melancholia

it's an unbeautiful romance, darling
the words spilling from pen in nonsense words:
" i love you " speaks a lie & " forever " never
exsists & a wish for somethinganything to mark
and claim as yours is right there waiting beneath
the tree marked with your name engraved: ( Eve
l o v e s Adam ) but Adam l o v e s Steve - you
drive away a bitter toxin by driving fingers warm
and sticky into her and mumbling a mantra of sorts:
" mine mine mine mine " & you wonder faintly if
the smell of burning wood & falling gems are a
sign that Eden is (finally) burning

The Caterpillar is smoke and fog. Smoke and fog, smog. Portmanteaus. Exactically. Smoke and fog and dreams and nightmares. Because the smoke chokes anyone that comes near, but him, because he is used to his mind's pollution. He has created his mind's pollution.

The Caterpillar needs his fog, to hide him from the curious eyes of Wonderland. No one can see through the dark smoke from his hookah except for the Caterpillar. The Caterpillar's eyes pierces through everything (smoke, fog, lies).

The air is heavy with lies and nightmares (sweetened by fairytales and childish wishes) and the Caterpillar just keeps breathing.

Oh! How the Caterpillar wishes he could be left alone! He scares away everyone with questions they can't answer ("who are you?") and finds a new place for his pipe. He doesn't mind, though, when they answer honestly (like a small little girl-I don't know who I am-At least I knew who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then...). The Caterpillar gives Alice a clue, because she is trying hard to find herself. But the Caterpillar hates the Cat (Oh! And how!), who does nothing but answer his questions with questions of his own (Who do you think I am? Who are you?). The Caterpillar can tell that the Cat knows exactly who he is, he just won't tell. Lies and secrets, lies and secrets like the blackest of smokes (still the Caterpillar sees). The Caterpillar thinks that the Cat is worse than tobacco. But the Cat laughs and still vanishes in the smoke.

The Caterpillar sees through smoke and mirrors, because he knows how to look. He gazes with obsidian eyes, bottomless, calculating and seizes the actual from the realm of possibilities.

The Caterpillar knows more about death and darkness than he'd care to, but he smokes anyway. It's all fine by him. When the Caterpillar disappears, he turns into the very smoke that he breathes (the very same smoke-the very same air-what does it matter?). The Caterpillar is never going to evaporate, he has too much substance, sunlight won't break him down, and moonlight will only help him shine anyway.

There used to be a time when the Caterpillar didn't smoke. What was he then? He was not what he is now, or perhaps in not being what he was, he was exactly what he is. Quite right. In fact, the Caterpillar is always right. And he knows it. He has never been wrong, not even once. He only changes his mind.

The Caterpillar doesn't care for tea. It's such a bore, and chamomile is hardly as soothing as his pipe. He'd rather not go to unbirthday parties or jubilees anyway. He has his own fireworks.

He knows which side of the mushroom makes you grow and which side makes you shrink, but he shall never take a bite from either. The Caterpillar is perfectly fine being just three inches tall. Just because he is a caterpillar doesn't mean he can't reach the sky. Just because he is a caterpillar doesn't mean he can't have wings.

The cat is called Vodka and she slinks through the flat like a small-pawed ghost, amber eyes dripping with disdain, the wet-red slit of her mouth yawning each time you look at her. She's grey, grey like sheets of iron and thunder storms, fat, with a little pink nose that gleams as she burrows curiously in the dark corners of each room.

We pretend she's a spy from Russia, so each time she walks in the room we cut our conversation and whisper to each other, using it as an excuse to grab each other's wrists and press our lips against the shell of our ears. Vodka's watching, she's listening, she'll report us. I can feel Jet's breath like moist fire on my throat, gnawing against my skin like a hungry mouse. Her fingers against the pulse point of my wrist, pressing on my veins so that I can feel the throb of my blood like a thumping, pulpy clock ticking down the seconds until she lets go, until my world stops.

For a while, things are happy.

"I met a guy today."

I look up from my magazine and frown.

Jet is stood against the kitchen counter, her fingers gripping her mug, nails painted sparkling green, eyes dancing with amusement. She's wearing tight black jeans and a t-shirt from a band she loves, her jewellery dancing like gleaming beetles on her wrists.

"What?" I snap, irritation crawling the length of my spine. My marrow feels like it is writhing under my jaw, making me a snapping, growling creature with small eyes and small teeth.

"I said, I've met someone. A guy. A nice guy."

I try to imagine what a nice guy would be to her. A lizard in faded jeans with an acoustic guitar strung to his scaly, rotten-green back. Twitching cocks and snarling lips, that's all she would want, I'm sure. I smirk into the magazine and feel something scathing and cruel surface my cold belly.

"Really," I deadpan.

"Oui, really." Her eyes are dancing, dancing like sparking-hot coals, cheeks flushed and fingers twitching like she's taken pills, except she hasn't because we've been lounging around the flat all day in our pyjamas. "He's a musician and he lives above this second hand book shop. Like Bernard."

