PSYCHIATRY, RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM
I am back where it all started, in that awful dark room with that awful doctor. I am lying on the couch, and my legs feel numb.
“So that’s all that happened?” he asks.
“More or less,” I reply. “It was a hectic adventure. The most nonsensical of all.”
“And how did you survive the explosion?”
“It turned out the Pillar managed to escape his cell—of course, since when could anyone keep him locked inside?” I say. “He created this hoax of an explosion to drive people away from me, and also to give them what they wanted. Relief that it was all over.”
“And the rabbit?”
“It didn’t explode. This whole rabbit bomb was a hoax, too. The Hatter made it swallow a flashing device to fool me.”
“So all he really wanted from you was the key,” he says, skeptically, as usual.
“I believe so,” I say. “He also wanted to mess with my head for some reason.”
“Do you have any idea what the key will do?”
“I suppose it’s one of six keys to go back to Wonderland.” I don’t tell him I have a key in my cell. I don’t trust him that much.
“Hmm...” I hear him write something down.
“Hmm... what?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I think your condition is worsening, Alice. I mean, look at your story. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t even have a context. It’s contradictory. And yet you have not come back to your senses.”
“Madness doesn’t make sense. And it’s contradictory.”
“So, you finally admit your madness?”
“Not that madness,” I say. “The other madness.”
“There are two kinds of madness now?” He really doesn’t like this conversation.
“Yes, of course. There is that loony-toony bonkers madness where you’re wrapped up in a straitjacket and locked inside a room.”
“And the other madness?”
“It’s all out there in the world you live in, doctor,” I say. “I mean, you may think it’s not madness, only because you’re used to it. But it surely is all messed up.”
“Uh-huh.” He takes a deep breath. “Look, Alice. I have no idea where to take the therapy from here. All I know is that I will prescribe you more Lullaby pills, and, sorry to say, this time, I prefer you go back to the Mush Room. A few shock sessions might stir some sort of progress.”
I purse my lips for a while, contemplating if the shock therapy still scares me. I think it doesn’t. It’s just pain. And trust me, there are much worse things in this life than pain. “Tell me, doctor,” I say, “do you at least believe what I said about the circus, the Invisible Plague?”
“I know for a fact it’s real,” he says. “Sadly, many mentally ill have been wrongfully treated in the past. What I don’t believe is that you time-traveled to witness it with your own eyes, let alone that the patients were all Wonderlanders.”
“But let’s say you believe,” I say. “What would you do? I mean, would you take the people’s side or the mentally ill’s side?”
The doctor stays silent for a long time, then he says something that shocks me: “To a degree, we’re all mentally ill, Alice. It’s just that, on a scale of one to ten, you’re infinity in your illness. Infinity means straitjacket in an isolated cell.”