We Are All Mad Here

**WARNING: Touches on themes of abuse and mental illness**

“And so she sat on, with closed eyes, and half-believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had only to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.”

*   *   *   *

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“Hi, I’m calling from Dodgson’s Beach. A group of us came to catch some morning waves. There’s a lady locked in a car out here, looks like she’s asleep with this sick grin on her face.”

“Did you try waking her up?”

“Doesn’t feel right. Threw a couple pebbles at the window. Nothin’ happened.”

“What is your exact location? We’ll get a cruiser right out there.”

*   *   *   *

I sit in my car on a moonlit beach and release my mind from its leash.

There is a turtle on the dock that is mocking me. I see a tear but know it’s not real. He is, after all, a turtle, lock, stock and backbone of rock.  But mock or not, I’m empty as a sock. Would you stoop to be soup if I donned a fresh frock, and turn that mockery to crockery, scoop stew from your wok?

The turtle bristles and prepares to return to the water.

“You mock my mockery,

although you must know,

All that you see

is but only for show.” 

With that, the turtle disappears over the edge of the dock with a splishy kaplunk.

Humph, I think, as I slip on my funk, the poetry is poor, I’m sure, as his mock soup would have proven. Maybe a lobster will come and make a salad out of me, at least a dent in a difference. In the meantime, I’ll change that to happy hour, if I’m not too late. Either way, I dare you to catch my drift, if you can.

If someone should ask me

how I came to be here,                                            

there’s no way I can tell them                                    

in a way that’s cohere –

Ain’t it nice how I dress,                                        

but have nowhere to go,                                           

it might make one wonder                                        

why go on with this show.

I could go to trial with the Queen on the bench,                 

deciding my fate with a hammer and wrench.                                

I could face a jury asking who stole the tarts,                        

a question I’d answer with false fits and starts.

So, off with her head!                                           

My future is toast.                                                

With Dormouse as counsel,                                      

I’m destined to roast.

Within the walls of the palace                                      

I never could win.                                                  

And it’s not worth the penance                                            

to begin life again.

I’m in way too deep now,                                            

I’ll never be free.                                                     

The Prince is damaged                                          

and clever,                                                         

and never loved me.

I have no real choice here,                                          

I have no home base.                                                 

I’ve run out of keys.                                                

I want out of the race.

*   *   *    *

When I arrive home from work this day, pumped with practiced optimism and wearing a sunny smile I carry in my back pocket, I first call my husband’s name.

“Chase?”

No answer. Preferable to several alternatives. The rabbit hole beckons, as usual, offering sanctuary if the need should arise.

I breathe deep and enter the living room.

Chase is propped up on his mushroom couch, puffing on his pipe, cool as a cucumber. I take his temperature.

“You look great up there! How was your day?”

His eyes are glazed as they turn and become fixed on me. I tense, fight or flight.

“Ah, Rudy, come to play reindeer games?”

Guess what I choose.

“Do you have to start that way? Would a simple ‘hello, honey” be so difficult?

“Oh, here we go!”

I throw up my hands. When will I learn?

“Well? Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

I shake my head, go to the kitchen.

“Good idea.  Start dinner. I’m starving.”

I grab my bag and walk out the back door.

I hesitate, turn and think to myself, “What happened to . . .” then stop myself.

I have nowhere to go.  

So I get in the car and drive until the gas tank is close to empty. I park in a beach parking lot facing the water.  There are other cars, I imagine some with couples in varying stages of whatever it is other people do.  

I’m lost, but that is nothing new.

*   *   *   *

“Who are you?”

"What do you mean? I'm your wife.”

“But you act so strange, really odd. What’s wrong with you?”

Trapped again. There is no way to answer this.

“I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

“I didn’t think you would.”

“Chase, I really can’t take much more of this.”

“And that’s just like you, isn’t it? Give up, walk away.”

“But it doesn’t matter what I say. It’s wrong, I’m always wrong!”

“Please, stop being so dramatic.”

“I can’t talk to you.”

“You and your reindeer games. Here we go!”

And there I should have gone, I should go. But I don’t. I carry the promise of “should” around just as the word implies: empty possibilities. I am so unsure of just about everything, I doubt I’d have enough confidence to cross the street.

*   *   *   * 

Chase enjoys entertaining and suggests we host a dinner party. We average about one a week with mostly Chase’s friends and family. I know I will be cook, caterer and clean-up for the evening but, as it makes Chase happy, I reluctantly agree. I resisted the idea once because I had an early morning the next day. You would have thought I told him I’d shot the neighbor’s dog, or his mother. So, let’s prepare the shopping list and start planning!

