Like a Fish in Water

I awake to a different sight than I did yesterday. There are flowers. And clouds made of elephants, all different colors, pushing at me to move, crawl, begging for me to keep going as far away from them as possible. Paisley, polka dot, cross hatched, rippling waves that won’t stop wiggling. I sway with their movement legs curled under me; the floor is squishy, my eyes half lidded and head bobbing like a pigeon to the beat of their pleas. The clouds can go through the walls. I uncurl and push my hand against an elephant, purple with black spots, only to fall as I push against nothing. The entities remaining converge from the clouds, screaming.

“Nothing more than a common weed!”

“Chase ‘em away! Chase ‘em away!”

“Off with her head!”

“No no NO! Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Clutching my head I squeeze my eyes shut, palms pressing over my ears as though that would drown the voices out. But the seeming safety behind my eyes was no better. The blackness was fraught with pinks and yellows, streaks and highlights that popped and dazzled as the with each instrument added, stringing together into the beginning of the universe as the melody continued. Bach? Mozart? Definitely not Beethoven; not enough canons, not enough anger. The swell of the horns drowns out into a dull buzz of the strings, there is nothing more I can do to escape except shuffle towards the door that towers above me. It wasn’t there before, but then again, neither were the elephants. I wrap my arms over the top of my head to keep it from falling off as I sway with the cascading sound of the violins. The brief serenade of a bassoon pulls me from my attempts to get free and I find myself wandering away, passing skeletons and banshees, their calls echoing and yet unheard through the corridors. All the crazy drowned out by the blaring of horns announcing the presence of a staircase to me. I let out a shriek, my hands flapping as I watch the cracked marble transform into yellowed earth that leads into the depths of hellfire, Chernabog waiting for me to become another lady of night. Or maybe even a pig at his endless party into the night.

Tiptoeing away from the demon and screams still echoing behind me, I continue onwards towards faint laughter, rows of gargoyles following my every move until a small sign announces my arrival to the game room. Each tap of my feet elicits small bursts of delicate chirps as they hit the tile, trying not to step on the faeries that form from the pink and blue marbled flooring, dancing between my toes to mark my path with a wave of their wands until the entire floor sparkles. I point to their naked bodies and laugh as the janitor Bernard smiles at me, pulling his living mop behind him, probably in search of the overflowing fountain.

The Red Queen is playing with her cards again, the childish king cowering across the table from her as she reveals a straight, all hearts. Approaching the table, the king now crying on the floor, I sidle up alongside the Queen, hoping to join her interesting game. Glaring at me as I grab for the cards she lifts her flamingo, waving it at me as I begin to pull my hand back towards me. The flamingo giggles the entire time, joyous as it's used as a weapon and wobbling around as though heavily inebriated. With a boisterous yell the Queen lands a blow against me, my shoulder red and throbbing just like her head as she continues to scream at me.

“OFF WITH HER HEAD! Don’t let her get away!” Falling backwards into free space, I twirl towards the end of the corridor, away from the Queen and towards the talking door. Following the hallway and slamming the door behind me, blocking the Queen from getting her stumpy hands all over my body, I discover myself to be outside. Outside in the garden I watch as it transforms from peaceful and serene into a ballet of jigging mushrooms and twirling lilies. Excited and yet so aggressive at the sight of me, the mushrooms circle up, the little one struggling to keep up. There caps are red and as I continue to shrink, I watch as their slanted eyes raise up towards me. They appear Asian, or maybe Middle Eastern…

“NO! Don’t be so racist!” Jumping over the mushrooms and twirling past the flowers I discover myself at the edge of a shallow grave of water. The fish in the pond stare at me, scuttling away as my shadow gets too close. Their fins are see-through, not big enough to even really swim and yet they still float waist deep in the water, maneuvering over rocks and branches as their lustful eyes turn away from me. The only evidence of their presence the bubbles they leave behind. I am too hideous for their beauty, too undeserving of their presence. But they are perfect for each other. The pink with the yellow, the black with the blue, and all the while I can do nothing but stare, fascinated by the bubbles that hold the evidence of their air.

