Sleepwaking, Perchance to Daydream: The Incredible Adventures of a Forty Year Old Modern Day Alice Through the Looking Glass and What She Got Out of Going There, Even Grown Up
an excerpt

CHAPTER 7

Fabulous Monsters

Alice leapt aside and the figure dashed on passed as if in a great hurry. Then another passed by. And another. Each was dressed in a uniform, and Alice now began to wonder if there was a group of re-enactors staying at the Edgefield, for they looked like soldiers out of some period piece film.
It would be just like the McMenamin brothers to hold some kind of interesting event like that on the grounds, she thought, but then it probably would have been on the schedule and there would have been posters up about it when she arrived.
Now they were coming in little clumps of two and up to six at a time, and Alice had to keep dodging this way and that to keep out of their way or risk getting run down. It wasn’t just their speed and recklessness that made them dangerous, but how often they seemed to trip over their own boots and on their own swords.
Some were having trouble just seeing straight ahead of them with such bulky helmets on, and others were experiencing difficulties running in their costumes. But there came ever more and more. And now some were on horseback, but these must have had little training with horses for they could not control them and kept getting side tracked by the will of their steeds.
Alice found a park bench and clambered up onto it to raise herself up off the ground, but it was of dubious comfort at the rate some of the men were hurtling by, let alone the speed at which some of the horses were galloping by, so she waited for a clear space and jumped back down and ran off the roadway to try and get away from them all.
With a quick glance back she saw dozens of soldiers moving along the surface of the paved road now, all heading in the direction she had just come from… “Oh, I see,” she said to herself a second later, and then had to throw herself down to the ground as a charging horse came barreling down on her and the rider made to leap over her.
Once it was safely passed she made for a car parked nearby, limping a little but only temporarily, and climbed up on it, thinking she MUST be out of the way there.
Imagine her surprise when she reached the roof of the vehicle and found she was not alone. An older man dressed all in white sat upon the roof, legs hanging down on the windshield, feet idly playing with the wipers, and he seemed to be counting. He did not look at her, but continued to count passing soldiers and horses in his head, muttering the ever increasing numbers under his breath frantically until Alice marveled that he could count that fast and keep them all straight. When the last soldier had limped by leading his aging stallion behind him, the little man said: “Four thousand and forty… four!”
Alice sat down next to him and murmured politely.
“I believe that’s all of them, just as promised,” he said proudly.
As Alice didn’t care much whether Frumpy-Grumpy got help after it’s tumble from the wall, and certainly did not want it to be known that she had had anything to do with it, she asked the White King: “Who’s left to protect you then, sir?”
“WHY?!” squeaked the White King suddenly, “Am I in any danger? Oh dear, oh dear. Help. Help.”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that,” Alice said soothingly, “I don’t see that you are in any danger at present (and catching his frightened looks at her, added), certainly not from me.”
“Ah,” sighed the White King with relief, “You have the Sight. Then I shan’t worry about my personal safety at all while you are with me, for you can forewarn me of any danger long before it comes to pass.”
Uncomfortable with not saying anything in response to this, but having no idea what to say, Alice looked out onto the road and saw someone approaching. In another context Alice would have said he must be employed at the Ministry for Silly Walks as he could not advance a step without contorting his body some way or making some kind of comic gesture to the world at large.
The king seemed to be expecting him and found nothing odd in his behavior, so Alice merely watched and was amused by it. (It’s like free entertainment at the drive-thru she joked to herself, easily able to add a large motion picture screen to the scene. Hey, that might be something fun for a McMenamins to have, seasonal outdoor movies!)
When he finally reached the front of the vehicle, the funny walking man ceased to walk at all and slumped forward onto the hood, pooped.
After a while Alice ventured to enquire who he was, and was told by the man in white robes that ‘he is a messenger.’ “So he’s one of your men?” Alice asked. “No.” “Then who is he?” The king shook his head and proclaimed indignantly that that was none of his business. “The messenger service sent him to deliver a message to me, but other than that I don’t need to know anything about him.”
