THE FUTURE: OXFORD ASYLUM
I am lying on a patient’s bed, rolled by a young doctor inside the asylum. The doctor is signing my admission papers, telling the nurses I’m a sane person caught outside. Turns out the Queen ordered all sane people into asylums all over the world. Sane people are fed well inside the asylum until their turn comes to attend Westminster Circus, where the mad take revenge on the sane.
Whatever all of this means.
The doctor finishes the papers and starts rolling me inside. The doctor is not really a doctor. He is the Pillar possessing a young doctor’s soul.
The deal the Pillar made was to let the Cheshire help him possess another person’s soul so we could figure out our way into the asylum. I didn’t know it before, but the soul-possessing gift can be passed on. The Cheshire never told that to anyone. He only agreed because he thinks he loves me. And the Pillar, being the Pillar, took immoral advantage of that.
“Don’t move until I find a way to get to that Mock Turtle,” the Pillar says in the doctor’s voice. Poor, handsome doctor, blond hair, well built, under the Pillar’s influence now.
“How are you going to find him?” I ask.
“The lesser-practiced art of asking, dear Alice,” the Pillar says. “It works like a charm when you’re good looking.”
He stops by a couple of nurses. “Sweeties,” I hear him say. “Looking fantastic today.”
“Oh.” One of them blushes — I tilt my head to see her. She is a redhead. “Thank you, doctor. What was your name again?”
Oops. We didn’t ask before the Pillar possessed him.
“Call me doctor.” The Pillar smiles.
“Doctor?” the other one, shorter, with thick glasses, asks.
“Of course. Dr. Doctor ,” the Pillar says. “Instead of James, Jack, or John. Boring, right?”
They giggle. “How can we help you, Dr. Doctor?”
“See how sweet the words drool out of your sugary mouth?” he says.
I close my eyes, roll them behind my eyelids, and try not to laugh.
“You’re so sweet,” the shorter one says.
“Did you ever hear about that patient, Mock Turtle?” the Pillar says.
“Of course,” the bigger nurse says. “Pfff. The revolutionist.”
“Revolutionist?”
“You don’t go out much to the real world, do you?” the shorter one says. “Never heard about the Inklings?”
Things are getting weirder by the minute.
“Excuse my ignorance,” the Pillar says. “But, I hate those sane people already.”
“The Mock Turtle is the leader of the revolution against the Queen,” the bigger one says.
“Long live the Queen,” the shorter one adds.
“Of course, long live the Queen,” the Pillar says. “Although she’s too short to live that long,” he says under his breath.
I wonder about the Inklings in the future. Who is leading them in the future? And why am I in a compound, living a luxurious life away from them? Part of a plan?
“Do you know where I can find him, sweeties?” the Pillar says.
“He is in section six,” the shorter one says.
“And where is that?”
“The one known as the Door to Wonderland in Christ Church. But you must have heard of it.”
“Of course I have.” The Pillar fluff-talks them for a few seconds and then rolls my bed ahead.
“You really know where this Door to Wonderland is?” I say, tilting my head back to look at him.
“I do. It’s a door near the library that Lewis Carroll used to stare at for hours while writing the book,” the Pillar says. “It’s said that the dean of the university at the time locked it because it was a real door to Wonderland. And…”
“And what?”
“It’s supposed to be your favorite place for playing as a child.”
“Me?”
“Yes,” the Pillar says. “In fact, it makes sense for this Mock Turtle to wait for you there. If you really keep the keys with him, then the name of the place is like a secret code between you and him. Your favorite childhood place. Makes sense.”
“Do you think me living in the compound is a camouflage, a trick to hide my true identity in the future, and the Mock Turtle being the leader of the revolution is only to delude the Queen?”
“We’re about to know in a second.” The Pillar stops.
I get out of bed and stare at the door he is pointing at. It leads to a garden. A vast one that is the same design as the one in my house at the compound. It looks like another part of Wonderland.
“I’m very curious about this Mock Turtle now,” I say. “Who could it be?”
“The last person that would ever cross your mind,” the Pillar says, pointing at him standing in the middle of the garden.