I begin to sneeze, over and over, my eyes closed to the world each time as the demons are expelled from me, but in between, the glances I catch of the cotton and dandelions raining from the trees, so graceful in their annoying beauty. It will be all too soon that the faeries focus more on the leaves and freeze the tiny lake instead of accompanying me through the hallways. The rattling of chains pulls my attention away from the pond and toward a string of inmates, arms raised in joy as their shackles are released. They gather into small groups, twirling as the violins and cellos play faster and faster, almost throwing themselves into a fit of disarray before the crocodiles come to stall them, and they once again fall away from my attention. Silent. The little critters in the pond pull my focus back to the water again, growing from microscopic slime into plankton and seaweed. Over and over their evolution never ceases to amaze me. Although I wonder why they have yet to take over the world with how quickly they adapt into something better, with eyes and limbs and tentacles extrapolating out from an invisible head. I turn back towards the inside before the fish grow legs and come after me. Before the ground shakes and melts underneath my feet, the earth separating from the Pangean form it has taken.

Suddenly thirsty, the dust clouds blocking all light from me, I bury my face into the muddy lawn, hoping to gain the water from the remaining morning dew, twisting myself further into the dirt as it dries up before I am wrenched away by a behemoth. Their scaly arms rubbing painfully against the rows of scars littering my own. Twisting in an effort to escape, a pain shoots through my body, my eyes catching the tinted light of the sun through the haze of pollution from the factory up the street. I think of all the ancient creatures who had died this way, staring at the sun in search of water but being held back, prevented by a source outside of my own power from attaining the things I need to sustain myself. The tar, the mud, the quicksand, the predators surrounding me, all so desperate to kill me. To let my wounds bleed freely.

“No. No! NO! Let go OF ME! LET GO OF ME!” I scream and writhe, the pain rippling through my shoulders a testament to my struggle as the behemoth pulls me inside where I know I am surely to die. Their teeth are pointed, arms stronger than steel as I am wrenched away from my freedom, from my Jurassic destiny. The walls seem to laugh at me, their eyes boring into my own as I slide down the smooth tiled floor into a strange but familiar room. Books fly in and out of the walls, the floor green with a carpet of what seems to be shaven grass. I am forced into a chair, or maybe a couch as it is much longer than it is tall, the claws digging into my shoulders, only releasing me when I cease to struggle. There is a giant caterpillar lounging across the top of a mushroom, smoking from a pipe as he gestures for me to be lain down across the couch in front of him instead of sitting as I am currently. Shrugging away the creature who bares its teeth at me in an effort to make me comply. I am too enraptured by the strangeness of the scene before me. It made absolutely no sense as to why a caterpillar of a man would be presented in front of me as though he knew something that I didn’t. As though he was more important than me. That was simply not possible, as I knew the true reality of living, of existing as one of many beings on this dying earth.

“Who? R? U?” The caterpillar puffed his smoke at me. The blues and the pinks so reminiscent of the pond taken from me, the clouds disappearing again as they hit the walls. Receiving no condolence from the giant who had captured and proceeded to immobilize me I relaxed into the couch, admitting to myself that it was comfortable enough for me to remain in, and simply stared at the caterpillar, pulling at my fingers until each of them popped a dozen or so times over. With each pop the caterpillar seemed to grow bigger, or maybe I was growing smaller.

“Who? R? U,” he repeated louder as I continued to pull on my fingers, the bones no longer popping but the stretch quite satisfying. Curling into myself, I heard the horns begin to crescendo once again. The caterpillar man turned from blue to red, his anger filling the room with billowing pink and yellow smoke. Choking on the spreading mist and lifting my gown to cover my nose, I watched the caterpillar disappear into the cloud, ceasing to exist. I guess that’s a useful power to have, to make those I don’t like disappear.

