The Hare's Lament

The table stretched long and uneven beneath the twisted canopy of the Mad Hatter's garden, covered in teapots and stacked like lopsided towers, mismatched cups, and crumbs from cakes no one bothered to finish or clean up. Laughter rang through the air; each clinking of glass made his eye twitch. The March Hare was singing at the top of their lungs, off-key, he noted. Somewhere down at the end of the table, the Dormouse was drunkenly recounting a story no one understood while the Hatter himself twirled a spoon while looking dreamy-eyed at all their friends.

There he sat, the White Rabbit, slumped in a chair far too big for his small frame, staring blankly into his cold, forgotten cup of tea. A cigarette smoldered between his fingers, the first he'd lit in years. Exhaustion weighed heavy on his shoulders, dragging him down into his seat as the chaos of celebration swirled around him.

He drew a long, bitter drag, exhaling a thin pink plume of smoke that disappeared into the night air. Yes, a celebration was in order, but the party felt hollow to him. A carnival he could no longer bear to participate in. All he could think about was her.

That girl. That reckless, annoying, impossible girl.

"Cheers to Alice!" They all exclaimed, jolting him from his thoughts. 

Yes, Alice. 

Thinking on the last few horribly chaotic days, he leaned back in his chair and gave an unenthusiastic smile as the celebration continued with or without him.

It all began, he supposed when Alice first stumbled into Wonderland. The rabbit rubbed his temple, recalling the moment his already overwhelmed life had been thrown into even more disarray. He had been rushing, as always, carrying an arm full of scrolls, a pocket watch ticking loudly in his ear as if mocking every tardy step. The Queen of Hearts demanded he bring her the latest proclamation before sundown, and the rabbit, ever the loyal servant, had been panicking.

Then, out of nowhere, Alice appeared.

"Oh, dear," she had said, her voice lilting with curiosity. "A talking rabbit! How extraordinary."

Extraordinary? No, what was extraordinary was her complete inability to respect his apparent urgency and privacy. She had followed, questioned, stalked, and chased him. The memory made him cringe. He had tried to lose her on the twisty paths of Wonderland, but she had been more persistent than anyone he'd ever encountered. 

And then, disaster after disaster.

First, there was a horrible incident at the house. The rabbit clenched his jaw at the memory. He had politely - albeit frantically - asked her to fetch his gloves and fan, just to stop her from all the inane questions she was asking, only for her to grow into a giant and destroy the place. His family home! Ruined! She had knocked over priceless antique furniture that he told everyone was passed down from his family but was actually stolen from the palace.

If you were going to work for a megalomaniac tyrant, you might as well build in some perks. Nonetheless, his home was utterly destroyed, the neighbors in a frenzy, and it would take weeks to fix.

Then came the tea party, where he'd hoped to regain some semblance of normalcy. Instead, Alice had barged in uninvited, questioned everything, and thrown the already chaotic gathering into utter disarray. Which was Hatter's preference, but he believed his structured and ordered lifestyle had been rubbing off on Hatter until Alice. He had instead spent the entire time ringing his paws, trying to salvage his paperwork while the Hatter poured tea into his briefcase, and Alice laughed like she didn't have a care in the world.

Then came Tweedledee and Tweedledum. He groaned, just thinking about the two fools. Who he loved, but it wasn't easy.

"Oh, Rabbit!" Tweedledee sighed, clutching his chest. She's so magnificent! Did you see her hair? It's like gold!"

"And her eyes!" Tweedledum added, swooning. "Like twin pools of-"

"Enough!" He had snapped, but it was no use. The twins had fallen hopelessly in love with Alice. For days after she left, he knew they wouldn't stop mooning over her. Knowing his future would be full of dreadful poems and spontaneous duels over who loved her more. It would fall to him to lull them to sleep every night, singing lullabies and telling stories until they finally, thankfully, forgot her. Yet another task he had no time for in the wake of Alice's destruction.

The trial, though – the prosecution was the breaking point. He could still hear the Queen's voice booming in the courtroom as Alice disrupted the proceedings. 

"Off with her head!" The Queen had shouted, her face red as her own roses.

And what did Alice do? She laughed.

She laughed in the Queen's face, of all things. He had nearly fainted, convinced he would be next on the chopping block.

And yet, somehow, sweet little Alice had survived. More than that, she had thrived. She grew, shrank, argued, and defied every rule in Wonderland. By the time she left, everything was in shambles - the Queen's authority, not that he minded; his nerves were shot, and the entire order of Wonderland itself had crumbled.

A cheer erupted at the far end of the table, jolting him from his thoughts. The March Hare bounced a stack of tea cups on his head while the Hatter clapped and hollered.

He took another drag from his cigarette, letting the smoke curl lazily in front of his face. He couldn't bring himself to join the merriment. For them, Alice's departure was cause for celebration. She had started something, something new and exciting and hopeful.

For him, it reminded him of the chaos she had left.

But as much as he wanted to resent her, he couldn't deny that something had changed in Wonderland. For all her faults – her impulsiveness, her arrogance, her complete disregard for decorum - Alice had shaken things up.

The rigid, oppressive order of the Queen's rule had cracked. People were openly questioning the Queen, laughing again, living in ways they had never done before.

Even he, for all his protests, had to admit something about Wonderland felt…freer.

He stubbed out his cigarette on the table's edge, the embers sizzling as they met the wood. The thought didn't comfort him, not really. He was too tired to find meaning in it. Too tired to think about what came next. Too tired to remember he didn't have a home to go to or a bed to sleep on thanks to little old Alice.

The Hatter appeared beside him, grinning like a fool, a teapot in one hand and a cup in the other. 

"Why so glum, old friend?" He asked, pouring tea that immediately overflowed onto the table.

He sighed, "You wouldn't understand."

The Hatter tilted his head, his grin widening.

"Oh, pish posh! Everything makes sense if you stop trying to make sense of it!"

He opened his mouth to argue, only to close it again. There was no point. He glanced at the others—at the March hare, the Dormouse, and the assorted oddities of his friends who called Wonderland home—and let out a long, slow breath.

Perhaps the Hatter was right. Maybe it was time to stop trying to make sense of it all. Alice had come, and she had gone. She wouldn't be falling down that hole a second time. Wonderland had survived, if not unscathed. And he? Well, he was still here, wasn't he? And with all of this disorder, he is the natural choice to help bring it back to a new, freer order. He wouldn't be out of a job.

He reached for a teacup, raising it half-heartedly in a toast. 

"To chaos." He muttered under his breath.

The Hatter laughed, clinking his cup against his own. 

"To Alice!" He said with a wink.

He tried, but nope, the words failed him. So he didn't respond. He simply drank his tea, letting the noise of the party wash over him as he lit another cigarette.

For better or worse, life in Wonderland would go on.

He reached for his bag; if he was going to be depressed in his broken house, he'd take some of this cake back with him to sulk in peaceful silence.

But when he opened his bag to put the first of many slices of cake in, he saw a rolled-up scroll he didn't recognize.

He took care of unfurling it in case it was something important that the Queen, even in her mocked state, would come looking for. There were only three words written in a hurried script.

She'll be back

Horrified, he looked around the table; there sat the Hatter at the end, smiling, his green eyes spinning as they did when his madness overtook his mind but when truth rang clearer. He stared at the Hatter, confused. The Hatter's smile grew, and he slowly nodded at him.

In frustrated disbelief, he sat back in his oversized chair, still clutching the paper.

"Well, shit," he said aloud, though no one could hear him as the celebration pulsed to its peak.