Earlier That Day: Yellow School Bus, London
J ack lay sprawled on his back with his legs either broken or severely bent under the weight of his body. The rest of his body had probably numbed to the pain, or he wouldn’t have been awake, still.
His eyes were open. That, he was sure of. He was staring at a window from a skewed angle.
A cracked window. Sharp edges of its shattered glass were still intact. The rest were jagged-edged, zigzags making way to the world outside.
Not that there was much to see beyond the window. Nothing but smoke and ashes around a mushroom-infested world. Even in death, the scene seemed funny. The world had become a hallucinatory version of what the Wizard of Oz would look like when stoned.
Jack tried to comprehend the voices around him. Outside, the world still swam in incomprehensible chaos. Screams and shouts plus the thuds and throttles shook the earth.
But inside the bus, no one talked or ached or moaned or screamed. Was he the only survivor?
With a painful twist of his neck, he looked sideways. It was hard to see anyone since the bus had toppled sideways and seats blocked his vision on both sides. He still could see ahead, only if he’d managed to crane his neck a little and look beyond his own body.
Slowly he did. It did not hurt as much as he thought it would. With death on his mind, these trivial human pains seemed weightless and subsidiary.
He skipped looking at his own body in case he had his stomach slit open or something. He managed to see his shoes. Well, one shoe. One leg. God only knew where the other one was.
Beyond his foot lay Lewis Carroll.
Unless Lewis’ nonsensical joking had exceeded Jack’s expectations so much that he had cracked his own skull open, the famous author was pretty much dead, indeed.
For shits and giggles - we all need those in dark times - Jack wondered why Lewis’ head didn’t spill out books or words or even tiny miniature figures of his characters.
Sadly the man’s imagination was only made of blood and membranes like the rest of us.
A shard of glass from the window squeaked above Jack.
Well, the case was closed. He would soon die like the rest.
This time Alice wasn’t going to save him. Because she hadn’t the strength to believe in him and keep him alive this time. Her powers had been directed to the March who can save the world. Jack was merely a lover. She had no time for love.
As the shard gave up its hold on the window frame he closed his eyes, waiting for it to draw the final stab. There was no going back. He was going to die.
What troubled him before dying was that the world behind his eyes wasn’t made of black. It was shiny and in full color. Like a movie.
A movie of Alice.
An older Alice running errands in her own garden. He watched her finish with seeding the flowers and go back inside her house. Someone was calling for her. Kids.
Alice’s kids.
The boy was Tiger. The Girl, Lily.
Was jack hallucinating? Was his mind playing wishful thinking on him?
But then another person called for Alice. Handsome man. Really handsome. A little old though.
Alice called him Hatter but wait...
Why call him Hatter?
Jack was confused. If he hadn’t been hallucinating before death, then he was seeing the future. He was remembering tomorrow.
He would have smiled broadly and wished Alice all the luck with her future husband.
Only if this Hatter didn’t look exactly how Jack would look like a few years from now.