"Is he like Bernard, then?" I stutter back a smile and her lips quirk lightly.

"Not at all. He does smoke a lot, though. He's coming over tomorrow, to show me his guitar and play me some songs."

My stomach is led and I am sinking, slowly like Mob-victims in their cement boots.

"Well," I say softly, looking at the same word I have read fifty times in my magazine; zebra, zebra, zebra, zebra, zebra, zebra, the zebra patterned heels, zebra, zebra, zebra. "I'm at work. So you can fuck him if you like."

Jet throws her head back and starts laughing, and the twist in my belly tells me there is something different in her laugh, something vindictive, cruel. Desperate.

"Love, I'd fuck him if you were here anyway."

Her nails slit deeper than she could ever imagine.

I am shaking, I'm so angry.

He's sitting on the sofa, his lips half-open, drool sliding like a fat slug down his chin. He's breathing deeply, but he isn't asleep. I know he isn't, he's just floating on a heroin cloud, softly and gently, better than sex he said. That's why he hasn't touched me in three weeks. Because his dick only reacts to a needle now, nothing else.

What makes me angry, so fucking angry I could take the knife from the kitchen and swiftly slit his throat, is that it isn't just him anymore. I peer into the living room and there's a whole gang of them, skeletal creatures that are slumped along my carpet, watching the television I paid for, smoking my cigarettes. They look like the undead, grotesque puppets held up by strings of drugs and lies, their eyes almost popping from their sunken sockets. The dips of their bellies look like gaping mouths and one of them as a baby perched neatly on the kitchen top, asleep in its little basket. A baby. A fucking baby, in my house, where in the next room junkies are shooting up. I wonder if it's breast fed, in which case its probably a junkie too.

I'm so angry I hurry over to the kitchen sink and vomit up my breakfast.

This is it, I seethe, my knuckles turning white as I grab hold of the side, steadying myself as I take in heady breaths. This is fucking it, I can't take anymore of this shit.

I grab a jumper off the radiator, go into our bedroom and take every last penny I can find, just so the dirty fucker has to sell his soul to get another hit. On my way out I pause besides the baby, look down at its calm, sleepy face. Poor thing, I think, poor little thing, you probably won't know your parents in the future, when social services take you away.

"It'll be for the best," I tell it. "You'll be safer."

I leave and I know I'll never come back.

--

"I think we should get a pet."

I pause in trying to get my mochi cakes from their packet to my mouth using only chopsticks. My fingers wobble so bad that my sticky rice often gets flung across the table and it takes Jet five minutes before she can eat again without spitting it out laughing. Sushi dinners are fun dinners in our flat.

"What kind of pet?" I ask, wiping my mouth so that the sweet sauce smears along my lips. I try to lick it away, but it's so sticky. Jet is watching me, curiously following my tongue as it trails over my skin.

"I was thinking..." She pauses and looks back at my eyes, not even bothering to hide her smirk. "I was thinking a dog. Or a cat."

"What about a snake?"

"I don't think we could afford the mice on our simple wages, love."

She's right, of course. After a few weeks of lounging like a listless fox around her flat whilst she went out to sell records on her tiny street store with a man that looks like a British, working-class version of Barry White I finally got a job. I work in a musty comic-book shop, selling comics I know nothing about to men twice my age. It's not that bad, I think, because the owner is a sweet girl with chubby cheeks that always fold like a hamster's when she smiles. She lets me put on whatever I want, record wise, because now I have adapted to Jet's life I am starting to embrace the world of music. Sometimes the customers see fit to try and start a conversation with me, about comics, normally, with a hesitant little smile and a blush, and it's then that I feel myself withering away slowly. Normally I never notice when people flirt with me and Jet has to point it out (usually quite loudly, in front of them, with slit-eyes and a sweetly sneering mouth, her arm wrapping around me possessively) and I don't know how to make them leave.

Now I pay rent and don't feel like a total dosser, wearing her clothes, eating her food, listening to her records. Instead I pay half, buy my own clothes and buy both of us new records whenever I can. She likes it when I get her something she hasn't heard of before, like it's a present, or something.

"A cat would probably be better," I say. "Coming and going as it pleases. A dog will want attention a lot."

She eyes me with something akin to amusement, something deep and filthy and as black as her crow-feather hair. I wonder if she thinks the same of me, just some little creature she took in, trembling and underfed, a pet for her to play with, to treat like family.

She wouldn't think that of me, would she?

"I like cats," she says, her lips curling. "They're a lot like you, don't you think?" I blink at her, uncertain. "Stray cats, all quiet and defensive and alone. Then you befriend them and they're like aloof loyal soldiers. You're quite like that."

"An aloof cat soldier," I muse, vaguely irritated. "Lovely."

"Well, before I let you stay here you were quite a bitch to me."

