ALICE’S DREAM
I am in the rabbit hole, but my mind isn’t there with me.
I am dreaming.
Remembering, maybe?
Jack is sitting opposite me at the table in the Fat Duck restaurant. I just told him he was a figment of his own imagination.
How I hate myself for doing this, now that I see how shocked he is.
“What are you talking about, Alice?” He tries to muster a smile. “No one’s a figment of their own imagination.”
I hold back the tears. His face goes pale, and I think he’s going to throw up. The truth seems to crawl on him slowly, but he is resisting believing it.
“You are, Jack.” I hold back the tears. “Trust me, you’re the best thing that happened to me in this world, but I can’t lie to you any longer.”
“Lie to me about what?” He loosens his necktie, hardly breathing.
“I killed you.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“In the bus accident, don’t you remember?”
“Am I supposed to remember how I died after I supposedly died?” He lets out a painful chuckle.
“You’ve got a point,” I say. “It’s complicated. But your name isn’t even Jack. It’s Adam J. Dixon.”
This seems to throw him off the most. His name makes him realize he shouldn’t be here, that he should step over to the other side of this life.
He slumps deeper into his chair, defeated, pale like the dead. “I remember,” he murmurs.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m really sorry. But if I don’t let you go, you will not have a good afterlife. You don’t have to stay in this world and be my guardian.”
“Why, Alice?” His moist eyes look into mine. “Why did you do it?”
“You mean the killing?”
He nods.
“I don’t remember.” I can’t stop the tears anymore.
“You said I had to die. I seem to remember glimpses of it now,” Jack says. “You said all of us on the bus had to die! Why?”
No words escape my throat. I am crying and ashamed. I’m Alice’s frustration, mutinied by misery, repeated over and over again.
And the irony is that I don’t even know why. “It doesn’t matter, Jack. You need to let go.”
“I loved you, Alice,” he says. “I would have died for you.”
I can’t comment on this. He already died for me—in a way. Who gives away a love like that? I mean, the boy died and died again for me. He loves me unconditionally, if not borderline silly. He almost thinks about nothing but me.
“Let me stay,” he begs. “I don’t want to go. I still want to make sure you’re going to be okay.”
“That’s not fair, Jack. You can’t stay because of me.”
“I think I also want to stay to protect you from something.” He looks more confused than ever. “I can’t remember what it is, though.”
“You’re dead, Jack. I killed you once, and I have to kill you a second time,” I say with all the bluntness I can muster. It hurts so deep inside I feel like I’m going to tear apart, blood will spatter out of my veins, and my brains will explode like a watermelon on crack.
“Don’t do it, Alice.” He reaches for my hand. I pull away. I hate my hand, and I hate myself. “This Pillar... he isn’t what you...”
I close my eyes, wishing he’d disappear when I open them again. Goodbye, Jack. I hardly remember you, but I know deep inside, somewhere between the layers of my heart and soul, somewhere in the middle of my brain, that I love you more than anything in the world.
But I have to let you go because you’re probably not there in the first place.