Hmm," Alice smiled.
"Beware the jabberwock, my son," added the Hatter suddenly thrusting a finger into the air, and then he climbed up onto the nearest shell chair like a miserable wet dog and lay there flat like a half-drowned rat.
"The 'jabberwock' or the 'jabber walk'?" shrugged Matthias helping Esther to another shell chair, and together they climbed up into it as snug as a pair of pearls in a clam but as soggy as morning cereal by dinner time.
"The jabbing woke," said the Hatter sagely.
"Woke who?" sneered Matthias.
"I know who but you must know it was by force!" said the Hatter, "but I digress."
"So?" asked Matthias. "Are you grasping at straws?"
"Never drink tea with a strawman," said the Hatter sagely, "but that's different advice. Here's the one I have for you, Mattie!
Be aware! The jabbing woke my son!
The just hat byte? The cause that cached.
Be aware! The Jubjubbered end:
Daft-rummy us, banned or snatched.
There was an especially long pause after that. The sluggish sloshing of the water even made the echoing wading room seem to have trouble wading through that mess of words. Esther was staring so hard at the Hatter she seemed to be trying to pry open the words with her very gaze.
"Now if that's not Wonderlandian," muttered Matthias to the Hatter with delicate care, "I don't know what is."
"What does that mean?" asked Esther.
"I think he's taking back his honor with a vorpal blade," Matthias whispered.
Esther wrinkled her nose. "I'm… sorry?"
"Don't be, he deserves what he gets for what he put us through so far," Matthias teased.
"You're the ones who brought me here," said the Hatter, "and I meant exactly what I said."
"Then you should say what you mean," said Matthias.
"Oh, with him it is the same thing," Esther teased.
The Hatter grinned quite vorpally.
"So let's hear the rest of it," said the Matthias. "I mean as long as we're wading."
"You're already awake, it's too late for that," remarked the Hatter.
"And so are you," Esther pointed out.
"It hasn't got anything to do with me," retorted the Hatter.
"Everything before I woke up has to do with you, though," said Matthias.
"Me? Or just mere Victorian hattery."
Esther squirmed and sighed.
"You alright?" Matthias asked touching her arm gently.
"Oh, it just feels like we're always getting so wet," Esther admitted with a shrug.
"It's better than all wet," said the Hatter unsympathetically.
"By all means," said Matthias, "but the poem was all just fancy?"
"There's no airs to it," said the Hatter. "The original still stands on the ground and is a lesson enough for you in my opinion. I could recite it just as it is and it would be parental advice even if vague."
"Why does it have to be vague?" asked Esther still trying not to fidget in her wet clothes.
"Because he can't tell us anything that we don't already know," said Matthias leaning back confidentially.
Admittedly, it felt good to speak confidentially to Esther about just about anything at the moment. They were a true pair now. Or again, rather. He was still giddy with it despite himself. She was so pretty too even when grumpy and wet, and she was his.
"No," said the Hatter causing Matthias to be brought back to the conversation, such as it was, "because being cautious is always good advice."
"Is it?" asked Matthias cheekily.
"Of course. Nothing should be done without consideration first," explained the Hatter. "Planning to destroy a beast with care below the tumtum tree is even better, calculating before you strike, you know. Then once it's left for dead, think how much more time he had to think carrying back such a head to a father! He had twice as much time to think about what he would say to him because he had to carry such a head. We can all say that a dead head is the heaviest as it has the gravest things left before it. And as for the father he had just as much time and then-some to think of how he would congratulate the boy!"
"What if you're being chased down by a jabberwocky? Or you've just been snatched by a bandersnatch?" Matthias challenged.
Esther snatched a magazine out of the side of the shell-chair's basket, but as she opened it, although it was dry it was obvious that it had been wet before. All the letters clouded together into murky patterns rather than anything legible. The pictures were so messy that they could almost have been mistaken for blocks of texts themselves with colors added. Matthias glanced over her shoulder briefly, but grinned back at the Hatter daringly. Esther hid her amusement behind the pages.
"If you had been careful beforehand, you never would have been in those situations," the Hatter retorted.
"Not if they happened without consideration by the beasts," Matthias pointed out.
"He's right," said Esther tucking the magazine back into the basket.
Matthias grinned. "There's time and place for gut instinct."
"There's time and place for gut wrenching, but not with the plumping," said the Hatter.
"Now, I'm sure that's just pure nonsense," Esther insisted. "You're just making up things to say now."
"Everything we say we have to make up beforehand," said the Hatter.
"Yeah," Esther shrugged flopping back into the chair. "Okay, you win."
She sat right back up again, though, because of how uncomfortable it was to lean against a soggy chair. Just as she sat up, there was a strange lurch beneath the chair too. Bubbles churned and grumbled.
"What did I do?" Esther demanded swinging her head around.
The room itself seemed to moan, and she held her breath grabbing onto Matthias. It was as if a death trap had been triggered.
"I think we're going down," said Matthias after a moment, and sure enough the water rumbled again.
Slowly the walls went up. Or rather they were going down as in a hydro-powered elevator. Esther relaxed and the Hatter swung his legs.
"The bank's down the street," he chirped. "We won't have to wait much longer."
"We won't have any more wading there, I hope," muttered Esther.
They descended on the chairs all the way down to the cement floor at the bottom where a shower drain slurped up the last of its long drink. Scuffs of tile here and there seemed to mean that this place had not been truly meant for filling with water and had only lost the full extent of its elaborate mosaic floor, because of the abuse. The walls however looked like pool tiles. Two open windows into the walls were across from each other one way and two doors forward and behind made a haphazard X-shape round the trio still sitting in their chairs.
The stations behind the windows were filled with nurses, computers, and files just as one would expect at a clinic, except that one had to wonder whether or not they had been under the water when the water had filled this space in. The windows had no apparent panes, but nothing inside them was at all wet.
Matthias shrugged and helped Esther onto the floor.