ALICE’S CELL, RADCLIFFE LUNATIC ASYLUM
I can’t take my eyes off Waltraud as she ushers me into my cell. I want to tell her that I saw her in the circus, but I am sure she will deny it, and then I wouldn’t know where to take the conversation from there.
I watch her lock me up. Today she says nothing. She doesn’t mock or make fun of me. I wonder why.
“Rest the night,” she says. “Tomorrow, you’re first on my shock therapy list. And you know how good of a customer you are to me.”
“I know,” I say behind bars. “I assume I am as good as those you tortured in the circus?”
She takes a moment to look at me, but she doesn’t seem to grasp any of it. “I guess that’s one of your loony stories again. A circus? Is that part of the Alice Underground book?”
“Nah.” I wave it off. “It’s nothing.”
I could ask her if she saw me on the news, running away with a rabbit in my hand, but I know she usually denies I was on the news.
I watch her walk away and sit down next to my Tiger Lily. It’s weird how I feel at home. I am sorry, but I really missed my cell.