But I am not going to swallow it. No way. I tuck it inside my shoe, wishing it to be a good idea.
The footfalls are nearing now. Everyone else in this festival has disappeared.
“Anything you want to say before you die?” the Pillar tells me.
“Not to you,” I counter back. ‘I hate you’ is what my eyes say. Even in this haze. Then I realize I’m curious about something. “Maybe it’s you who wants to tell me something before you die. The Executioner. What was going on between you two?”
Unexpectedly, the Pillar’s face changes. It dims in such an unhealthy way. What happened between you and the Executioner, Professor Pillar?
His dimming face doesn’t last long, though. His eyes widen as our pursuers show up from behind the haze of smoke.
I am surprised I recognize them. But I’m not sure how they fit into all of this.
“If I had a mushroom for every time I run into one of you,” The Pillar pouts, staring at the Reds.
As usual, they are dressed in their numbered, red cloaks, their faces hidden underneath them.
“You want to meet up with the Scientist?” one of them says, his voice deep and hollow, as if from another world.
“Yes.” I stand up straight.
“You will have to drink this before we bring you to him!”
The Pillar looks away from the drink. “I’m not drinking that.”
“What is it?” I ask.
“Hmm.” He hesitates.
“It’s the drink he made you drink in the rabbit hole in the Garden of Cosmic Speculation,” one of the Reds explains.
I sneer at the Pillar. He starts whistling, staring up as if admiring the night stars.
Then I realize I have to ask something, “And how do you, Red, know about that?”
“You don’t seem to realize who we are, Alice,” their leader says, his voice implying mockery. “Just drink this, or you will not see the Scientist.”
I have no choice but to accept. What harm will that do? I am used to seeing things bigger in scale. It’s not that bad actually.
But as I bring myself to drink it, the Red’s sentence rings in my head.
It’s a different kind of sleep because I know I am sleeping. I know I am dreaming. And I don’t like where my dreams have sent me.
I dream I am back in the Radcliffe Lunatic Asylum. I dream I am back on that couch in that dark psychiatry room.
I hate this room.
“So how deep have you gone into the rabbit hole, Alice?” the doctor, hiding behind his smoke and darkness, tells me.
“I want to wake up!”
“You’re not dreaming, Alice. This is your reality, like I’ve told a thousand times.”
“No, you’re a figment of my imagination. Some kind of a sick joke.”
“Alice. Alice. Alice.” The doctor puffs his pipe. “Haven’t we talked about this before? The rabbit hole. Remember when I told you I would let you delve deeper into your madness, until you couldn’t take the nonsense anymore? That’s the moment when you’ll realize you’re mad.”
“I don’t believe you. I’m not mad. I am saving the world.”
The doctor says nothing, trying to suppress a laugh, I think.
“Have you ever considered that you’re the mad one?” I say. “Maybe this is your rabbit hole, and you think you’re some psychiatrist in an asylum.”
“It seems that you haven’t had enough of the rabbit hole yet.” He sighs. “I think we’re done for today.”
“I think so, too,” I retort. “Because I’d really like to wake up to go complete my mission.”
“And where is it this time?”
“Brazil.”
“And you’re saving the world from what?”
“A plague.”
“What kind of plague?”
This is when I hesitate. I don’t even know what kind of plague this is. All I know is that it has driven people so crazy they’re killing each other all around the world.
In my moment of embarrassment and silence, I wonder what this plague really does to people. The Executioner said it’s something unimaginable. That’s why it has no cure. But really, what drives people mad enough to start killing each other all around the world?
“I take it that you don’t know what kind of plague.” There is victory all over the doctor’s voice. “I’ll have the wardens take you back, but I’m afraid you need a higher dose of your medicine this time.”
“Medicine?” I know in this dream I am always given medicine, but I haven’t paid attention to it.
“Your medicine, Alice.” He sounds impatient or disappointed. I can’t really tell. “The pill I’ve been giving you for two years now. It’s called Lullaby, if you remember.”
Could it be because everything around me looks so big?
This room I am in is definitely hot and humid, but its doors are the size of a fortress. The windows are, too, and it takes me a while to realize they are in fact windows. And this desert of velvet I’m walking on is nothing but the sheets of normal-sized bed.