The night arrives, everything is in place. The house is spotless, the table is set with candles and flowers, the chicken is roasting, soft jazz playing. I’d just turned the lighting on low when Chase comes into the kitchen where I’m putting finishing touches on a cheese and cracker board. I can feel the frown before I see it.

“Hi.”

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

Chase shrugs.  His expression shifts to interest when he spies the appetizers, swoops in for a handful of olives.  He walks out.  

I change my dress.

*   *   *   *

"This chicken is delicious! I’d love the recipe.”

“It’s really simple. My mother . . .”

“Hey, did you hear the one, my wife’s such a lousy cook, the flies chipped in to fix the screen door!”

“Good one, Chase!”

“King of the one-liners!”

“Who wants more wine?”

“There’s more in the kitchen, I’ll get it,” I offer.

“My wife told me she wanted to go somewhere she’d never been before. I said how about the kitchen!”

*   *   *   *

Mission accomplished.  People have left, filled with food, drink and merriment.  Good for them. I’m cleaning up. I enjoy being alone. Chase is spread on the couch, his snoring louder than the late-night sports channel that’s on television.

I study his body, his boyish features in repose. I’m too tired to think but then these words ignore my fatigue and force their way in: “I should think you could make better use of the time than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

I smile at that, a worthy interloper. And so, my Drink Me bottle follows me as I continue tidying up. I kiss the bottle good night and then go to bed. I enjoy greeting and losing myself in the void. We are so glad you came! There’s nothing left to be done this night.  Just another tea party.

*   *   *   *

My job is killing off my brain cells one by one, so I turn it into a game; croquet naturally.  My mother-in-law acts the Queen, puffed out and grandiose. She tolerates me to a degree but I quickly learn it’s best to let her win. It’s not worth the childish tantrums or smoldering silence that inevitably follows when I play it straight.

The King appears to suffer the same sort of imbalance I’m experiencing, and is content to remain in the background, smoothing the Queen’s robes, sometimes padding the Queen’s numbers when keeping score, but that’s the most he will participate. He has a kind but weak countenance. Long live the King, but you didn’t hear it from me.

The Queen surrounds herself with all the lower cards in the deck. They eye her warily and prepare to fold at any moment, and often do. She is secretly and regularly referred as the Queen of Darts. That is what I hear.

When lunch is taken and I can slip away, I take long walks in the woods nearby and try to lose myself for a time. I often cross paths with a stray cat that regards me with curiosity. I can’t tell if it’s tame or feral so I keep my distance, although the cat appears and disappears without warning. I want to engage the animal but I can’t read it. The cat hisses and spits and then rolls in front of me exposing its belly.  When I cautiously offer a rub, it nips at my fingers and jets away. Fine, fine. Be that way.

*   *   *   *  

“Chase, honey, I was thinking, isn’t it time I look for work?”

“Doing what?”

“Putting my degree to good use, for a start. There’s so much I could do. Write, teach, edit. I don’t know where I should start.”

“First off, don’t get too ahead of yourself. I’ve been meaning to tell you something. Now’s as good a time as any.”

There’s nothing wrong, or unusual, I don’t think, with putting your dreams on hold to support your husband’s family. Chase said it would only delay my plans temporarily. I don’t have much by way of family myself and there’s no one nearby, so I agree to take on a dull bookkeeping job at an auto repair shop.

Now, I think, by sacrificing for my marriage, I get to really know my new family. If I devote myself to pleasing everyone, I’m sure it will come back to me in the form of a secure, loving partnership and the sort of home life I’d always dreamed of. Logic and heart tell me I’m going about it the right way and I should sleep well at night, wrapped and warm with the knowledge I am doing my best. But I don’t.

*   *   *   *

Chase and I land at the base of a rabbit hole together. There is a ring set firmly on my finger, and there is a slight disagreement, something small. I don’t remember what it was, though I do remember laughing it off. Chase’s expression darkens, he refuses to discuss it further and storms off. I, dumbfounded, face alone a dark hall lined with doors, all locked with no keys in sight.

I am reeling from Chase’s stinging overreaction when I come upon a bottle that reads “Drink responsibly” on the label, though I read it as “Drink Me.” So I do. Whatever it contains couldn’t hurt any more than my bewilderment. So, I drink. I feel bigger, whether true or not. I still can’t find a key anywhere but now it doesn’t seem to matter as much.