“Then why was he walking all funny like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like he was when he came up to us.”
“I don’t know. Don’t they all do that?”
“I… don’t think so. No, I’m sure they don’t.”
“Oh, then you know more about these messengers than I do. This is MY first time. Do they ever get up, or am I supposed to go down TO him?”
“He should definitely deliver the message directly to you,” Alice said with some confidence. “Hang on a second,” and she reached out with her foot and gently prodded the guy with the toe of her shoe. He jumped instantly to attention, but then stood there, unmoving and silent.
“Am I supposed to tip him or something,” the White King asked timidly in Alice’s ear.
“Perhaps,” she answered softly, “But only after he’s given you the message.”
The messenger still stood there, rigid and unspeaking.
“All this waiting and wondering is making me hungry,” the White King confided in Alice a couple of minutes later. At this, the messenger pulled a sandwich out of his messenger bag and handed it without a word to the king.
It was severely squashed, and the jelly had mostly squeezed out of the bread onto the saran wrap, but the king took it happily and was soon eating it in large bites.
“Was that the message?” Alice asked in astonishment.
Mouth full, the White King could make no answer, but he looked alarmed at this and turned to look at the messenger. The messenger shook his head to say ‘no it wasn’t’ and then resumed his uncommunicative mien. Happy again, the king continued to consume the sandwich until it was all gone. “Now I’m awful thirsty,” he said.
Here the messenger again opened his messenger bag and removed from it a little juice box. He handed it over to the king, although this time appearing a trifle sorry to see it go.
The king accepted it regally enough, but then did not seem to know what to do with it. He turned it around and around, then end over end, but could not make heads or tails of it. Alice took pity and opened it for him, handing it back with the straw in place, all set to drink, but he merely looked at the straw in confusion and sat there studying it intently.
Deciding that something had to be done about the unhelpful messenger, Alice suggested to the king that he order the man to speak. But the White King, still trying to understand the straw, deferred it to her. So Alice sat up straight and commanded the messenger to deliver his message. The messenger replied crisply that it was for the king’s ears only, to which the king protested, “but I want to get the message, not my ears, they exist to serve me, not the other way round.”
Having an idea, Alice suggested brightly, “Why don’t you whisper the message into his majesty’s ear” and in response the messenger immediately climbed up onto the top of the car with them and put his mouth right up to the White King’s right ear and gave him the message in a velvety undertone. Then the messenger climbed back down and stood at attention again, his bag at his side like a beloved weapon.
“Well, what did he say?” Alice asked, knowing it was none of her business, but feeling so chummy with the king that she doubted he would deny her.
“I have no idea,” he replied glumly, “He was so close his breath tickled my ear so it couldn’t hear properly.”
“ALRIGHT, fine,” cried the messenger, “I’ll just say it. Out loud. Here. With her here.” And so saying, he reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a small tabby cat. “But I’d better still get a good tip!”
At this the king began pawing around in his robes, desperately looking for some form of currency, so he missed what the messenger said next. While the messenger cradled the gray cat in his sinewy arms, Alice then had to repeat it for the king, but the words were so strange, she did not know what it meant and had to ask him to explain.
“The lion and the unicorn are at it again!” the White King repeated with excitement. “Yes,” said Alice patiently, “But what does it mean?”
“What does it mean?! It means we have to go and watch! I got tickets months ago and they WEREN’T cheap! There’s an extra seat, so you can come, too.” And so saying he began to scramble down from the vehicle, which was not such an easy thing as it sounded in cumbersome white robes that seemed awfully stiff and slick.
Alice looked at the messenger as she slid off the car, and he shrugged: “As the cat’s already out of my bag (and here he closed his messenger bag with attitude and set the squirming cat down on the ground), you should know that they are fighting for the crown.” And here the king, who had just made it to the ground, added with a mad giggle, “MY crown in fact.”
Reaching down to pet the little cat, who had slinked over to her legs purring, Alice heard it say (in a sweet, gravelly voice):