I look up sharply, my fingers coiling around my chopsticks. What is she talking about?

"I'd never met you before then."

She smile gets wider, slightly twisted, slightly bitter. My heart begins thumping like a basketball, loud and rumbling, echoing straight to my guts, making them squirm.

"You did, love, once or twice, in the clubs. Amongst the Soho Sleaze."

"Really?" My voice comes out a sharp squeak, all tender-bellied, like a baby tickled for the first time. "I... I don't remember
that. Was I mean?"

"Quite." Her tongue gleams as she runs it over her teeth, like a hungry fox spying a wounded rabbits shivering in the undergrowth. "In the worst way. You ignored me. I hate being ignored, especially by those I like to look at."

I stare at her, my eyes narrowing. On my plate my sushi doesn't look as appetising anymore.

"I'm sorry," I murmur, putting my chopsticks down and reaching for my glass of wine. "I don't remember. I'm sure I didn't mean it."

"It's alright," she laughs, "I got you to notice me in the end." An awkward weight settles in my stomach, heavy and thick, like I've eaten too much cake and it has clogged my veins with icing and jam and sponge. I don't know how to react, don't know what to say. Life with Jet is a series of awkward moments, punctured by alcohol and drugs and music. Much like any life, I suppose. I sigh and rub my eyes.

"I'll get that cat, then," Jet declares, reaching over to nab a piece of my uneaten sushi. "You can name it, if you like."

I wake up alone. The sheets are twisted around my legs, curled tight on my hips like a clingy lover, pushing my skin tight against fabric. I'm slick with sweat and I try fuzzily to remember my dream. It was vibrant and dizzying. I roll onto my belly, grin into my pillow and notice how cold it is.

There's a light on in the hallway, so I know she is up. Jet has fits of insomnia and I often wake up in the early hours of the morning to loud, electric sounds pulsating through the walls like I have been swallowed by a large god and his stomach is digesting and dissolving me.

I get up, peel away the sheets that stick to me like a second skin. There's no music, just silence, and the emptiness of our flat scares me. We've built ourselves up on noise - we are loud at night and loud in the morning. Jet is a concept wrapped in music, layered with a barbaric tongue and a constant need to confirm her existence. She would never sit in silence, let herself be lost in the moving world.

I find her in the bathroom, smoking cigarettes and lounging in the bath like a goddess bathing in milk or the blood of a thousand virgins. When I walk in her eyes flutter over me, butterflies on my skin, glassy and bright - she's taken something, I think, something good, something nice. She doesn't seem to mind me intruding, we have seen each other naked many times, living so closely together, it's hard not to.

She's so pale, a ghost lost at sea, her skin like a porcelain figure standing in an art gallery. Her ribs protrude like water ripples, creating a soft-boned cage for her heart, a stand for her small breasts, a ledge for the dip of her belly. Her hips jut like knives, so sharp you could break your fingers on them just trailing their lines and points. Her black crow-feather hair splays around her, floating like reeds in the water, slick like wet fur or oil, gleaming the way all dark things do.

"Hello love," she whispers, bringing her cigarette up to her lips, pulling back breath and letting ribbons of smoke unfurl from between her clacking teeth. "I got your things back."

My heart jolts against my bones, spurting blood fast through the narrow tubes of my body, warming me like hot lava. I take back a stolen gulp of air and look down at my feet, at my toenails - Jet spent two hours painting them different colours whilst we watched violent gangster movies the night before. I remember the feel of her breath on my shins, how she had her back to the television, her spine arching forwards as I sat on the sofa and tried to concentrate on the guns and thugs.

"Thanks," I murmur, moving forwards to sit on the loo.

"I'll give you a haircut next," she says, clipping her lips around her cigarette and using her free hands to grab at the bottle of shampoo sitting on the shelf. "Wash my hair?"

I shuffle forwards, my knees thumping against the bathtub, my shorts sliding higher up my thighs. She gives me the bottle, slick with water, the smell of coconuts rolling under my nose like a flirtatious sigh.

I wash her hair, like I'm a maid in olden times looking after some glamorous lady, her husband travelling around the world as a socialite, coming home smelling of cheap liquor and stale sex. I'd be the soft young maid, with kind eyes and swift hands, who helps her get out of bed in the morning when everything feels lonely and pointless.

I scrub her skull, careful not to scratch, watch her close her eyes and hum emptily. It echoes off the walls and I trace my finger down behind her ear, up the nap of her neck. She purrs.

"I always loved it when my mother washed my hair," she says softly. "It was like diving head first into femininity, the first traces of being a woman."

"Yeah," I croak, grabbing the metal jug from the side of the bath, scooping up water. "Head back." She obeys and I'm careful to cup my hand on her head so that the water doesn't fall into her eyes. The smell of steam and coconut is heady and delicious and I can feel the heat of the water lick at my cheeks and lips like a hungry tongue.

