In a Parallel Wonderland

“Why are you always too small, or too tall?” asked the Madhatter. Alice thought intently and replied, “I guess, everything is timing. Maybe for you, we just seem to catch each other in a bad time. But we are always where we are supposed to be at any given time.”

“Maybe we were meant to meet each other—a perfect meeting in an imperfect time, because we needed to learn something,” Alice added, “the fates may have even wanted for both of us to change our courses, to jar us out of our complacency, to find union and acceptance in each other even if everyone tells us that we don’t deserve it.”

The Madhatter was silent. “You ask me why I’m too small or too tall, too little or too much of anything,” Alice said, now angry. “I ask you, why can’t I be enough? And why is it always about me? What about you, you’re half-mad all the time, but you don’t hear me complaining, do you?”

“I only ask because you have a mission, to fight the Jabawockee,” said the Madhatter, “would you be willing to fight even if all the odds are against you?” he further asked.

“Me?” asked Alice, “why me? I’m no champion. I could die trying, you know.”

“But the compendium,” the Madhatter explained, “shows you slaying the Jabawockee. You won over it. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“It’s just a book,” Alice said, “it could mean anything, it could mean nothing.” Alice paused a moment, paced back and forth, thoughtful. Then she spoke: “I have risked so much to be here,” Alice said. “I’ve run through the wilderness, slept under the shadow of your hat, uncertain of what’s outside it, jumped over heads and god knows what else. If that’s not fighting, I don’t what is.”

“But if I do fight the Jabawockee, and I could, what would you do? Would you be willing to fight the Red Queen? Would you be willing to fight at all? Because I can’t be the only one fighting.”

“If you fight the Jabawockee,” the Madhatter said, smiling, “you get to stay with me.”

“But this is all a dream,” Alice replied, “I would be mad to think that this could be real.”

“If this is just your dream, then it means I’m not real,” the Madhatter said, half-asking. “Sorry,” said Alice, “you’re just a figment of my imagination.”
“But that means you also have to be half-mad to have even dreamed about me,” the Madhatter said, triumphantly.

“You’re right,” Alice conceded, “I must be mad. I must be very mad.”