No matter how fast he ran, it’ll take quite a while until they both reached the corners of the lid. The tab was taunting the two of them, it sat at the very top and she’s sure that if it fell they would both die on the spot.
“You know what it is. You’ve been here,” he said, almost a whisper but echoed like a church bell, “don’t pretend you’re clueless.”
“Well I am clueless, friend! Tell me! Tell me what it is. I’ve never seen it!”
“Let’s not talk about it, now—”
“IT’S A ‘OLE ‘NOTHER CAN O’ WORMS!” A new voice declared, an essence of pride blanketed each syllable spoken. It wasn’t a ‘new’ voice, really, she’d heard it before. Her memory has failed her yet again.
Before she knew it, there was a burst of confetti, loud to the point of deafening her like a flashbang. Her hearing was stopped for a few minutes and during that time Bernie told her to run – she’s not good at lipreading. Merely a deaf duckling dragged along by the rabbit, she felt ashamed of herself. No, not because she’s being dragged by the stand of her dress’s collar (she only noticed that now; Bernie’s movements are far too swift for his age), but because she can’t pin her finger on whose voice it was.
The white rabbit only quickened his steps that grew lighter, just a little faster and they’ll float off the ground. Her mind was drifting for a majority of it, just whose voice was that? The voice is not disembodied, therefore they will appear sooner or later. Dreams are always that way. Unless this was a nightmare, no stranger to the concept of eeriness and hairs standing on your skin.
An abrupt halt nearly threw her off her feet, though she was being dragged along the whole way, and she felt herself trip despite not standing up in the first place. It pulled Alice out of the mind maze she was lost in, and finally took the time to examine the very top of the can. A shadowy figure, similar to Bernie, though significantly thinner with ears that are hunched as if broken by the middle. A sense of impending doom washed over her as she saw the figure descend down, pulling on the tab as it fell. Along with the feeling that encapsulated her whole being, it appeared that thousands of wriggling worms had washed over her as well. The worms were flying out like water from a busted tap, or maybe a giant force that was condensed and finally released. It drowned not only Alice but also Bernie in something that was not her own thoughts. But technically it was her own mind, after all, a dream is a reality created within the flesh-machine inside one’s skull. What it was called, she’s forgotten, Alice was freshly out of a dream about a robotic dystopia.
Bernie, amidst the worms that wiggled about, only groaned and fixed his glasses. He seemed tired of it all, almost used to it, but not quite enough that he expected it. It’s always unexpected, he mouthed, at least she thought so. Beside Bernie, now his white fur and odd garments soiled in dirt from the pink noodles of nature, was a rabbit— no, a hare, with fur that’s closer to the dirt on the worms than the clouds above them.
Alice’s hearing finally recovered as the hare chuckled and continued his sentence. “Literally. You know, another can of worms.. being an actual can of worms. Get it? The saying. Let’s not get into it! It’s whole ‘nother can o’ worms.”
“I believe that’s not a saying.” The rabbit objected, his small paws clung to one of the giant worms despite his visible disgust.
“Pish posh, you bore. It’s not a saying here, but elsewhere—”
“Don’t drive her mad, now.”
‘But we are all mad here,’ Alice mused inside her mind. Of course, she couldn’t bring herself to speak it, she knows better than to interrupt a conversation Bernie is having. Such a strait-laced fellow, she thought, and her thoughts were adrift once more. At this moment she was focused on the rabbit’s challenging size. How small, how little he was! Those tiny hands could barely grab onto the worm, his tiny head can only hold a brain whose diameter is no longer than half of your average pen. His nose was the size of a dime and, oh, how miniscule, how absolutely fascinating! Maybe she was mad. She had gone mad, because who else examines their friend’s size during a conversation about worms while being drowned by them? Of course, this is Wonderland. They are all mad there, every single one, in their own ways. That much is immutable, it is absolute, it is destined, in the script and set in stone.
“Larnie, you just hate my genius mind!” Scoffed the hare.
Bernie huffed, rolling his Rs more than he’s supposed to, “IT IS BERNIE. Goodness, is it really that hard to just properly refer to me?”
“Whoops, sorry. That was on purpose. Come on, you ought to accept my foibles. We’re friends.”
Names always set him on edge. Alice knew not why, but the others (especially the most cheeky ones) would always pick on him for it. It made her feel worse about her mistake from earlier and also think about names. Names, oh, she remembers his name! That brown hare is definitely almost if not equally as old as the white rabbit, though he has less wrinkles around the eyes and more around the mouth. Those wide, bulging red eyes, the way the iris moves slightly with each second as if obsessively examining every little detail, those seemingly war-worn paws like a pet soldier returning from the battlefields. The blood vessels in his eyeballs almost spelt his name, and again, there’s no mistaking it.
“I know you!” Alice pointed at the hare and her smile grew wide enough to connect Mercury and Pluto. He didn’t respond to her immediately, only giving a chuckle that one can only imagine as a villain’s.
TO BE CONTINUE …