"You treat me like glass," she hums, coy smile drifting over her lips. "As if I'll fall apart if you're rough."

I don't look at her, instead I reach for the conditioner. "I suppose that's part of your charm, isn't it?" Her hand reaches out of the water, dripping like a monster emerging from a lake. I freeze as she presses her palm to my cheek, wet and hot, fingers smudging against my lips. "My little tiger, burning on the outside, just a tender little kitten in."

I finish washing her hair and go back to bed, my heart hammering under my ribs, thumping, pulpy with blood. She doesn't follow, instead I am lulled asleep by jazz music and her clear, chiming voice singing along.

--

I look through the boxes of things she collected from my old home, my old home that no longer exists, but is rather a memory of a memory that I'll soon stamp out of my brain. She got all my photo albums, even the one I had hidden under my mattress, the one full of photographs of my old lovers, all Polaroid pictures, taken when I was half-drunk on love and lust, dressed in underwear, where the light was dull and dark. I wonder if she tore the place to bits looking for things that interested her, or whether she asked him to help her. I hope not. I don't want them together, ever, even in the slightest of moments.

She stole a few records, I notice, mildly amused. Some of them aren't even mine, but she took them anyway. There's a whole box of mix tapes and CD and vinyl, some of them I can't stand anymore, because of the memories attached to them. She took some of my clothes, only a few, only the ones that suited her current fashion, the fashion she had insisted I be part of. The rest are lost.

I jump as Jet clamberers loudly into the kitchen, a Styrofoam cup steaming between her long piano fingers, nails the color of cherries. She's wearing a knee-length floral dress, belt pressed tightly around her skinny waist, beads and charms clacking merrily on her neck and wrists. She's beautiful, as always, her lips painted red like she's been sucking the juice out of strawberries.

"Love, I'm just going to the market for some food. We're out of edible things, we might get rickets if we keep this up. Want this soup?" She steps over my things and starts fidgeting irritably with her sunglasses. "I got it from that café across the road. It's French onion, you like that, don't you?"

I nod mutely and she passes it to me. "Anyway, yeah, I'm going out, is there anything you want? We're out of peanut butter, which you seem to love, want me to get some?"

She's talking fast, like the devil has hold of her tongue. I wonder how many pills she has taken today.

"Sushi," I croak. "Can you get sushi, for dinner?"

She smiles big, Cheshire, exotic, and my heart does a funny little dance behind my ribs.

"'Course, love. I'll be back later. Why don't you put your stuff wherever you want it?"

I nod again, unsure where to look as she starts pulling at her belt. "Anyway, bye." She leans forwards, presses a timid little kiss on the side of my mouth and trots elegantly out of the room.

The color princess. Where would I be without her?

Dead. Dying. Swallowing cum for three quid a pop, just to buy food.

I take a sip of my soup and stare blankly at the boxes on the floor.

She reeks of discontent, the smell of stale alcohol, the smell of flats with too many people living in them, mattresses stained with coffee and cum. She is a burning slash against the world, flittering and brightly vivacious. I hate her, because she makes me hate her. Her nails, long and neon-pink, dragging lazily down the curve of my hip, jutting and so sharp I could cut her palms with one jerk. I hate her, I hate her, I hate her, hate hate hate hate hate hatehatehatehate.

She is a poison, leaking and acidic, corroding at the soft tissues in my veins, cutting up my belly so that my stomach juices filter through and blotch the color out of my skin, so I am pale, so pale in comparison to her, so pale that I am just a ghost and she is a flesh-covered demon. She is a poison and I hate her so completely, so utterly, it makes my bones bend backwards, makes my ribs snap open so she can tear at my heart, lick her lips clean of my blood, chock me down with rough-and-tumble teeth.

I hate her, so, so much. So, so much I love her.

--

She finds me in the park, curled up on a bench with my fingers buried deep in my shirt to keep the cold from sinking in. I haven't slept in three days, haven't gone home because he will be there, smoking his pipe, watching the fizzing, static-diseased television, eyes like robotic monsters. He'll stare and stare and eventually I'll remember that once upon a time ago I loved him, he loved me, back when we were kids, but now he's an addict and I am decaying.

"Wild white horse, why're you looking so glum?" she purrs, sitting down next to me.

She is electric, bright on my eyes, burning visions into my skull. Her hair is black, streaked red and deadly, eyes coated in thick make-up, blue and red, neon, her clothes tight fitting and stylish, like she had rolled in paint and gone out clubbing. She smells soft, like flowers and stale coffee, like all the good, sensual things in the world. I see her, drugs and wildcats and bright colors, and I want to break her. So colorful. She doesn't know anything.

She grabs my arm, pulls me against her, takes me home. That's how we meet, and I look like a drizzled rat, drenched or drowning, sinking and swimming. She gives me her clothes, a tight-fitting pink t-shirt with letters spelling obscenities, spray on jeans, no socks, no bra. I keep my panties on because she's watching me undress and the heat in the room dries them quickly.

