melancholia

The Cat thinks that it's funny, how the white roses are painted over. Pure love exchanged for primal passion. The Cat watches as the soldiers paint and paint and the paint comes off-why won't it stay on? They ask themselves in sheer desperation, and the Cat only smiles and watches. The Cat shall never tell them they're going about it the wrong way.

If you're going to turn a rose red, it will have to be from the inside out.

But he can't say that, no. Because every time the Cat opens his mouth he thinks he'd rather tell a lie. Or the truth. They are the same thing in the end. No-the Cat-the Cat would rather say nothing at all. He decides he shall just grin.

The Cat dances in and out of shadows, hides in the forest and sometimes, sometimes he deigns to go to the duchess and drink some milk. Because the Cat is never tame. Oh no. The Cat is wild magic and silver sunlight. He is the golden mercury that drives the Hatter mad. Oh he likes the Hatter well enough. To him the Hatter is the immovable object and the Cat the irresistible force. The dance they dance is more complex and the Cat is thrilled to see someone match him step for step on the checkered board, until, of course, he gets bored. But he always comes back; there is no one else who can match the Cat's madness. Genius or insanity? They have erased all the boundaries.

The Cat always answers, if someone asks the questions. The Cat answers, but-oh no, no the Cat never lies. He hides his truths in plain sight and waits for his listener to wander away puzzled. You know better, he shall say someday, than to ask me how I feel. The Cat will never answer a question properly, everyone in wonderland knows that.

The Cat knows how to evade, how to adjust. He can change form quickly and fast, and he knows that no one can believe he wasn't there a moment ago. He wasn't. He was. The Cat can dance and throw shadows and laugh like he is innocent, laugh like he is guilty. The Cat knows better than to take sides, to judge. He does not equalize, he merely equivocates. The Cat sees, with cat's eyes, he sees and perceives, but he will never judge, because that is not a cat's job. That Cat watches from the sidelines and offers amusing, unhelpful advice-unless you're paying enough attention. Then he gives no advice at all. It is better to see and learn and gather and hold in, then to let it out. This the Cat knows.

The Cat disappears. He reappears. The Cat is gone, the Cat is back. And every time he leaves, no one remembers anything but his grin. Because that is all they see. The Cat knows now that how to call attention to his smirk. I'm amused, it says, I'm mad. But never his eyes, no. His eyes that prove that even if he knows-he knows, the answer, to tell the truth would make his voice break and his mask shatter and he will never do that, no. It is easier to fade away, and leave nothing behind but a smile.