Curiouser and curiouser

"Curiouser and curiouser."

Those were the words that bled from my mouth, unbidden.  A small noise of surprise, a hand held to a startled mouth in a futile attempt to hold them back. Curiouser and curiouser indeed! Was my brain casting yet another delusion? A trick of the mind to make myself believe I was her? That I, a foolish mortal with a mind for such tales, was Alice?

It was lies. It was all lies.

Just like my current surroundings must be, for certain!

The bright colours, the unnatural lighting. It was all a twisted game for my mind to control me with. Just a twisted, ironic game.

Oh, but how I yearned to believe it was true.

Words could not begin to make an impression on the way my heart made a small jump in its broken cage, hoping beyond any hope that existed on this Earth that every wonder, every apparition of delight that I could taste, could see, could hear, could feel, that all of these things of beauty could perhaps be a thing of truth, and not of delusion.

Somewhere inside of me, I could hear a cry of joy, the same cry that had sounded so many times before that any other mortal of sane mind would find a way to avoid its beauteous deception.

LEAVE ME ALONE

A desperate internal cry, a cry that I knew would yield no success.  

A mocking laugh was my only response. I could feel it, observing me, waiting for the moment when the last string that held me to the only hollow realization would snap.

The same string that was my only defiance. A string that I guarded fiercely, no matter how many times I wanted to end it with a rope.

How ironic, that a thread could be cut short with a rope? A rope, so simple it had a sort of glory to it.

I felt myself shaking my head.

A whisper, small and uncertain.

How can you be sure that you even moved?

I gave a snarl, bitter at the truth it spat. Such a horrible truth. A truth, so simple it was shrouded in a deep sense of horror.

Words.

Words that swirled in, foggy, crowded. Each one waiting with impatience to increase my doubt.

Hands, clutching at my head, trying to stem the flow of the horror.

STOP IT, PLEASE STOP

A tortured scream, a plea for mercy.

A relentless silence, the very emptiness a refusal.

I wanted to reach out and tear apart the blackness of the void, exposing the light that  was sure to reside there.

......

Was this it?

.......

Had I finally… Lost?

The voice laughed, chanting 'yes' all over again.

SHUT UP

My living nightmare refused to cease, chanting, chanting, refusing to end it.

End it.

I must end it now.

A glint, a shimmer of hope on the table.

I force my frozen body to move towards it, reaching out a shaky hand.

Yes.

YES.

There it lay in my palm, the gleam of the blade sounding notes of beauty too glorious to comprehend.

A way out.

Finally.

I raised it to my arm…

…..

No.

NO!!

THIS WAS WRONG, WRONG!

The illusion of salvation was shattered in that single strike, leaving a pain so intense that I could not even scream.

Yet still my arm moved, allowing more of the agony to seize me and shake my very body in its relentless jaws.


At last, I was released.

The thread snapped.

I sank to the ground, my knees folding under me like that of a foal.

Life.

Death.

It was all the same, really.

It did not matter how it ended, be it by blade or a simple rope.

So simple. So simple that it was twisted beyond reckoning.

I felt my eyes slide shut,  as my body surrendered to the force that had driven me for so long.


And in that final moment, I heard one last phrase, an ironic echo.

'Curiouser and curiouser.'