"I've seen you before, you know," she says, her voice like velvet and scotch. "In the clubs, pretending you don't care." Her lips quirk up, cat-like, vicious. She's beautiful.

"Yeah?" I mutter, pulling the t-shirt over my head. "Who're you then?"

I'm waiting for the name, something exotic, something dangerous. She's a wild-cat, desperate and throaty and I can feel the heat coming off her from across the room.

"Just call me Jet," she says airily, layered eyes following the lines of my waist and hips. "Everyone else does."

That's it. I'm shot through the heart, dark and poisoned, she takes me in, gives me clothes, takes me out like I'm her pet and I love it.

--

I become entangled in her life.

I sleep in the same double bed as her, bundled up tight in her shorts and vests. Her room is a neon nightmare, the walls white except for the one furthest away - that's pink, eye-scorching pink. There are posters, magazine cuttings and record covers everywhere, boys and girls lounging lethargically along her plaster, grinning and sneering, so many bands and musicians I've never even heard of. She collects things, weird little things you'd throw away normally. Broken records, plastic toys, Russian rolls with the paint chipped off. Things you find in garage sales or car boot throw-outs. Things you find in garbage cans.

At night, when we're lying in the dark and her breathing goes deep and wistful, I watch the moonlight glint like cold-eyes off of her weird collection, watch the paint glow like space-ships. Sometimes she kicks the sheets off her and I watch her flat-lined belly rise and fall as she dreams, her breasts flattening as she stretches out like a spoilt cat. Her ribs are like ripples under water, soft and jutting, cutting away the stilted air that hangs in her bedroom like wet fog.

I wake up alone, with the sunlight brushing its golden fingertips through my hair, in my eyes, burning me awake. Everything glows, everything is iridescent and beautiful and remarkable. I can hear music playing in the front room, something German and melodic, a man's voice crooning through the thin plaster on the walls. Jet is a musical beast, she can't work through life without a rhythm carrying her on its back. At first I thought this made her weak, that someone who boasts so much independence was dependent on something with no substance, with nothing to hold itself together with except abstract concepts and wavering, electric voices.

But then I remember how dependent I am on her, and I cringe in revulsion and forget about her being weak.

"Last night I dreamt of rabbits," she says, slim wrist balancing a cigarette whilst her other hand scoops up the last of her coffee. She winces and I remember we're out of sugar. "They were eating our records and clothes and I didn't mind. I just kept worrying that they'd get sick."

"How nice of you," I murmur. We are sat at the kitchen table, a tiny, rickety thing painted white, covered in newspapers and teapots and ashtrays; Jet's nail polish pots litter my side and I start painting my nails electric blue out of boredom.

"They all went out of the window, then I woke up."

She looks up at me, behind her fringe, behind her cutting-glass eyes. I can taste the scent of change in the air, liquidated and rolling, so thick it could solidify on my tongue and we could bend shapes out of it. "Let's go out for the day," she says, all sweet and vulgar. My heart trips. "To the zoo. It's summer, it's nice. Let's buy ice cream and walk through the park."

This is her desperate quest for normality, this is her pushing her fingers into the rotten flesh of fruit, squeezing it of rancid juices and sucking them from her bony fingers, hoping it's still sweet, still succulent despite festering under time's withered body. I push my hands out against the wooden table, watch my nails glitter like ice-rubies hidden deep in the Artic circle, my heart humming like a dying refrigerator. I nod mutely, watch her pale-thin face split into a grin, watch her stand up and tumble excitedly into the bedroom, to get ready.

"Get up, then!" she calls, voice like a bird cry. "Wear one of my dresses, they'll look beautiful on you."

Obedient little witch I am, I scrap the chair away and fumble awkwardly with the waistband of my shorts. Obedient little girl, following her mother's outstretched arms.

I am weak.

--

The zoo is crowed, children and families and couples peering through the glass windows and gasping with awe as they catch a glimpse of a monkey hiding in the shadows of a tree. We smoke cigarettes on a bench, our spines arched like doorways to new worlds, our lips curled in derisive sneers, smoke curling from between our teeth like spirals of deceit. Parents look at us with eyes sparking disgust and desire and I watch Jet tug her dress up her thighs, inching it so that her milk-white flesh can soak up sun and stares.

"I like animals," she says, dragging her teeth along her cigarette, sucking up the smoke. "I like these animals, trapped in cages and slowly building up their frustration for the time when their keepers go in to feed them."

"They're like us," I say softly, my lungs burning, inflamed with tar and acids and summer sun. "Trapped in cages, but still wild."

"I'll never be trapped in a cage." Her voice is defiant, as if daring me to say otherwise. I take another smoke and let my eyes fall on her long legs. "Me and you, we're like wolves. We howl to our gods and we bite our lovers in bits."

