The Mush Room
“N o more therapy.” I tell the March and put the pads aside.
I start unchaining him, but he doesn’t speak to me. His breathing is shallow, and I feel like killing myself if something happens to him. What was I thinking? Or was that the Dark Alice inside me that brought him into the room?
I need to remind myself that sometimes knowing the truth isn’t worth sacrificing the people I love.
“Stay with me, March,” I say to him while pulling off the chains.
He moans lightly, but that’s all I need to make sure he is still alert.
I go to the nearby bathroom and bring the things I need to clean him up. Some water, too.
Back inside, I wash his legs from the sweat and blood from his face. I even sing to him Wonderland songs to keep him conscious. “You will be alright.”
“I know I will, as long as you take care of me,” he says.
“I didn’t really take care of you by agreeing to bring you here, but I’ll make it up to you.”
“You know I really hated growing up.”
“Most of us do.” I laugh.
“I mean really. I was very happy as a child.”
“I hope I was, too.”
“Though I hardly remember being a child.” He chuckles feebly. “Maybe it’s the not remembering that makes childhood so precious.”
“Maybe.” I continue washing him and giving him water to drink.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what March?”
“That voice?”
I’m alert. What’s happening to him. “What voice, March. Talk to me?”
“That sweet voice?”
“I can’t hear anything.”
“That one in the end of the tunnel?”
Tunnel? God, is he seeing tunnels?
“I want to go to that voice,” he says.
“March, stop it. You’re not seeing tunnels.”
“I didn’t say seeing. I hear the voice at the end of the tunnel.”
“You’re not hearing it either.” I shake him by shoulders.
“It’s Constance!”
Suddenly, I realize that Constance is calling me from the walkie-talkie. I’ve left it in the corridor. My mind and heart suddenly relax. “Ah, that.”
I leave the room and pick it up.
“Alice!” Constance is cheering. “I found the door.”
“You’re alive. Thank God.”
“Of course, I’m alive. I promised I’d save you.”
I smiled broadly. “What door?”
“The Dude showed me a door where I can get you all out.”
“The Dude?”
“An annoying person in a cape. I know who he really is, but that’s not the point now. I need you to find the cell last on the left in the third region.”
“Okay?”
“If you peel the wallpaper you will find a door. It’s a short one. You will have to duck. Or wait, I managed to open it. I’m coming to get you.”
“Is there a way out through this door?”
“Yes, I’ll explain. Just tell me where you are.”
“In the Mush Room.”
“I assume that is the therapy room I saw?”
“Yes.”
“I think I can get there. Wait up.”
Feeling excited I return to tell the March about the news. “March, Constance is alive. We’re getting out.”
He doesn’t respond.
“Hey.” I shake him. “We’re getting out!”
He doesn’t moan.
I shake him again.
Nothing.
My stubborn mind refuses to understand.
I shake him again.
Nothing plus nothing.
“No!” I scream.
I pull the pads again and punch him. His body bounces, but it’s like a dead fish out of water.
“March!”
I punch again.
Again.
Again.
Until the flatline on the monitor beeps so loud it almost deafens me.
The March Hare has died, and I may have killed him.