I laugh harder when I see the Pillar the same size as me. He looks really annoyed, and it makes me happy.
“See? This is the same way I felt when you drugged me in the rabbit hole, pretending you were the Mad Hatter,” I say.
The Pillar is too annoyed to even answer me. He keeps shouting the Scientist’s name.
“But wait a minute,” I say. “This means the Reds aren’t working for you?”
“The Reds are hired mercenaries, Alice. I hired them last week, like others hire them all the time,” the Pillar says. “They once worked for the Queen of Hearts, and some of them still do, but those don’t call themselves Reds anymore.”
“Are you saying the Scientist has hired them now?”
“Looks like it. Where are you, Scientisto!” he shouts.
“I’m here,” a deafening sound answers. “I had to use the Alice Syndrome on you so as to keep my identity secret.”
It’s true. All we see is someone huge talking to us. It’s hard to tell who he is. Still, his loud voice, in proportion with his size, is annoying.
“So let’s cut this short,” the Pillar raises his voice, in case the Scientist can’t hear us clearly. “We know Carolus asked you to cook this plague for him. We need you to cook us the cure.”
I am curious about how this Alice Syndrome works. This is not exactly like the one I experienced in the rabbit hole. I mean, here we’re really small. And what boggles my mind is that I know that we’re not small. It’s just the effect of the drink.
It’s tremendously uncomfortable.
“There is no cure to the plague,” the Scientist says.
“Come on,” I shout. “What kind of virus has no cure? There must be one.”
“This plague is like no other. It’s not a virus.”
“Why does everyone tell us that?” the Pillar says. “You make it sound as if it’s not a chemical plague. Is it some kind of magic?”
“Worse.”
“Tell us, Scientisto,” I say. “Please.”
“I’ll pay double whatever Carolus paid you,” the Pillar offers.
“All the money in the world can’t cure the truth.”
“The truth?” the Pillar and I ask in unison.
“Yes. Carolus wanted a plague that wasn’t just incurable, but also ironic,” the Scientist says. “Like most Wonderlanders who were in the Circus, he wanted to laugh at the world. He wanted to give them a poison of their own.”
“I’m not quite following.” The Pillar suppresses a thin smile on his lips. Of course he’s amused about the idea. He just wants the Scientist to spell it out for him.
“The Hookah of Hearts plague makes people tell the truth.”
“You infected the world with telling the truth no matter what?” Tears of joy sprang out of her eyes. “Brilliant. Bloody Brilliant!”
The only one who shared her point of view was Carolus. Tied in a special execution chair, and still aching with migraines, he let out a few chuckles. He looked satisfied someone appreciated the idea, but he certainly didn’t get a kick out of it like the Queen.
Hiccupping, the Queen walked up, her face red like a pumped tomato. She adjusted her dress, trying to suck the laughs in around her guards. But it was only seconds before she started again.
“May I ask why this is supposed to be so funny, My Queen?” Margaret asked.
“Don’t you get it?” the Queen said. “Imagine a father returns home to his wife and children. He shouts ‘Honey, I’m home,’ And his wife goes like, ‘Why did you come back? I prayed to the Lord that you’d get hit by a train on the way.’ And the husband goes like, ‘Like I haven’t prayed the same thing for you all of those years.’ Then their child walks into the room and says, ‘Papa, you’re fat. And bald. My friends laugh at you. And mama, your cooking sucks.’ And from then on imagine the trail of honesty escalating until someone physically hurts the other.”
Margaret didn’t know whether to laugh or not, but she certainly hadn’t grasped the wickedness of the plague at first. Come to think of it, most of us passed the days by lying to each other.
“Now imagine this happening at work,” the Queen said. “Imagine what kind of atrocities the employees would tell their boss. And so on and so on.”
Then why haven’t I felt the need to swear at you, obnoxious queen, all day? Margaret fidgeted at the thought.
“Imagine you had to tell the truth, Margaret, huh? You’d be spitting in my face now and telling how much you despise me.” The Queen stepped forward to face her assistant. “And what would that lead to? I’d order your head chopped off. But then you’d call the Cheshire before you died and order him to assassinate me. And then I’d give Carolus his Lullaby pill and order him to eat the Cheshire for lunch. Do you now grasp the magnitude of the plague?”