The behemoth returned, white rabbit joined at their side, “are you ready for your medication? It’s time.” Curling even further into myself, hoping the couch would eat me alive, the pair approached even closer. The behemoth transforming into a gorilla and back again, the rabbit remaining as a rabbit. Although fangs seemed out of place for such a small fluffy thing. And there was a claw, silver, longer than the others. Turning away from them I froze in my curled position. I am a pillow now. Nothing bad ever happens to pillows, well, I guess except when they are thrown around and explode into the bajillion feathers they are made of. On second thought, maybe being a pillow isn’t such a good idea…

“NO NO NO NO NO!” My flapping arms did little to prevent the giant and rabbit from pressing themselves onto me. They were crucifying me, my wrists burning as the behemoth nailed them to the couch, my legs nailed to the rest of the cushions as the monstrous rabbit leaned over my chest, somehow having grown much larger in order to pin me. Continuing to scream and toss my head, the rabbit’s extra-long claw pierced my arm. I could feel the poison filling me, heavy, quiet… I wonder where the behemoth disappeared to? And that rabbit, vanishing into thin air. Or maybe it’s vanishing into black? How do you say it when something disappears in the night but you can’t see it? I guess it’s okay though, no more monsters grabbing at me.

It is strange though, the music has returned, seeping through the walls and cracks in the floor. First they were bright, yellow, and sharp as the harp and violin soloed, becoming shapely women as the trumpet riffed. The seams of the world turned into many tongues, growing larger and larger as the bassoon deepened until there was no more room for the tongues to grow. A scat and a skit as a kaleidoscope of red diamonds broke the squarish mold with each rhythm of the drum, faster and faster until everything vibrated, shaking as though covered in thousands of mice. It was all too much, too loud, but then it changed. Soft, quiet, the ceiling of puffy clouds filled with flying horses as the violins returned, filling every last part of my being, at least, if I still am a being. It was all so strange, the squishiness of the ground below me, the continued changing of the walls around me, not truly walls apparently as the mice covering them were now a falling stream of water. Oh, and the beautiful women, unashamed of their natural form, even though it is a bit inappropriate. My chest is moving too fast, weighted down and suffocating, it must be a laugh. Oh it is joyous to laugh, even as I still can’t catch my breath. It has been quite a long time since I laughed, it always came with chalices of old grapes and blood down my face. Too many memories of the tall bearded men who stung me with each pound of the drum, left to stumble around as every reconnaissance of my life was gone.

The music fades for what seems to be for the last time, a final chant from a pipe marking the end of whatever song it was pretending to be. The wiggling of the lines in the walls come to be stilled, square and repeated over and over to make the edges of the cuboidal room. My arms are curled around myself, the tips of my fingers touching the ridge of my spine, locked in place by the backwards shirt I seem to have on. The floor gives way as I roll off my hands and onto my side, the squish that reminds me of being in freefall becomes apparent quickly as I look around the room. It is wall to wall pastel yellow, panels of foam sewn together to cover every inch. The dangling straps and rows of buckles on my current outfit, beige and quite itchy, was indicative of a strait jacket. They had put me in solitary confinement.

Spotting a small gap in the door I called out, “Um. Hello? I would like to come out now.” The escalating thumps of footsteps bringing a nurse into view. He was large, at least six two, his muscles barely contained underneath his gray scrubs, with dark hair barely visible against the golden sheen of his skin. His almost black eyes stared me down through the opening in the door, continuing to frown as I continued to watch him.

“Or could you at least take off the straight jacket?” He remained stoic, arms crossing. “Please?” That seemed to do the trick. With the slight tinkle of chimes and a groaning of the door, I found myself face to face with the nurse. Or more accurately face to chest, and the black stitching there exclaiming Daniel.

“Do people ever call you Danny,” I asked, leaning over as Daniel walked behind me to undo the straps.

“Yes, but patients aren’t allowed. Glad to see you are back with us Allie.”

