Past: Mushroom Garden, Wonderland
T he Hatter began to feel dizzy and soon he was going to either faint or die. He had to trace back the events that had happened a few moments ago when he first entered the Pillar’s Garden, also known as Mushroomland.
“So, what are you asking me, tea man?” the Pillar puffed into the Hatter’s face.
“Nothing much,” the Hatter said. “Just leave Fabiola alone. You’ve done enough damage to her.”
“And hoo aaahre yooh again?”
“You know me. You just called me Tea Man. Don’t play games, Pillar.”
“I know you’re a Tea Man. I was wondering who are you to order me around?”
“I’m not ordering you. I’m begging you. Just leave her alone. We all know you tricked her to think she loved you with the mushrooms. She has suffered enough.”
“Here’s the thing, Tea Boy — since men don’t beg anyone. You’re a nobody. A delusional happily ever after piece of nothing. You think you love her and you want to protect her. You probably read too many fairy tales, thinking you’re Prince Charming. Let me tell you about fairy tales. They’re all lies.”
“That’s not the point.”
“It is the point,” the Pillar put the hookah to the side and mustered a serious face. “Prince Charming should have been called Prince Asshole, or Prince Darkness, or better Real Man because they don’t ask. They do.”
“I’m doing by coming to you.”
“Well, Mushroomland is a public garden more or less. Public to the addicts. But props to you coming and uttering your devotion to the White Queen — who will never love you back by the way because she is a Queen and you’re a tea clown.”
The Hatter shrugged and fidgeted, just a little, so little that he himself didn’t notice it. But the Pillar, with his keen eye into other’s psychologies, saw it.
“If you were a man,” the Pillar continued. “You would fight me.”
“Don’t underestimate me, Pillar.”
“To underestimate, one has to first estimate. And when I think of you, I don’t even give you the slightest of values. You’re a child in a man’s body. Your happiness is a disguise for your inability to grow up.”
“I’m a grown-up man.”
“Grown-ups don’t throw tea parties and laugh all the time, Tea Weasel, because you know what? Growing up is painful. It’s blood and sweat and evil. You don’t get to think you can come and stare the devil in the eye and ask him to abandon his bride.”
“Are you the devil?” the Hatter seemed curious. It had been on everyone’s tongue for many years. Either the Pillar or Jabberwocky were the devil.
The Pillar laughed, head up, staring at the smokey skies. “I’d squish the devil like a rotten mushroom and bury him six horns under, Tea Sleaze.”
“Listen,” the Hatter couldn’t reason with him. “Whoever you are. Whatever you are, just let Fabiola have a new life.”
“She is mine, and will always be, whether she knows it or not,” the Pillar’s gaze returned to pierce through the Hatter’s soul. “As for you, I’m fed up with you.”
The Hatter took a step back upon seeing the Pillar disembark his throne of mushrooms. The short, ugly Pillar had a weight to his presence. There was something about his proximity that tore through the Hatter’s soul. The Hatter soon realized it may have been a mistake to come here. After all, the Pillar was right. The Hatter was nothing but a hopeless romantic with thin skin.
“You ever asked yourself what these mushrooms are for?” the Pillar asked, advancing slowly toward the Hatter.
The Hatter took a few steps backward now, even trying to lean his torso back as much as possible. He looked like a man on a rope walking backward.
“I don’t care,” the Hatter said. “I’m not here to interfere with your lifestyle. I’m only asking you…”
“Yeah, yeah,” the Pillar rolled his eyes. “To give you a chance with your princess. But your princess is an addict to my mushrooms, Teashroomer. What do you have to offer her?”
“Love.”
“Don’t offend me please,” the Pillar tilted his head, advancing still. “What do you have to offer her that would oppose my mushrooms?”
“Safety.”
“How many times do you want me to roll my eyes, tea puss? I mean how can you offer her safety more than me? Try once more.”
“Happiness.”
“Nonsense.”
“Happiness is not nonsense.”
“But nonsense is happiness,” the Pillar wiggles his eyebrows.
The Hatter continued retreating, now sweating, noticing how the mushrooms moved and formed a canopy above them.
“What’s going on with the mushrooms?” The Hatter asked.
“They’re doing what they’re meant to do.”
“Which is?”
“Invade the world,” the Pillar snickered. “One day they will cross over.”
“Cross over?”
The Pillar stopped and sighed. “Look, tea bag, you’re really boring.”
The Hatter stopped. For some reason, this description bothered him more than all else. He had always thought his mirth and demeanor made him entertaining and far from boring.
“I’d say leave this place and never think about Fabiola and never come back, or…”
“Or?” The Hatter mustered the courage to oppose the Pillar with a flare of nostrils like a madman ready to fight.
“You look like you want to sneeze,” the Pillar said. “Are you allergic to mushrooms?”
The Hatter’s shoulders shrugged and he gave in with a feeble sigh.
“Admit it,” the Pillar told him.
“Admit what?”
“Admit that you admire me.”
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do,” the Pillar smiled. “You live in a bubble of love and enchantment, thinking the world needs teapuppies like you, but then when you meet real men like me you wonder: why is evil always strong? Why is evil so wonderful? Why is it powerful?”
The Hatter couldn’t oppose the argument. In truth, he admired the Pillar’s grandiose and attitude, if only he had used it for the greater good. But then part of being a good person was not to be like the Pillar.
The Hatter’s head dizzied and the realization that he could not protect Fabiola against men like the Pillar angered and battered him. Never was he going to steep tea again. He wanted to grow up. Drink whiskey. Tell loud jokes with beefed-up men in a bar. Be feared.
He wasn’t sure if the mushrooms had affected his thoughts but he wanted to be like the Pillar. So much.
“Or?” the Hatter said again.
“Pardon me?”
“You said I’d either be a wimp and forget about the White Queen or?”
The Pillar sneered then approached the Hatter again. This time the Hatter didn’t retreat. The Pillar gazed at the Hatter with unspoken admiration. He liked it when weak boys turned into men and realized that one has to have vampire’s teeth and stone-cold hearts to grow up from their childhood. Exactly like the Pillar’s own childhood.
“You see this?” The Pillar pulled out his hookah and ripped its hose out then tucked it in the Hatter’s hands and closed it shut.
A sudden move. Fast and nimble.
“This hose is the only thing that can kill me,” the Pillar’s eyes dared the Hatter’s as if seeing through his thoughts.
The Hatter realized he began shivering. Holding the weapon that could kill his nemesis conjured only fear, not relief.
“I just gave you the devil’s fork, tea pimp,” the Pillar said. “You have an opportunity to stab the devil in the back and eat him for dinner,” the Pillar tiptoed, as the Hatter was slightly taller, and whispered in his ears. “It’s your only chance to win Fabiola’s heart. Your only chance to save the children in Wonderland. Your only chance to become a man.”
The Pillar backed off and winked at the sweating Hatter then turned around, giving him his back and walking back to his throne of mushrooms.
You have a chance to stab the devil in the back and become a man.
The Hatter stared at the Pillar ambling away. The hose in his hands swirling like a snake, ready to attack. The Hatter trembled. He realized that what he had momentarily wished for came true.
To save the White Queen he had to turn into a Black King.