Page 24 of Madness

I open my mouth to ask, but a sharp jab of Red’s elbow into my gut causes my mouth to slam shut.

“And you areee?” Abe drawls, blowing smoke from his pipe.

“Al.”

“There is no Al in Wonderland, are you perhaps Alice?”

I can feel my frustration growing the more people in this place insist on calling me Alice. I did not ask to be named after her, nor did I ever want to be anything like her.

Now, here I am, in the same place with the same name and no clue how to navigate Wonderland with the rest of the curious people who stay here.

“For the sake of any register, my name is Alice, but I do not like being called Alice. I want to be called Al.”

“Very well, Al,” Abe says, his black ballpoint pen scribbling against the notepad in his hands. He blows another cloud of smoke into the air, covering his face almost entirely, and I stare as it dissipates, revealing a blue-faced caterpillar.

“Did you get some tea, Al?” Abe asks, nodding his now round face towards the table to the side of the room laden with teapots and biscuits.

“I got it,” Red says, jumping from her seat and returning with two saucers, balancing cups, and some biscuits.

I take it, whispering a thank you to her, and balance the delicate plate on my lap.

Harry eyes us both in the way she sits close to me, and I swear his eyes flare with jealousy when she shuffles her seat closer to mine, and I huff out a laugh.

He has nothing to be jealous of – I see the way she stares at him, the longing in her eyes for his attention. Someone like me, who has barely seen the sunlight in years, who can barely hold himself together to have a decent conversation, is not someone she would be interested in.

Red is a vision and one of the first people never to be targeted by the delusions in my head; she is a comfort I never knew I needed, so I latch onto her, desperate to keep some of the light she gives me instead of the spiralling madness inside of me.

Her arm brushes against mine, and I see her follow my line of sight, laughing when she sees Harry’s flare of jealousy, but she shakes her head at him.

“Shall we get started?” Abe says, gesturing around the room.

The others all settle, similar saucers held in their hands, and I smirk when I see that Desmond’s plate is piled with biscuits and has no cup filled with tea.

“Have you tried the biscuits here?” he asks when he sees me looking at him, “They don’t buy the shit ones. These areproperbiscuits, the good shit. Nice to see our parent’s bribes work in our favour sometimes, y’know?” he laughs, but the sound is hollow, tinged with sadness.

His parents bribed the institute to put him here. His brother, too?

What sort of horrible people…

“It’s a common theme in Wonderland, Al. Not everyone was born mad; some of us were conditioned into madness,” Red says sadly, plucking a custard cream from her saucer and biting into it.

“I want you all to think about this question, really think about it, then we’ll discuss your answers,” Abe starts. He takes a long draw from his pipe, the tobacco casting a warm orange glow over his blue caterpillar face, “Who are you?”

“Huh?” Harry questions, then turns to the mouse on his shoulder, “No, I heard him, Doris, but what sort of question is that?”

“Think about it. Who are you? Who do you think you are, and who are you actually?”

I think about it for a moment, silence falling over the room as we all ponder his question.

Who am I?

I’m Al, but is that all I am?

I was a son.

“But you are not anymore, are you not Alice?”

“Her head is off, off, off!”

---