I have been told by many, many people, that it's not the
heights that we fear, it's the fall. I was convinced they were insane. Hello,
haven't they been up that high? It's terrifying.
Falling is not a good idea, either. Especially when you
can't see the bottom of the hole. That, I believe, is the worst part of
falling. When you can see the ground rushing towards you. Now, normally, when I
do free falls I am strapped into a roller coaster harness, which is safe. I
love roller coasters. I love the straight falls, too, l ike, Doctor Doom's Fear Fall at Universal Studios
Orlando.
This was something different. I have no idea where I got
the nerve to jump in after her. On a normal day, I would have never jumped off into a hole. Maybe a
puddle. Yes, a puddle would have been nice. But this was not a puddle. It was an
endless sea of blackness and I was expected to jump into it. Heck no. But maybe
it was having the opportunity to go to Wonderland, or maybe it was pure
insanity.
I'm thinking it was a combination of both, learning towards
the insanity side because, you know, I had to be dreaming.
And then came another panic attack. Yeah, I've had more
panic attacks inside Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland than I had ever had in my entire life. If
I had access to my twitter account, this would be a total #suckstosuck moment.
As I tried to calm myself down, which was easier this time
for reasons that are unknown to me, I pinched myself to make sure that I wasn't
dreaming, because that was a serious possibility that I hadn't thought of until
now -- now that I was falling down an impossibly large rabbit hole. Reality is
not my favorite thing. As I pinched myself, I did hurt. I distinctly remember
the feeling of being pinched by myself. Just to be sure, I then bit my tongue.
Did I mention that I was freaking out and rational thought had (apparently)
left me?
Biting my tongue was not the brightest thing I have ever
done but it worked, and I was then talking with a slight lisp.
“Well, that was sthupid.” I said aloud, nursing a slightly
swollen tongue.
As I was falling, I saw Alice looking around the hole. You
know, for a young girl, she was seriously calm about falling down a rabbit
hole. I really did start to wonder if she was, ya know, on something.
As I calmed down, and my tongue started to feel better, I
too noticed things around this rabbit hole. And it was not like other rabbit
holes. Not that I make it a hobby to fall down rabbit holes looking for the
entrance to Wonderland.
Well, I’ve looked through a few cupboards looking for
Narnia. I mean, who hasn’t? Right? No? Just me? Okay. I’m the weird one.
Alice was picking up jars, reading them, and then putting
them back again. I imagined it was because she was afraid of hitting someone at
the bottom, if there was someone at the bottom. Was there a bottom? And I heard
her mumble a few things to herself.
“I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?” She
asked aloud. This idiot (read: me), responded.
“A falling body in a vacuum accelerates at 32 feet per
second!” I did say that I was a nerd. Not that she intended for anyone to
answer her, but I swear she looked around. Because I could swear that she heard my small amount of
physics knowledge, she continued her rant about how far she (we?) had fallen.
Then she started talking about longitude and latitude, and
she lost me there. I have a lot of useless facts in my brain, but c’mon, it has
to stop somewhere. But her endless prattling about how far we’d fallen was
exactly like any young girl who wants to prove how smart she is. Alice wasn’t
dumb, that’s for sure. She was just young.
Her monologue – is it a monologue if someone can respond?
Or is that a soliloquy? I don’t remember…
Well, her conversation with me -- but was it really a conversation if
she didn’t hear my part? Oh dear, my head hurts now.
Stop, Cassie. Finish!
Whatever she was doing turned into her falling though the
earth and coming out the other side. She wondered if she would be in Australia
or New Zealand! Um, c’mon Alice. Everyone knows that when you dig a whole to
the other side of the world you come up at China. Well, at least that’s what my
parents told me. Maybe kids in England were told something different than kids
in New England. And, you know, 100 years
later…
At this point in my contemplation about child-rearing
differences in the UK vs. the US, Alice’s chatter turned loopy. She kept asking
if “cats ate bats” and “do bats eat cats?” and I was hoping for an ending soon.
Listening to a young girl go on and on about nothing is both adorable and
tiring. I think she was falling asleep, or maybe I was
the one dozing, but we definitely came to a final stop.
Alice pointed to a wall, and said something about the White
Rabbit, but I was like, 95% sure there was nothing there, but she was darn sure
of it.
So I looked around, trying to remember where in the story
we were now. I knew that the whole “falling” scene was rather short. Which was
a shame, because looking back, Lewis Carroll could have had a field day with
all the stuff that I saw on the walls of the Rabbit Hole. There were books that
I’ve never heard of (Waistcoat fittings for Rabbits, Volume 1), and jars
of serums for “lucky feet” and stopwatches.
There it was. The table that Alice was supposed to find a
key on. Again, however. There was no key.
“Cassie,” a whisper floated into the room. “Check your
pockets.” Sure enough, my spirit-guide Greek seer had finally assisted in a
helpful way. At least she didn’t say, “do your best, I can’t help,” this time.
That was going to get old quickly. So I’m grateful that she was kind of
assisting. This made me wonder about the “fairy godmother” archetype that I had
studied…
Alice was walking towards the table…I needed to put that
key on the glass quick! So I ran. Yeah, me. Running. It’s funny. I’m so not
athletic in anyway shape or form. So I was out of breath.
