GROTE MARKT, TOWN OF YPRES, BELGIUM
T he Cheshire, wearing one of his grinning cat masks, sat with a glass of milk in his hand. He was rocking back and forth in a chair to the song "Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin. The view in front of him was enchanting. He was looking over the famous Grote Markt in the Belgian town of Ypres. The sun was unusually present today, fighting against the stubborn snow. Everyone was preparing for the Kattenstoet festival.
He lifted his mask for a moment and took one last sip from his glass. It was a special brand of milk, exclusively exported from Cheshire County. He let the warm milk sweep down his throat and let out a purr. Then he put his grinning mask back on.
Lowering his hand, he pressed his fingers hard on the glass until it cracked. Red and white colors were spilled together on the parquet, and it felt good to him. Sometimes small things, like breaking a glass, were an even better release from the anger inside he suppressed for humankind. He let out an even longer purr through the opening in his orange mask.
Behind him, in this abandoned Renaissance hotel, a girl lay tied on the floor. She was young, about ten years old. Unlike his other victims, she didn't have a grin sewn to her mouth. She'd been there for some time. She wasn't dead yet. She was very special, and he needed her.
The Cheshire gazed briefly at the antique mirror next to him. It was old, wrapped up in spider webs and dead butterflies caught by the spiders themselves. But still, he could see his masked face. He looked silly in this mask, he thought. He missed his face. His real face. Most of all, he missed his Cheshire power, the one Lewis Carroll took from him. It was time to get it back.
None of that was the reason he broke the glass of milk. He loved milk. It was his favorite thing in the world. The worst thing in the world was humans. He could not forget or forgive what they had done to him in this town when he was a kid.
The Cheshire, possessing an old woman's body, for now, turned to look down from his French window. An old woman was a great disguise, in case he needed to take off his mask. He looked down upon the arriving tourists ready to celebrate.
Everyone in this Flemish part of Belgium talked in the language he hated most, French. They were on top of his human-hate list. The Cheshire hated how the French ate raw meat without cooking it, like cannibals. He hated the way they pronounced his name with an accent: Che-cha-ree. It sounded uncannily close to "cherie" in French, which meant "sweetheart." The Cheshire didn't want to be anyone's sweetheart. He didn't want to think of having a heart. What he hated most about the French and the Belgians was the memory they brought back. That harsh memory that made him crack the glass of milk and not care about his bleeding hand.
The memory was about this town, Ypres. It was many centuries ago when they started killing, throwing, and burning cats in Europe. A long time before he fled to Wonderland.
People thought that cats died young, but they were immortal spirits. Wonderland was an unknown place then. It was a long time before Lewis Carroll, and the Cheshire turned into enemies in a chess game called life.
The Cheshire closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and remembered the first time cats were massacred in front of his eyes…