I nod absently and think about the lover I left behind. Is he still sitting on his yellowing sofa, smoking cigarettes and shooting up, watching Saturday cartoons until his mind rolls blank? Does he even know I'm gone? I left all my stuff, everything, have been gone for over three weeks. Has he called the police?

I don't think I care.

"I left my things," I whisper, chucking my cigarette into the bin next to me. "I left my things... at home."

It's the first time I've talked of home, because home is where the heart is and my heart is locked firmly in my breast and I am living with Jet, want to live with Jet forever. I'm happy. As happy as I can get.

"I thought you said you had no home?" Jet hums, stretching back and lazily eyeing a man across the way. He looks at her with smolder-black eyes and I can feel a snarl ripple under my lungs. Jealousy.

"I don't. Well, I had a place to live... I-"

"You don't need to tell me about your past," she sings, turning her head to me, her oil-bright eyes knocking the breath from me. "It doesn't exist anymore. The past is just a concept, an illusion to make us think that we live in stable times."

He doesn't exist. My life doesn't exist. I can understand that.

"Did you leave anything special?"

"Just... just photos. Things I collected. Special things." I frown into my hands and wait for her to tell me that I am pathetic for holding physical objects in such high regard, weak to be so materialistic about my life - memories, feelings, secrets, they do not exist anymore.

But she doesn't. I look up and she is looking at me with some vague expression floating on her features, some long-lost feeling she has forgotten in her quest of self-realization. She reaches forwards, fingers brushing the hair from my eyes. I hold my breath.

"I'll get them for you," she says, voice like cream on my skin. "And then I'll give you a haircut."

Something flowers in my chest, something bright and eager and fragile, like small bones in strong fingers. I look at Jet, with her crystalline eyes and devil-lips, look at her and smile. She peers curiously back at me, like she has never seen me before, like it is only us in the whole zoo and the animal calls and children's laughter fades like old records scratching to a finish. "Let's get some ice cream," she murmurs, pulling her hand away and resting it on her bare thigh. "Come on."

Obedient rat, I follow.

----

This isn't girl-love (yet). It's obsession and friendship that buries itself so deep inside your bones it consumes you. I think the friendship between girls is really interesting. A lot of them turn unhealthy, in my experience. It's fun to write about, I suppose.

Wonderland

iv.

The Rabbit is running. He is always running, he has to beat the clock, you see. Terrible amount of things to do. So much work, the Queen must only have the best.

Yes, yes, he knows that his clock has stopped. Those two hooligans filled it with jam (strawberry jam-how dare they-). Yes, he knows it isn't quarter to three. It's the principle of the thing. Listen, he can't stop to chat, he has to run. He's very late.

The Rabbit is always late, nobody always seems to get there before he does. Nobody can be the fastest person in wonderland, nobody is faster than the Rabbit. Oh, sometimes the Rabbit longs to beat Nobody.

No, no, this won't do. The Rabbit shakes his head and darts away, into his tidy little home, to pick up his pristine (sterile-stark-stark raving mad!) white gloves. He is white. His room is white. He carefully looks in the mirror, carefully inspects his shoes (perfect shine), carefully examines at his vest (buttoned perfectly) and carefully avoids his eyes. He walks (runs, leaps, bounds) out his clean white door. If only he could wear white all the time.

Yes, he wears red for the queen. The Queen is rather picky, you know. No, no, that won't do at all. She is particular. The Rabbit sometimes admits (lies, lies) that he is also rather particular, but the Queen is particular in ways he cannot be. Sometimes he weeps when the soldiers take out the paintbrushes. Sometimes he wipes them off carefully with his white (cold, cold, white) kerchief and carefully hops away. He doesn't really feel guilty. Only a little, only when the card soldiers get beheaded (there is the red again, red-red like blood, red like life). He has never tried to stop the Queen however, even though she is illogical, after all, he doesn't want to be beheaded (no, no, because then he'll see...there will be red coming out of him and he is supposed to be white-blank, blank white. Logical white. There will be no red for him. There will be no life for him.)

The Rabbit blows his trumpet and calls out names and keeps his eyes on the clean white tiles and wishes he were home. Oh dear, oh dear. He shakes their hands, he shows them the way into the castle (Yes, yes up those stairs, near the tapestry with all the hearts, why aren't I coming with you? Well, you see...you see...I'm awfully, terribly sorry, too many things to do.) and then he cleans his gloves. He has to clean his gloves. They have to be spotless.

The Rabbit sighs, the Rabbit goes home, and places the pocket watch in the velvet-lined box in the drawer for his pocket watches. He takes of his great coat, his hat (oh he how he hates that hatmaker-with his rich black tea) and his monocle. He takes off his gloves, he wipes a finger on the mantel (no dust, never dust, there can't be any-) and turns around. And stops. He forgot (how can you forget? White does not forget!). He is looking in the mirror-he is looking into his grey, grey eyes. And there is no reason there. No. No there must be. (There is always reason and logic and sterile stark barren blankness and he can't, he mustn't think in shades of grey. Black and white. White and White. White white white...white is not the color of madness or passion or love or life. Everything in wonderland is Red. Except the Rabbit. The rabbit is grey. He is grey, no matter how much he tries to scrub away his color.)