“Allie? What kind of name is that?” I rolled my shoulders, finally free from their confines.

“It’s the name you asked everyone to call you when you first arrived,” he said, moving back towards the door and beckoning me to follow him. “But I could use your original name if you’d like.”

“Depends,” I followed him down the hall, scanning my surroundings and rubbing at my wrists.

“Depends on what?”

“On what stupid horrible name my parents saddled me with.”

“Mmhm. How’s Alice for ya?”

“Alice? Hmm.” I shrugged my shoulders, moving past Daniel into a different room as he held the door open.

“Yes. It means noble and kind.” The door slammed behind me as I whipped my head up from the bruises on my wrists to address the deep voice that had answered me. An older man, probably somewhere in his early fifties, his suit too tight against his gut, creating rolls from his chest down from where he was leaning back against a recliner. A monocle covering his left eye and an antique pipe cradled between the fingers of his right hand.

“Why don’t you take a seat Alice,” he gestured to a small gray couch across from him. “Or do you still want me to call you Allie?”

“Alice is fine, I guess.” Shuffling across the green carpet I lowered myself onto the couch, continuing to sit perfectly straight as the cushions attempted to swallow me whole.

“So,” pulling a puff from his pipe, “how are you feeling this afternoon?”

“Um, confused. And a little stressed.” My arms wrapped around me, squeezing as I found it difficult to breathe. The man across from me nodded, releasing the smoke from his mouth, and letting out a wheezing cough.

“Do you know why that is?”

“Uh, not really. I mean, I’m assuming I’m in a hospital somewhere and that something is wrong with me but I don’t know what that is or who you are or even what day it is!” I began gasping, my arms squeezing even tighter around my body as my knees drew up off the ground to touch my chin. The edges of my vision were going dark and I still couldn’t draw in a full breath.

“Alice. Alice. Alice. ALICE! BREATHE! In for four, out for eight. One. Two. Three. That’s it. Out. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.”

“Eight.” Sagging back into the couch I continued counting, closing my eyes as my breath returned to me.

“Okay,” the man had moved himself to the floor in front of me, his pipe discarded with black ooze all over the floor. “Let’s start with me answering some of your questions while you continue to breathe. Okay?” I nod, starting my count over again.

“Let’s start easy. My name is Dr. Bernie Absolem and today is Friday, March fourteenth. You are in a hospital and have been since you were sixteen. You are twenty-three now and suffer from dysmetropsia.” I stopped my breathing, staring up at him as he let out a grin. “Also known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.” Letting out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding I let my arms fall into my lap, completely relaxing.

“Seven years, huh? Do my parents ever come by?”

“Sometimes. Usually whenever they can get the time off but they both work full time…”

“Accounting?”

“Insurance.” He rose from his position on the floor and returned to his recliner. “When they do come by they stay for a few days. They’ll read to you and watch you play with your hallucinations out in the garden. I can’t tell you how many photographs your mother must have of you rolling around in the grass and laughing.”

“Hallucinations?”

“Yes. Among other things.” He paused, his eyebrow raising as I began cracking my knuckles. “Do you want the full rundown of your diagnosis or would you rather talk about something else?”

“Full rundown, I think. I mean, I should know what’s wrong with my brain, right?”

“Well let’s start by saying that there is nothing wrong with you. You are suffering from a syndrome, a disorder, one that you have very little control over.”

“Okay, well, what can you tell me about it?”

“Well Alice, your situation is a little unique as you experience more hallucinations than is typical for the syndrome. While you usually experience micropsia and zoopsia you also experience a wide variety of auditory and temporal hallucinations as well as derealization.”

“English please?” I crossed my legs, shoving my hands underneath as Dr. Absolem chuckled.

“Ah, yes. My apologies. Micropsia is a visual hallucination in which the individual sees everything as being bigger than they really are while zoopsia is the visual hallucination of animals, typically swarms of mice or insects, or faeries in your case, but it can also result in singular animals. Typically large and exotic.”