“I guess I do.” Margaret fiddled with the blood-diamond ring on her finger. “Carolus managed to plague the world with the one thing people claim they demand the most. Transparency, honesty, and truth.”
“The only things they are truly—pun intended—not capable of. It’s brilliant!”
In my mind, I try to think of the asylum as my small rat lab for a truth experiment. What would happen if I told Waltraud and Ogier how I felt about them? I’d end up in perpetual shock therapy until I fried like grilled chicken.
And then what if Waltraud told Dr. Tom Truckle how she thought he was the maddest of all and that he belonged in a cell like every other mushroomer?
And what if Tom told himself he was addicted to his pills? He’d probably admit himself to the asylum.
But what if every Mushroomer in the asylum told the truth? That wouldn’t work, right? Because in truth every Mushroomer believes he is sane.
I haven’t been out in the world much, as far as I can remember at least. So I can’t really judge. But it seems like Carolus’s idea was sinister and effective. Apparently, people aren’t meant to tell the truth to each other.
My eyes start to see things clearer now, but the Scientist’s image is still blurry. I guess it’ll only be minutes until I see who he is. Am I supposed to think he is someone I know?
“And the truth shall set you free,” the Pillar muses. “Free enough to kill one another.”
“Stop looking at the world from that angle,” I tell him.
“Soon there’ll be no angle to see the world from, dear Alice.” The Pillar sighs. “So tell me, Mr. Scientist, shouldn’t lying be a cure for the truth?”
“It should,” the Scientist says. “But even if I knew how to cook that kind of cure, how long would it take to reach everyone? The Hookah of Hearts have been sold for more than a year. I designed it to take effect about a year in. Let’s say, hypothetically, I cook a cure of lying now. How will you give it to the people? How long will it take to work?”
“So all this adventure was for nothing?” I tell myself. “At least I saved the kids.”
“And what world will they live in?” the Pillar muses. “Mr. Scientist, there must be a cure.”
I know this tone from the Pillar. He is planning on threatening this man once he retrieves his full vision like me.
And here we go. I can almost see everything in its normal size. Including the Scientist.
But this isn’t quite right, because the Scientist is one of the Reds. I can’t see his face wearing the cloak.
The Pillar, back to normal too, steps forward to pull the cloak, but is immediately stopped by the many other Reds squeezed into this room.
“I wouldn’t come near me again if I were you,” the Scientist says from under his cloak. “Let’s keep it that way.”
My first impression is not to struggle with those Reds. Because let’s think about it. Something here isn’t right.
“Then I assume you have nothing against us leaving.” The Pillar flips his cane and pretends he’s walking away.
“Not so fast, Senor Pillardo.”
The words send a surge of fear through me. Is that the Executioner?
“Does that mean that ordinary people can’t handle the truth?” one of the guards asked curiously.
“Yes. Of course. Those two-faced hypocrite humans.” The Queen grinned, then her face dimmed all of a sudden, sneering at the guard. “Who gave you permission to speak in the first place? Off with his head!”
Margaret watched the guards take him to execution, not really caring for him. “But truth or no truth, My Queen. We need to find a cure.”
“No, we don’t. I changed my mind,” the Queen exclaimed. “The Jub Jub with the cure. I have a better idea.”
“But you said—”
“Don’t interrupt me, Margaret.” Like a monkey, the Queen jumped on her chair again, pointing a finger straight into Margaret’s eyes. “Forget everything I told you about sending someone after the Pillar.”
“Forget about the Pillar?” Margaret thought the Queen had lost her mind—not that she possessed a healthy one in the first place.
“Yes, Margaret. I have a genius plan. One that, if it succeeds, will have me ruling the world.”
Brazil
The horror I see on the Pillar’s face is scaring me.
And this time, there is no doubt about it. The Executioner is the Pillar’s bogeyman, not matter how he tries to hide it.
“He doesn’t die,” one of the Reds answers in return. “The Scientist never dies.”
“The Scientist is the Executioner?” I am thinking out loud.
The Reds laugh at me, enjoying it a lot. I want to shut them up and tell them they’re nothing more than playing cards.