The Rabbit looks at his reflection, and the Rabbit smiles, because Reason and Rhyme never had a bloody (bloody, bloody, Haha! What fun! exclaims the cat) thing to do with it.

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.

Wonderland

ii.

The Hatter used to expect the unexpected. Now he expects nothing, and he is never surprised. All he can do is take another sip.

The Hatter smiles and plans un-birthday teas on the day he is born, just to see what will happen. Nothing, of course. Everything, of course.

Sometimes, when he has tea and scones on his own, he dances and balances the cup on his brim and tries to count until he spills a drop. The Hatter has nothing else to do anyway. But the Hatter has so much to do, why does he waste his time? The Hatter hurries-quickly, quietly, with poise that scare the dormice and the hares, the Hatter commands without commanding. The Hatter declares with a whisper that sounds through the clearing and calls together anyone who knows how to listen. Tea is served.

The Hatter has been poisoned. Mercury poisoning, because mercury slowly-quickly corrupts. Mercury, the fastest planet orbiting the sun, that can be seen sometimes performing its revolutions on the brims of his hats or the rims of his teacups.

Mercury, the quicksilver element that escape from everyone's hands but his own. The Hatter may be mad, but he knows that he can never try to tame Mercury. Mercury has tamed him.

Mad as he is, the Hatter is gifted. No hatter can make a hat as well as he. But the Hatter never sells them. Because he is Mad? Maybe. The Hatter makes the best hats because he understands the quicksilver more than any man. He understands, and has forsaken his beloved water to swim in mercury instead.

Mercury, Hermes, Mercury. God of Eloquence, of Magic. Mercury, the psychopomp that leads the souls away after poisoning them. Mercury, the orator, the mathematician. Mercury, god of knowledge, of debate, of persuasion, of information. God of dreams, of speed, of flight, of cunning, of commerce, of contests and luck, of merchants and of thieves.

For Mercury is a fickle friend and can give you profits and steal them away. Mercury, the tricksters; jesters and magicians, for they are both the same thing.

Mercury, the Hatter thinks as he pours Earl Grey for a violet non-stranger, Mercury is a cat.

The Hatter knows better than to worship Mercury. He would much rather have a fair-weather friend.

The Hatter knows Mercury. He knows that he is not Mercury. No. Never that. For the Hatter always stays the same, and it is when he is the most static and unchanging that he is the most unpredictable.

"Let's get up," he says to his guests, "Let's switch seats."

He can never say, "How do you do?" or "Fine weather we're having." The Hatter tries to speak on more than riddles and poems when he's giving out his tea. But he can't. The Hatter hides behind cured felt, his unanswerable riddles and silly poems and waits for someone who can make him feel sane in this never ending world of hearts and spades and dreams and death.

"Why is raven like a writing desk?" Are you as mad as I am?

--

I suspect I am, my good sir.

i.

She falls and falls and wait, why isn't she waking up now? No. She keeps falling. She can't see anything, just a blur of bookshelves and cabinets and stars, the universe as it slips past her fingers and she falls. That it isn't dark is her first realization. That she can think coherently is her second.

She falls and she falls, and after realizing that she resigned herself to following the rabbit as soon as she closed her eyes, she gives up and waits. She doesn't know what she is waiting for, to wake up, or to land.

--

She can see the grin in the darkness, before she anything else. She thinks that she knows.

"A-" she begins but a gloved hand silences her.

"You know who I am." The Cat smiles at her, smiles and the dark tail moves back and forth in lazy anticipation. "You know where we are. But." And the Cat stops, and the smile is gone and all Alice can see in the not-quite darkness are two eyes that already know every single thing she is going to do and has done. I know. Just as quickly, the smile is back, the eyes are dancing and Alice blinks, because she cannot have made that up. "But, do you know why we are where we are?"

Alice shakes her head, and there again is that pause, that calculation, before the smile that is not a smile, "Because," and the voice is lower, "we are all mad here."

And then the Cat is gone, and Alice tries to remember-something, anything, but the smile is the only thing left.

--

The smoke makes Alice cough, but she bats it all away to see the dark figure.

The caterpillar reclines peacefully, only raising an eyebrow when Alice steps closer.

"And who are you?" Who are you? Who are you? Who are you? And yet, from those lips, there are no inflections and Alice does not know what the meaning is anymore.

"I don't know who I am." She expects sarcasm, perhaps an acerbic remark. But there is neither sympathy nor contempt in the obsidian eyes.

"Then you have a lot to search for." She can only nod.

--

Alice sits in the chair across from the most impassive being ever. N-no. The Mad Hatter. She thinks she understands.