“The dinosaurs.”

“Yes, exactly. And derealization, meaning that you are so out of touch with reality, you don’t really feel like you are living in it.”

“I’m guessing the auditory hallucinations are referring to the constant music I am hearing?”

“Mmm.” Nodding his head and leaning forward in his chair he continued, “and the temporal hallucinations mean that you no longer have any linear concept of time. We try to keep you on a schedule but it’s hard, you think months are a day and night is the middle of the afternoon.”

“So, the seven years?”

“Feels like just yesterday doesn’t it?” I nodded, suddenly feeling nauseous as I thought about all the parts of my life I’d missed.

“And this just happened at random or…?”

“Oh, no, um, we’re pretty sure it has something to do with the excessive amount of head trauma you experienced your junior year of high school. Several visits to the hospital, eighty-two stitches over a six-month period, crisscrossing your scalp. You were banged up pretty badly but no one knows how.” I dug my fingers through my hair, tracing the bumps covering almost every inch. There were so many, jagged and long, like from a broken bottle.

“So, all of the faeries, the endless hours of delusion. Are there even fish in the pond outside?” I leaned forward, my voice practically yelling.

“Not since you’ve been here, no.”

“And there’s no way you can help me? To give me a cure?”

He sighed, “unfortunately no. Your disorder comes from severe brain damage to various brain lobes. The medication we gave you was an experimental cocktail to suppress the excessive neuron activity that was contributing to your hallucinations. We weren’t certain it would work, but the results seem to speak otherwise.”

“So this,” waving my hands between the two of us. “Knowing who I am and seeing the world as it truly is, this is all just temporary?”

“We can continue dosing you with the medication once I tell your parents of the success, but with the high dosage it isn’t a feasible treatment in the long run. I am truly sorry Alice.” A knock at the door turned Dr. Absolem’s attention away from me. It was Daniel, back to escort me to another room. Waving a hand at Dr. Absolem I joined Daniel at the door, letting him place a large hand on my shoulder and steer me into the hall. Bernard the janitor passed us, smiling as he pushed his mop cart along, the mop and broom no longer walking behind them of their own volition. And the staircase was no longer the dark pit into hell. No dancing animals or towering demons looking to wreak havoc. Continuing past the staircase and to the end of the hall, I found myself in the game room facing off with the Red Queen.

“Hey there Leslie, Alice is feeling much better and wanted to join you for a game.” Daniel tilted his head towards the checkerboard painted onto the table. The redhead, Leslie, let out a giggle, nodding as she began to set up the pieces. Her fingers were almost as thick as the pieces, her body taking up space beyond the chair, but her continued giggling was quite comforting. Letting Daniel push me into the chair I made the first move, one black piece pushed out into the openness of the board. Leslie responded in kind and as Daniel took up residence in the corner, we continued to play our game. Black, red, black, red, I can’t believe I’ve been living here for seven years. Not knowing who I was or who my parents are. Not knowing anything about what is real and what is not.

“KING ME!” Leslie’s screech brings me out of my reverie. She was right, she had defeated my defenses and I owed her conquesting piece a crown. As I placed the crown atop her piece, I spotted a deck of cards under Leslie’s arm. Her giggling stopped as she saw me eyeing her, her hand coming to cover the cards from my view, a growl emanating from her throat as I continued to stare.

“Congratulations Leslie. I’m going to go outside now.” Shoving myself away from the table I meander out into the garden, all of the air being sucked out of me as I realized that there was nothing out there. Nothing but crumbling stone pathways and grass that was patchy, barely growing. The flowers were few and far between, most of them wilted and all of them extremely tiny, barely larger than my pinkie. Trailing over to the pond under the trees I let out a small shriek at the sight before me. The water is black, moss and other shades of green slimed across the rocks. A massive frog peeks its head through the muck and blinks at me before returning to the brackish water. Dr. Absolem wasn’t joking, any fish that were swimming in there would be long since dead. I just couldn’t believe it. Everything about this place was completely and totally awful. Turning back towards the inside my eyes skim over Daniel hovering in the doorway, his hands tucked into his pockets, and slide past him back into the game room.

