Wonderland is filled with (bleeding?) hearts.

The Queen may think she’s heartless, but Wonderland knows. Wonderland’s heart beats simultaneously with the hearts of its citizens and Wonderland’s Queen is a Queen of Hearts after all. She has been given the title, but until the Queen understands, Wonderland will not let her go.

Has Wonderland ever let anything go? Wonderland keeps all of them. The Rabbit, the Cat, the Dormouse, the Caterpillar, the Hatter, the Duchess, the Lion, and Alice.

Alice, little Alice, Queen Alice, the girl who wanders in through mirrors and holes in the ground. Alice, who was coerced into biting that pomegranate and now spends her life torn between two worlds. Alice was crowned, the third Queen around. The White Queen, the Black Queen, Queen Alice. They’re all the same. They’re still only chess pieces, after all. Wonderland isn’t captured by Alice, no, Wonderland can never be captured (it is the predator after all—trapping Alice in a deck of playing cards, ensnaring her on the chess board). But Wonderland changes itself (twists time and space and bends over backwards) to suit her fancy. Wonderland is so amused by the little pawn, that she is transformed into a Queen. A fitting reward for the amusement. A fitting punishment for the insolence.

Wonderland gives and takes. Wonderland knows where the line is, and crosses it every time.

If there is anything that knows Wonderland, it is the Cat. Wonderland and the Cat move together simultaneously, and the Cat can predict the movement of the pieces with such clarity, Wonderland must ask if the Cat is truly a bishop (because the bishop moves towards its victim from a dark invisible corner, he shall never be straightforward) or an opponent. No. The Cat and Wonderland are for the same thing after all. Entertainment. To be free from boredom. To watch, to listen, to observe. But never to act. But this is where Wonderland and the Cat are different. Wonderland is meant to do nothing but observe, unmoving, unchanging (lies—Wonderland moves and shifts faster than anything, as fast as the Cat—) while the players act out inside it. But the Cat is shying away from its purpose. The Cat shall be trapped in Wonderland until it decides to stop hiding behind mirrors and glass and speak. Because the Cat knows. Wonderland knows and Wonderland shall wait and watch, because Wonderland can’t—won’t stop the Cat from shattering inside.

Wonderland claims what it wishes. Wonderland gives in to whimsy. Wonderland is not mercury-mad, no—not like the Hatter, wonderland is mercury-madness. And the Hatter, that has been mercury-poisoned, drowns himself in Wonderland and Wonderland willingly drowns him. The Hatter wants madness, madness he shall receive. The Hatter neither smiles nor speaks, because he can’t, the Hatter watches impassively to every event that unfolds without saying anything unless it’s in a riddle and Wonderland submerges him. Wonderland knows the answers to riddles the Hatter asks but cannot understand, Wonderland shall wait and watch until the Hatter learns that Mercury isn’t poison and it isn’t madness he is chasing after. Let the Cat and the Hatter have their pas de deux, it may do them some good, is what Wonderland would think—if it could.

Now, the Rabbit claims to have nothing to do with Wonderland. The Rabbit says that he is coldness and logic. The Rabbit is white, the Rabbit is reason. And Wonderland says nothing. Because Wonderland knows that white is the color of madness, white is the Rabbit with his ‘reason’ and ‘logic’, because what is more insane than reason? Insanity is dreams and death, hearts and spades. Hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds. Red and black, black and white. White.

Wonderland is red and white and black, the color of playing cards, of a bloody chess board. Wonderland is both a battle and a game, because Wonderland is madness.

If Wonderland could laugh, it would do so every chance it got. It’s better to laugh than to scream, after all. Still, in the end, Wonderland does nothing. Because in the end Wonderland can only live through the lives it possesses. Wonderland is the mock turtle and the three girls who live in the treacle well. After it all, Wonderland stays Wonderland.

Because in the end,

Wonderland is salvation.

Okay, so I finally decided to end this (in yes, years, my first update. I'm sorry. You should hate me. I would say a lot has been going on, and it kind of has, but I would be very silly.)

I wanted to take this somewhere else, too. And I might, if I ever come back. We'll see.