The Hatter sips the tea peacefully in the silence and places the cup on the saucer without a clink. Alice stares.

"Why are you the mad hatter?"

The laughter could have been genuine or caustic. "You can't tell? I have played with far too much mercury."

And then Alice is sent back. Mercury, mercury, the Cat. The Cat drove the Hatter mad. Or maybe sane? The Cat's smile is still in her mind, flitting out of focus when she thinks she has captured the image, slipping through like quicksilver drops racing away to find something interesting.

The Hatter smiles, "Would you like some tea?" We are all mad here. We are all mad here. We are all mad here.

--

She chases and chases the white rabbit, but can never reach him.

She tries and tries and runs down the roads and gets hopelessly lost in a sea of teatime cakes and bottles that say "drink me." Drink me, drink me, I'm not poison. As if she weren't poisoning herself enough already. Drink me, drink me. Alright, she shall. And she does and then she sees the world through the eyes of a mouse, the world that is so bright and big and she doesn't know why she thought the world was ever ordinary. How could she think that? If the world was ordinary, then Alice would be ordinary. And ordinary girls don't chase white rabbits.

--

Alice is lost. Alice stares.

"Which way should I go?" she asks the disappearing-reappearing figure that she has given up trying to focus on.

"That all depends on where you want to go."

"I just want to go somewhere." Alice cries, frustrated with the riddles. She doesn't understand anymore. She doesn't know what to think.

"We all go somewhere. You can get somewhere." The Cat talks like he's a patient teacher. And Alice stopped scowling-she doesn't understand. She knows better than to try to understand. Instead, she listens like she's a patient pupil.

"How do I do that?"

"Just place one foot in front of the other."

"Then, where will I go?"

The Cat smiles. He's not telling.

--

The next time she meets the Hatter she is on trial.

The Hatter is still impassive. He does not take off his hat when he bows to the queen, and somehow keeps his head intact. It's quite alright, it's quite alright. I'm just mad you see. And Alice tries. She tries her hardest.

"You can't be mad. If you're like everyone else, then no one is mad." But the Hatter just looks and gives an almost smile and Alice doesn't know whether or not he is amused or just shocked by the dreadful accusation that he might just be sane.

--

The White Rabbit is nothing like how Alice expected him to be.

He looks at her and the others as if he's the only sane one surrounded by madmen. Alice is beginning to think she agrees. The rabbit looks at her with clear grey eyes and listens to her argument. And matches every point with a counterpoint.

"I don't belong here."

"And yet, here you are."

"If I only knew which way to go."

No, The White Rabbit says. Listen to Logic, the White Rabbit says, Listen to Reason. Think rationally, young lady. And Alice says that she is, why doesn't he listen and the White Rabbit blinks and looks at his pocket watch.

"You are running out of time," he mutters. But his watch has stopped at quarter to three. Alice looks at the White Rabbit's grey eyes and realizes that she is looking at the clarity of madness. Silly little girl, we are all mad here.

--

The Queen of Hearts is cold and cruel and heartless.

She looks over Alice and tosses her head and continues to recline in her throne.

"You can't entertain me." She doesn't smile, Alice feels like she has never smiled-no, that isn't right-the Queen must have smiled sometime, but now it's gone. The dark ringlets that frame her face catch the light as she leans forward. "Tell me why I shouldn't behead you."

"Please?" Alice asks. And the Queen blinks and let's go of her staff and her "Off with her head"s and invites her to a game.

"Can you play chess?"

"No." Alice is never timid, she is never quiet, but something in the Queen makes her sad and lonely. Very well. No chess, then.

Alice tries to play her games, but she has never played croquet with flamingos, and mustn't it hurt, to be used as a mallet on hard wooden balls across blades of grass? They are blades of grass after all. And they seem to be dripping with blood.

"Oh no, that's not blood. That's paint." Alice blinks and looks up at the roses dripping red paint and says nothing. Alice knows better than to say anything at all, because-

As they were leaving the palace, Alice glanced up at the beautiful florid queen and saw her gazing silently at another throne. There is no King of Hearts.

--

When Alice wakes up she sees the eyes of her sister. Calm cerulean meets a wild sapphire.

"Alice! Alice! You were sleeping! Was it a dream? Or a nightmare?"

"It was both." Alice whispers, giddy on insanity and wisdom, "Both."

Her sister blinks, Alice's eyes are still wild and glowing with something she can't describe. "Alice, you're acting quite...
mad."

And then Alice laughs, suddenly she is older-younger than she ever was-has been-will be-"It's okay sister," she whisper-screams, "we're all mad."

The next day her sister passes it off as reading too much fairytales. Alice waits until she leaves to look at the mirror with brilliant eyes.

---

Jag vet att detta inte är helt korrekt, om man går efter filmen, och att det finns en King of Hearts, men han är en pushover, så jag ignorerade honom.