Page 2 of Madness

My heart races, pounding like a drum in my chest, and my palms grow clammy.

I try to remind myself that this isn’t real, that the judge’s monstrous image is just a figment of my imagination, a trick my madness is playing on me.

But the fear feels so real, almost as if I can feel the sharpness of the pointy rows of teeth ready to sink into my soul.

The courtroom feels suffocating, like the walls are closing in on me every moment I stand here, and every second of maintaining eye contact with the judge’s eyes feels like an eternity.

“He’s staring into your soul. He knows what monster lurks beneath.”

I’m mad.

Utterly mad.

I mutter the mantra in my head, just as Alice taught me, as a way to remember that the things before us were not as they seemed.

I squeeze my eyes closed until the white floaty spots cover my vision and then open them again.

Everything in the courtroom is silent, and when I look around at the judge, jury, and mycourt-appointed attorney, I’m glanced at with pity.

Don’t they understand that I killed Alice?

I deserve no pity.

“You were found guilty of murder, but taking into consideration your mental illness, I’m ordering that you be placed in Eden Institute until such a time you are no longer deemed a risk to yourself or the public,” the judge says, his slitted eyes observing me as I shift foot to foot.

Only those plagued with the madness are sent to Eden Institute, but that’s not what Alice called it.

She called it Wonderland - a place where no one escapes.

Well… no one but her.

The gavel echoes one last time, and the reporters at the back of the room are in an uproar.

Questions are flung at me, but they all morph into another delusion that I can never entirely escape.

Long stems replace their bodies, and leaves that were once arms sway side to side. Their heads turn into petals, and the buds become mouths that honk instead of asking questions with words.

The cacophony of honking petals and swaying leaves overwhelms me, leaving me trapped in this surreal garden of utter madness.

My madness blurs reality and delusion, making it nearly impossible for me to distinguish between the two.

A rose, pansies, tulips, sweetpeas, lilies, a tiger lily, a thistle, and an iris all sway as I walk past them out of the courtroom.

All flowers Alice had planted.

Is this the cost of my freedom from her madness?

To be haunted by her for the rest of my life?

Is her madness that now plagues my mind not enough?

“Alice Lowe?” the guard calls, his eyebrow furrowed. He glances at the wooden clipboard in his hand and then back to me, confusion etched on his face.

A problem I’m very much familiar with.

Alice named me after her. She was convinced I was a girl even after the nurses told her I was a boy.

I inherited her name as well as her madness.

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