Present: The Wonderland War, London
T he world is turning into a whirlpool of spit and rotten ashes. The Jabberwocky’s presence not only scares the public but his own followers from plants and mushrooms to everything.
I’m standing still, cementing my feet to the ground, arching my back, staying low, spreading my arms for balance and staying focused on the entity in the sky.
“I’m here!” I scream at him. “What are you waiting for?”
I’m afraid my words can’t reach as high, not under the reign of hell he is bestowing upon the world.
“I want my sword back!”
In the far distance, I can’t see it anymore. How was I so stupid to let him have it. I need to provoke him to get it back.
“Stop flexing your muscles and come down here!”
Nothing.
The Jabberwocky continues to spread wind that is spewing sparks of fire all over the place.
I wish he would talk to me. How can he be so big?
Lewis Carroll’s poem depicted him as big but not this big. In some illustrations, the Jabberwocky looks like a medium-sized dragon. But then I have to remind myself that the Jabberwocky is Lewis Carroll’s personal illustrator. He could have deceived us all and drawn whatever served him best.
“Duck down!” Malice roars at me.
“Yeah?” I sneer back. “I didn’t think you were such a pee-in-your-pants plant.”
“You don’t understand,” Malice says. “He never shows himself to anyone.”
“So why is here then?”
“Who knows,” Malice whimpers. “This has never happened. He has always been like the Devil. His greatest power is you never know who he is or see him.”
“You never knew he was this big?”
“I’ve heard stories,” she says. “But I know it’s him because of the smell. Whenever I was near him in Wonderland, this is how he smelled. Rotten.”
“From what?”
“The smell of the corpses he has on his hands. The stink from their bones in the graves.”
None of this is helping me. I turn to evil Constance. “You know how to get him to talk to me?”
Constance can barely speak against the wind. Evil or not, she is smaller in size. “I’m puzzled why he showed himself. You provoked him.”
“I’m glad I did,” I say then shout at him up there. “So you’re all show no action?”
“Please don’t!” Malice says. “What did you do to provoke him?”
I stare at Jack’s chopped off head. “I could say that it's because I killed his son, but I apparently did this before.”
“No, it wasn’t you,” Malice says. “You drove the bus, but the other Black Chess students killed Jack when he tried to protect you.”
The revelation doesn't help. If I hadn’t killed Jack back then, those two doppelgangers have just duped into killing him now. It’s all pain to me, and I have no capacity to think about it now.
I turn again and speak to the sky. “So that’s it? You’re pissed because your son is gone?” My heart breaks when I remember but I keep my composure. To silence the mourning pain in my heart, I kick Jack’s head like a football. “Like that?”
“No, please,” Malice is losing it. “You have no idea what he can do.”
“I don’t give a damn,” I say, thinking. “Apparently he isn’t pissed I killed his son, or he would have huffed and puffed more and more.”
“He has your sword, so you have no chance anymore,” Constance says.
“Then why doesn’t he try to kill me!” I shouted higher and higher.
The sky cracks with lightning this time.
Malice and Constance look like they want to bury themselves alive under the asphalt.
“He will play games with you and kill you slowly,” Constance says.
“Why play games?” I ask her, still staring above.
Constance doesn’t answer, and I don’t care. The same feeling from earlier returns. The moment where I take a look at the bigger picture without sentiment to the current moment.
That’s when I realize why the Jabberwocky finally appears to me. If only I had done this so long ago.
With hands on my waist, I talk to him in the sky. “So that’s it?” I say. “You came because a few minutes earlier I decided not to let the evil affect me? When I was talking to Constance and Malice and decided to reside to silence and take a step back? When you realized I may neglect evil and move on?”
This time the lightning strikes turn into a roar in the sky.
“I get it,” I shout at him. “The Pillar told me this before. If I feed my fear it wins, if I act as if it doesn’t even exist, it blemishes and withers and dies.”
The red eyes show against the ashen skies again. This time nearer. I can see the real size of the Jabberwocky. Not as big or as high. He is standing up there somehow. In actuality, he is the same size as a small dragon like in the books. I’m not sure if I can confirm he looks like one, but he has wings and claws.
I stare into the red eyes, “I’m not afraid of you. That’s what bothers you. When I killed your son before, I was wrong. You don’t care about your son. All you care about is me, your victims. If we don’t feed you, you wither away.”
His growl deafens me for a moment as he lowers his head to meet my eyes. Well, now he is big. He also has a tail. A cliched look of evil and ugly as fuck.
The Jabberwocky dragon thuds onto the ground before me, his stench wafting through the air, I almost feel the need to vomit. The death and the pain lingering on his body.
I see his wings fluttering slowly behind him. The mucus of a melting substance dripping off his body. He doesn’t talk. Eyes red with anger.
Now I don’t only feel the need to vomit, but also to pee in my pants. I don’t show it.
“Ugly fuck,” I raise my chin up against my real feelings of dread. “Are we just going to stare at each other?”
And finally, he talks. He sounds hollow with a centuries-old grudge, as if thick saliva is stuck in his throat. Still his voice is low, more like a drone that thuds against the ground. “No one walks away from my fear.”
“I just did, didn’t I?” I say, glimpsing my Vorpal sword attached to his beastly wings. Jagged edges run along its edges.
“It took you so long,” he growls, mucus falling from his mouth. “And here I am.”
“The question is,” I say. “Why didn’t you kill me so far?”
“You have to fight me,” he says. “It’s the prophecy.”
Deep inside I know I will never win fighting him, and it still puzzles me why he hasn’t chopped off my head or eaten me alive, turning me into a stinky slime running off his lizard-like skin.
While thinking, I hear them from far away.
I hear the children. They sound so near now.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Their voices flutter like butterfly wings inside my soul. Their voices give me strength. Knowing so many children are on your side is refreshing and empowering, yet a huge responsibility.
I take a step forward, not taking my eyes off of him, “Give me back my sword, Jabberwocky.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you know you have to fight me, or the prophecy doesn’t work. To have the children you have to kill me in this battle while I have the Vorpal sword.”
“I will only give it back if you…”
“I know,” I cut him off. “If the children stop singing. That’s why you chickened out of killing me. The children, while they are what you’re after, they are also your weakness against me, as long as they are reading. The irony. Let’s make this final scene epic.”
Begrudgingly, he drops the sword on the ground. “Me against you, Alice. The final battle.”
I grip the sword and smirk, “You’re wrong Jabberwocky. It’s you against me and the children.”