I don’t know it then, but this is a pattern that will stick around longer than Chase’s good moods.  

Chase returns and acts as if nothing happened. If I try questioning, exploring the matter further, I am met with one of two reactions: stone cold silence or an erupting volcano. I decide to carry a Drink Me bottle in case I need a place to retreat or to regain some of my original height.

Ugh. So, enough of this darkness and all the doors I am powerless to open. There’s a light that catches my eye. It appears at the base of the door situated at the end of the hall. It is the size of a mouse hole. If I look through it at eye level and squint just so, I see a garden. It’s so beautiful, I have to get there. Trouble is I’m either too large or too small. I try everything at my disposal. I eat whatever is nearby that tempts me. If the sign says “Eat Me,” I do it. I just need to find the right thing.

I’m putting on weight. What if Chase doesn’t like it? It’s obvious he’s hurting and needs something, something I have yet to understand how to give him. I’m failing him. What am I missing? Where is it? I’m adrift, treading salt water tears, the ones Alice shed when she felt helpless and lost. Where is the sense kept?

* * * *   

“Let’s go out tonight. You’ve cooked enough this week.”

“Tonight?” 

“Sure, we’ve been working hard lately, let’s treat ourselves.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

“And I can’t keep the surprise I thought of. Let’s get a puppy, practice for that family we’ll have some day. We can stop at the pound this weekend and save a life.”

Who are you and what have you done with my husband? I think it but never would say it.

*   *   *   *

Chase is smiling. We made it to the garden I’d seen through the mouse hole. I’m still confused and feel off-center, afraid of making a wrong move. Best play it safe. I know. I’ll entertain Chase just as I did before. I see him consult his watch and think he may need to continue his quest soon. Let me see.

There are animals in the garden.  They speak to me and I know how to communicate with them. It’s easy to see they are safe for me to engage. Let’s have a race! It is a silly business and I’m lost to it, but in a delightful, childlike way. When I find myself out of breath from laughing and enjoying my new friends, I look over and catch a disapproving eye from my husband. Games are over.

*   *   *   *

I met Chase at a keg party hosted by his fraternity when we were both freshmen in college. Chase was crossing the main room carrying two cups of beer. I was facing the opposite direction, slightly tipsy and having a laugh with some girls from my dormitory.  Chase apparently tripped, though managed to regain his balance. The beer went airborne and landed on me and me alone.

Following my initial “what kind of idiot are you” reaction, Chase responded so genuinely mortified and apologetic, I allowed him an attempt to salvage the situation. So, I didn’t mind accepting a beach towel, along with his company while walking me back to my room. 

We got to talking. He was certainly nice looking, clean shaven, well-dressed and mannered. The attention he continued to lavish on me soon replaced the resentment I’d first experienced with curiosity, and then fascination. I had to admit I was enjoying getting to know this charming klutz.

He impressed me with his self-confidence and determination to carve out the great life he’d carefully designed. He’d stop occasionally and look me squarely in the eye to emphasize certain points he was making. Made me blush every time, and then he’d stop talking and smile.  I loved that walk.

I learned that neither of us were attached. Chase waited for me while I cleaned up and changed. We went to a nearby club for drinks and talked. Drinks were followed by dinner and another long walk. When he dropped me at the dorm just prior to curfew, he kissed me lightly on the cheek and whispered he’d never appreciated his lack of coordination as much as he had tonight.

* * * *

That night marked the end of my lazy, unsettled time. Just like Alice dozing on the bank, waiting for something to capture her imagination, Chase was my white rabbit. He had places to go, people to meet, a life to grab onto with all paws. Naturally I followed him down the rabbit hole.  He was my shining knight in white fur and he appeared to have a mission.

*   *   *   * 

I am hanging out at the recreation center near the lake the last summer before I leave for university. I’m enrolled in Lewis Carroll Studies, one of a subset of courses available for anyone seeking a degree in English Literature. That’s me. This is a time when many women seek higher education in hopes they’ll attract a better husband.  Not me. I’d always read anything I could get my hands on and, more than anything, I want to write.  

The trouble is I haven’t done anything. My life hasn’t really started yet. I don’t have anything to write about. In other words, I need experience.  

I’m looking for adventure.

*   *   *   *   

“And so she sat on, with closed eyes, and half-believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had only to open them again, and all would change to dull reality.”

#Reedsyunknown