After accidentally killing
everyone in her class, Alice Wonder is now a patient in the Radcliffe Lunatic
Asylum. No one doubts her insanity. Only a hookah-smoking professor believes
otherwise; that he can prove her sanity by decoding Lewis Carroll's paintings,
photographs, and find Wonderland's real whereabouts. Professor Caterpillar
persuades the asylum that Alice can save lives and catch the wonderland
monsters now reincarnated in modern day criminals. In order to do so, Alice
leads a double life: an Oxford university student by day, a mad girl in an
asylum by night. The line between sanity and insanity thins when she meets Jack
Diamonds, an arrogant college student who believes that nonsense is an actual
science.
The writing on the wall says
it's January 14th. I am not sure what year. I haven't been sure of many things
lately, but I’m wondering if it’s my handwriting I’m looking at. There is an
strange key drawn underneath the date. It's carved with a sharp object,
probably a broken mirror. I couldn’t have written this. I'm terrified of
mirrors. They love to call it Catoptrophobia around here.
Unlike regular patients in the asylum, my room
is windowless, stripped down to a single mattress in the middle, a sink, and bucket
for peeing--or puking--when necessary. The tiles on the floor are
black-and-white squares, like a chessboard. I never step on black. Always
white. Again, I'm not sure why. The walls are smeared with a greasy pale green
everywhere. I wonder if it's the previous patient's brains spattered all over
from shock therapy.
In the Radcliffe Lunatic
Asylum, politely known as the Warneford Hospital, the doctors have a sweet spot
for shock therapy. They love watching patients with bulging eyes and shivering
limbs begging for relief from the electricity. It makes me question who is
really mad in here.
It's been a while since I was sent to shock therapy myself.
Dr. Tom Truckle, my supervising physician, said I don't need it anymore,
particularly after I stopped mentioning Wonderland. He told me that I used to
talk about it all the time; a dangerous place I claim I have been whisked away
to when my elder sister lost me at the age of seven.
Truth is, I don't remember this
Wonderland they are talking about. I don't even know why I am here. My oldest
vivid memory is from a week ago. Before that, it's all a purple haze. I have
only one friend in this asylum. It's not a doctor or a nurse. And it's not a
human. It doesn't hate, envy, or point a finger at you. My friend is an orange
flower I keep in a pot; a Tiger Lily I can't live without. I keep it safe next
to a small crack in the wall where a single sun ray sneaks through for only ten
minutes a day. It might not be enough light to grow a flower, but my Tiger Lily
is a tough girl. Each day, I save half of the water they give me for my flower.
As for me, better thirsty than
mad. My orange flower is also my personal rain check for my sanity. If I
talk to her and she doesn't reply, I know I am not hallucinating. If it talks back
to me, all kinds of nonsense starts to happen. Insanity prevails. There must be
a reason why I am here. It doesn’t mean I will easily give in to such a fate.
"Alice Pleasance
Wonder. Are you ready?" the nurse knocks with her electric prod on my
steel door. Her name is Waltraud Wagner. She is German. Everything she says
sounds like a threat and smells like smoke. My fellow mad people say she is a
Nazi; that she used to kill her own patients back in Germany. "Get
avay vrom za dor. I an coming in," she demands.
Listening to the rattling of
her large keychain, my heart pounds in my chest. The turn of the key makes me
want to swallow. When the door opens, all I can think of is choking her before
she begins to hurt me. Sadly, her neck is too thick for my nimble hands. I
stare at her almost-square figure for a moment. Everything about her is four
sizes too big, all except her feet, which are as small as mine. My sympathies,
little feet.
"Time for your daily
ten-minute break," she approaches me with a straitjacket, a devilish grin
on her face. I never get out. My ward is underground, and I take my break in
another empty ward upstairs, where patients love to play soccer with a
hedgehog’s head. A big muscled warden stands behind Watlraud. Thomas Ogier. He
is bald, has an angry-red face and a silver tooth he likes to flash whenever he
sees me. His biceps are the size of my head. I have a hard time believing he
has ever been a 4-pound baby.
"Slide your arms into the
jacket," Waltraud demands in her German accent, a cigarette puckered
between her lips. "Slow and easy, Alice," she nods at warden
Ogier, in case I misbehave. I comply obediently and stretch out my arms for her
to do whatever she wants. Waltraud twists my right arm slightly and checks the
tattoo on my arm. It’s the only tattoo I have. It’s a handwritten sentence that
looks like a thin arm band from afar.
Waltraud feels the need to read it
allowed, “’I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person
then.’” I was told I have written it myself while still believing in
Wonderland. “That Alice in Wonderland has really messed with your
head.” She puffs smoke into my face as she mocks me.
The tattoo and Waltraud’s
mocking is the least of my concerns right now. I let her tie me, and while she
does, I close my eyes. I imagine I am a sixteenth century princess, some kind
of a lucky Cinderella, being squeezed into a corset by my chain smoking servant
in a fairy tale castle above ground, just about to go meet my Prince Charming.
Such imagery always helps me breathe. I once heard that it was hope that saves
the day, not sanity. I need to cool down before I begin my grand escape.
Wonderlander, Neverlander,
Unicorn-chaser, enchanter, musician, survived a coma, &
totally awesome. Sometimes I tell stories. Always luv the little
monsters I write young adult paranormal romance, urban fantasy,
and science fiction mostly. The Grimm Diaries series is a
seven book saga that deals with retellings of fairy tales from a
young adult POV - it connects most of the fairy tales together and
claims to be the truth about fairy tales. I live in San Fransisco and
seriously think circles are way cooler than triangles.
Website: http://cameronjace.blogspot.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/camjace
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cameronjace
Sounds like a fascinating read.
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