Present: On the Road, London
“I see fire!” Constance pointed and hurried up a bridge of broken mushrooms.
“I think I’ll stay behind,” the Pillar said.
She stopped and turned around. She saw him leaning against an old furnace in the remnants of a house without a roof.
“Don’t play games, Pillar,” the Cheshire said. “I need to kill you.”
“Then what’s stopping you?” the Pillar asked.
Constance was concerned about the way the Pillar said it. He didn't give a damn if someone killed him. She suddenly realized that he wasn’t lying. He had accomplished what he came for.
She stepped down and knelt next to him, “Is there something you want me to tell Fabiola if I see her?”
The Pillar raised his eyes to meet hers.
She would swear she had only seen this kind of look in Alice’s eyes. The look of concern. Of wanting to help. Of not wanting anything in return while regretting the mistakes made in the process.
“No,” he said and leaned back to the furnace, staining his whole costume with ash.
“Is there something we can do, then?” She touched his hands, but he pushed her away. She had never seen him like that. Ever.
“He is pulling an act so I can’t have his face and body,” the Cheshire reasoned.
“He told you that you can kill him if you wanted,” Constance roared at the Cheshire who actually feared her.
“That’s the thing with the Pillar,” the Cheshire hurled the hose in the air. “You never know what he really wants or planned.”
Constance shook her head at the Cheshire’s actions. However, she didn’t blame him. Since when did anyone understand the Pillar? But that wasn’t the point now. The Pillar, more or less, was an Inkling, and she wanted to help a man who was in pain. She wasn’t sure he was dying though.
“I have to go, Pillar,” she turned back to him. “Still I will do what you tell me to do.”
“I want you to…” he said.
“To what?” she said. “I’m listening.”
“To understand…”
“You’re not going to waste our time, eh, Pilly?” the Cheshire said. “Spit it out.”
The Pillar laughed from the corner of his mouth. It was hard to tell whether it was a smirk, a laugh, or madness.
“To understand that one of the…”
“Dear God of cats and not dogs,!” the Cheshire couldn’t take it and went to get the hose again. This time he decided to kill him and stop the mysteries.
“One of the what, Pillar?” Constance asked.
“One of the privileges of not knowing who you are,” the Pillar said as the Cheshire was about to come closer and choke him. “Is that you can pretend to be whomever you want to be.”
This stopped the Cheshire in his tracks. It hurt.
He knew the Pillar might have been hinting to his real identity, but it sure made the Cheshire feel self-conscious. He wasn’t anyone after all, and his whole journey was looking to be someone else, probably someone cool. Was this why he wanted to be the Pillar?
He loosened his grip on the hose and stood silent.
“Whatever you say, Pillar,” Constance said, leaning his weary head against the bricks of the furnace. “I want you to know that it’s been a pleasure,” she kissed him on the forehead.
The Cheshire realized he might cry, but he resisted it. Why the hell would he cry and show emotion? If he ever did he wouldn’t cry over the Pillar.
The Pillar closed his eyes and breathed slowly in a serene peace none of them understood.
“Is he dead?” the Cheshire asked.
“Nah,” Constance stood up. “He is terribly exhausted, or broken. I’ve never imagined seeing him this way.”
“And you’re sure he is not faking it?”
“I’m young enough to be fooled but I’m also young enough to feel it in my heart that he isn’t playing games. Why didn’t you kill him?”
The Cheshire fidgeted, “I have no freakin’ idea.”
“I guess you should pull off the mask as well,” Constance said.
“What do you mean, kiddo?”
“I mean if you’ve finally decided to accept who you are, whatever you are, you may as well not hide behind the Joker’s face.”
“He is kinda trending now,” the Cheshire aimed for a joke to break the tension, but this child was something special. He felt as if she were his mother. He pulled the mask off. “It’s a priest’s face.”
“I know,” she said. “I saw you on the TV. Actually, I should’ve killed you for framing us, but as a fellow Wonderlander… well, forget it, Cheshy. Just find yourself.”
He watched Constance walk away toward the fire in the distance and the Pillar sleeping next to the unlit furnace. He was stuck between life and death, standing at the fork in the road.
Helpless.
Had the Pillar not called for Constance one last time, he would have left and never come back, but Constance came running back.
“Yes, Pillar?” she knelt again. “How can I help?”
“Tell Fabiola…” the Pillar said then noticed the Cheshire listening so he whispered the rest in Constance’s ear.
Not only didn’t the Cheshire hear, but he couldn’t understand why Constance’s eyes lit up as if the sun suddenly shone in the dark of night.
“I will,” she said with the broad smile on her face, “and I always knew it.”
The Cheshire and Constance watched him doze to his eternal sleep, and then, in a most unexpected scene, blue butterflies came from nowhere and circle his body.