Leslie had kinged all her pieces, red bottoms topped with black crowns. The king was curled up under the television watching Fantasia, just like all the other little people. Bernard had returned to the hall once again, letting the mop lead the way while all of his various brooms trailed behind. The staircase had darkened once again but the naked harpies and gyrating flames didn't elicit any fear in me. I know they aren’t real, that they can’t come out of the darkness and get me, but even still, the sight of them was comforting, so obscenely normal that the view of them didn’t feel strange. Moving to the other side of the hallway I continued my path to my room, feeling the stings of a thousand biting faeries as my hand trailed along the wall.

The door was still open, just as Daniel and I had left it. The yellow walls were almost a relief to see, absorbing all the sound, blocking out all the light, except for a tiny window in the highest corner. Treading to the middle of the room I let myself collapse into the floor foam, tilting my head up to view the dull blue sky, clouds trudging across the skyline as though they have all the time in the world. The clouds seemed to grow, taking up more and more of the room until I couldn’t see any patches of blue in the sky or panels clinging to the ceiling. The floor grew upwards, creeping over the edges of my fingertips as a high-pitched piccolo began to solo, dropping notes in and out as the harp joined in. The patches of walls visible glitter as though light was reflecting off of growing scarabs. Or maybe they were Christmas Beetles, large and green and brighter than sunlight. A knock at the door. I don’t remember closing it.

“Alice, it’s time for your medication.” The behemoth had returned, even larger than before, with a brown rabbit this time hanging off its arm. The rabbit wore a tiny hat and pants that were much too tight. Their paws dragged along the ground, weighed heavy with claws so long they must be painful. Rolling over from where my back was floating on the floor I crawled towards the corner, my hands and knees burning from where the lava burst up with each touch, melting off piece after piece until I was the size of a mouse.

“Oh come on now Alice,” said the rabbit. “You know you can’t hide from me.” The behemoth growled, blocking the door with its ever-growing body. The horns had returned, blaring so loud they seemed to shake the room. I curled further into the corner, wishing to shrink again to the size of an ant, or maybe even a flea. Something so tiny that the rabbit won’t be able to grab me or even see me. But they could still see me, the behemoth following behind the rabbit as they drew closer, blocking any path to escape.

“NO NO! GET AWAY! GET AWAY! I DON’T WANT THE MEDICATION!” My screeching did nothing to stop their approach, not even as the air rippled with the slicing of nails on a saw. Even crushing my ears with the palms of my hands did little to silence the growing sound. I screeched, becoming a banshee on fire, as my arm was grabbed away from my ear, letting the horrible sounds in. The rabbit opened a hole in my arm, letting the ants crawl in. The caterpillar was there, his pipe absent as he tried to speak. There was so much buzzing, vibrato escalating from the violins but then it was quiet again.

“-ry Alice. Your parents said to.” I struggled against the behemoth as Chernabog reached for me, I cowered against the ear-piercing laugh of the Red Queen. The yellow room and faery filled hallways were now a dancing green, filled with violets, irises, and lilies. And the one perfect rose, white as snow and hidden beneath a dew dappled spider web. All the flowers towered so high above me, but the tree was even bigger. It just kept going, like Mount Olympus, like I was nothing more than a tiny speck among the freshly churned dirt. Tilting my head along the bark, turning my view from the flowers straight ahead to the ocean I was seated against. There were jellyfish with massive fins, sharks larger than dinosaurs and crocodiles with flippers instead of legs. And the fish, their eyes huge and round, bursting with love for the partners they danced with. I don’t like that medication, that reality. I wanted to join them, to dance with a friend, to make my own choices. Yellow to blue to pink and then black, it was strange to have fins instead of legs, but it was quiet at last.