Alice, being the small, young girl she was, picked up the
skeleton key and started going around to all the doors in the hall. The doors
were either really, really big, or they were just too small. I knew which one
she had to go to. So I ran over the to curtain, and tried calling to her again.
Hey, if she’s actually seeing the While Rabbit, maybe she could
start hearing me, too!
Nothing.
So I kicked the wooden siding with a hollow thud. Alice
turned around. Progress.
She made her way to the curtain and pulled it back
revealing a tiny door. The key fit into the door and Alice opened it. Since I
had read the story a time or two, I knew what she was looking at. She was
finally seeing Wonderland. I bet it was more beautiful in person than in any of
the movies.
She walked back to the little table in defeat. She knew
that she was too big to fit through the doors. And I knew I was too big, too.
We both looked around for something to help. She was looking for a bigger door
and I was looking for a box of treats.
“You are doing wonderfully,” Cassandra the Seer appeared in
front of me. She was even more beautiful in the candlelight of the Rabbit Hole.
“Um, how’d you get there? The whole appearing and
disappearing thing is freaking me out,” I asked her with my hands outstretched.
“In times like this, the Gods above – yes, all of them are
real, too – have granted me the ability to pop in and out of reality in order
to help the hero.” She was so matter-of-fact about it.
I shuffled my feet, not sure what I had done wonderfully,
if I had done anything at all, really.
“Um, thanks. I’m not sure what’s going so great. I don’t
seem to have any “Eat Me” biscuits in my pockets. After your last hint, I
already checked.”
“That’s why I’m here, Cassie. We’ve discovered what’s
eating up the book.” She looked so sad for someone so beautiful. “There is a
dark curse filling up our beloved books. Children, and people in general, are
not reading anymore.”
It was nothing shocking to me. I knew plenty of my old high
school teachers who were saddened by the disappearance of literature from their
classrooms. I knew too many people at college who were so proud of their “I
hate reading!” status.
“You’re preaching to the choir, lady,” I mumbled, looking
down at my shoes. I wish I had worn sneakers.
“I don’t understand that phrase, but, I digress. You will
encounter something evil, and all-encompassing while in this story. You must
get Alice to the Mad Hatter’s party, then onto the White Queen, and finally to
defeat the Jabberwocky. But I can’t come with you any more.” She reached for
me, but I had too many questions.
“What do you mean, you can’t come with me anymore? How am I
supposed to get the small things, like biscuits and keys? How am I to do
anything without your help? I’m an English Major! Not a character!” Panic
attack #2 was about to start.
“Cassie, I still have some powerful friends who can help.
I’ve contacted the Muses, and they have agreed to help, as has Apollo.” She
rested a hand on my shoulder. “Since they are the keepers of books and such,
they can manipulate themselves into the story. I cannot. I am a humble Seer.
The Muses are the keepers of stories, so they can go into Wonderland with you.
An alternate reality – like Wonderland – is off limits to me.”
I huffed. I was starting to get attached to her. She seemed
so nice. The Muses kind of scared me. I wasn’t sure what they were capable of.
There was not a lot of information on the Muses, only what they did in
relationship to Apollo. And not-a-lot-of-information situations make me
nervous.
“Here,” she handed me a small bottle marked “Drink Me.”
That was too easy. I was grateful for easy at this point.
My journey was about to get harder.
“Rely on the Muses for your needs. I promise they will
help.” With that, she was gone. No poof. No Glinda The Good Witch bubble,
either. Just gone. Girlfriend needed to work on her exit. I made a mental note
to let her know the next time I saw her, which would probably be never, since
this job was looking to be more and more impossible.
“Here you are, Alice. Drink up.” I took a sip for myself
before re-corking the bottle. I didn’t want to get stuck in this room by myself
and let her see Wonderland. I wished I had brought my camera.
“This was certainly not here before,” I heard Alice say. It
was a little hard to hear her, since I was now about the size of a mouse. She
was taking too long to drink the bottle. Then I really thought about it. Good
thing it wasn’t poison. That would have been bad. But I didn’t look at it
before drinking. At least Alice had the sense – unlike me, apparently – to make
sure she isn’t going to die. Smart kid.
Since it was clearly not poison – I was living proof of
that even though she couldn’t see me – she drank the contents and began to
shrink.
I called out to her to not forget the key. Her
forgetfulness was part of the plot, as I remember. So she had to forget it.
“Sorry, forgot this,” Cassandra the Seer dropped a box of
something on the table, winked and poofed again. She really does need to work
on her exit.
Once Alice realized that she had forgotten the key on the
table, she began to cry. Stopped herself and said something about a game of
cricket. I wasn’t quite sure about what she said, mostly because it was said
through tears, and I was over by the door, quite anxious to get into Wonderland
before the Great And Powerful Evil (as I had then named it) took over.
Luckily, Alice saw the box of biscuits, and took a bite.
And nothing happened. So, being a child, she at the whole thing.
Boy, did she grow!