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the title:
The Lion would have beat the Unicorn but for a saving sidle.
Some gave them prizes, some gave them sponsorships,
Some bet on them and when they won, kissed ‘em full upon the lips.

“A talking cat,” Alice exclaimed delightedly as she crouched further down and pet it gently, “I like this dream just for that.” The kitty, though, said nothing else, but continued purring like a regular cat. “That’s all you’ll get from her,” the messenger told Alice reprovingly, “She’s done spoke her message and she’s not paid to do anything more than that.”
“But I thought you were the one with the message,” Alice cried while scratching the little cat under its chin.
“No, I only deliver them.”
“But you didn’t, you gave it to us before she did…”
“So?”
“So, how could you know it if she—”
“Hey, don’t blame me,” he responded with arms up in defense, “I’m just the messenger! Don’t shoot me or argue with me, alright.”
Remembering the White King now, Alice looked for him and saw him scurrying off along the roadway, though he seemed to be having some difficulty with his shoes, and so not moving very fast. When she looked back down for the kitty, it had disappeared. Disappointed Alice looked around for it, and just caught the messenger fixing the clasp on his messenger bag and slinging it over his shoulder, before hurrying off back where he came from.
Deciding it best to follow the White King, for he, at least, was part of the game and had invited her to attend some event, she went after him. He was just about out of sight, a white blob in the distance. but Alice skipped after him and soon caught up. He was moving faster now, stiff white robes hiked up with one hand and his other clasping his stiff white belt as he ran, white spoked crown askew on his head.
“RUN! Run, run,” he called out to Alice. “Run like a Bandersnatch being chased by the Jabberwock! Or we’ll miss it…”
She trotted along side him, not wanting to make it obvious how easy it was to keep up with him, though Alice was not in particularly good shape herself. And thus they went on for some time, neither speaking, and eventually both short of breath.
They passed the front of the hotel and went by a side entrance to the Black Rabbit Restaurant and then skirted the Microbrewery until they came to a sort of open square underneath a large and colorfully painted water tower. There they finally met with the crowd of onlookers gathered around the combatants, though not all of them were looking on. Alice saw that some stared at the ground instead and others twiddled their thumbs like they were the ones in the ring.
The little king was immediately lifted up by his subjects to a seat on high, and as Alice was with him, she supposed, they did the same to her. Now she could make out a large beast with shaggy fur, and another creature with a deadly looking horn circling each other in the center. Next to the king on the other side sat a man in livery, coolly sipping an extra-extra large coffee in a to-go hot cup.
The White King started a running commentary on the match, though Alice was sure he could not see what was happening below any better than she could, and was made up of such unlikely comments as ‘that Lion, he’s as FIERCE as the Jabberwocky when attacked by a Bandersnatch, and twice as ferocious’ and ‘the Unicorn GORES him yet again, for the eighty-seventh time!’ etc., so she ignored him in favor of scoping out the mystery man sitting with them.
He was in the king’s livery, that was certain, but had more the air of a lawyer or someone on retainer than a servant. Alice thought she had better be wary of him, and that he might bare keeping an eye on if she could. From his breast pocket he pulled a biscotti and bit into it viciously, minute crumbs flying every which way. When this forced an unplanned outburst of mirth from Alice, he turned and fixed her with his cool gaze right away, though how he could have heard her laughter above the roar of the crowd and the loud comments of his king, Alice could only wonder. He looked at her and saw her and Alice felt… cold, and exposed, like someone who’s realized too late they left the door unlocked and now someone’s in the house, it was terrifying and she wanted to scream, but this was Wonderland, not the real world, so she gave him a big goofy grin, made a silly face and reached her hand around the king, offering to shake hands with him as an introduction.
Smiling back as sweet as a child, the man in the livery suit and chess piece tie shook her hand warmly and leaned around the king and introduced himself to her like a new neighbor. As the White King leaned forward and called out into the crowd: “That Lion, he’s gone down for the eighty-seventh time, but does that stop him? NO!” the friendly Suit leaned around behind him to offer her a fresh biscotti from his pocket and then sent someone in the throng below off to bring her some coffee. The king sat back now and cried: “the Unicorn is as foxy as a Bandersnatch on the Hunt!”, which prompted Alice and the Suit to lean forward so they could continue to converse.
When the coffee arrived for Alice, and the White King saw it handed passed him to her, he froze for a moment. Alice thought he might be offended that there was none for him and was just about to offer hers to him, when he clenched his eyes closed and drew in such a deep breath Alice was sure he could not hold half so much air.
Fearing a royal temper tantrum, Alice tried to press the cup into his majesty’s hands, but he pushed the coffee away and then suddenly yelled at the top of his lungs (the very top, in fact). At first what came out of him was not words, but the sound of a loud, shrill whistle that cut through every other sound and got everyone’s attention, but (thankfully for Alice and the Suit) without seeming to be any louder right next to him than forty feet away.
When the whistle blast came to an end, what followed right away was, “HALF TIME CALL. IT’S HALF TIME. AND TIME FOR THE HALF TIME SHOW. BUT TODAY, LET’S DO IT IN HALF THE TIME, OKAY FOLKS.” People near and far nodded and the Lion, and then the Unicorn, stood down and slunk off. After some indeterminate cries of ‘technical difficulties,’ while Alice sat and talked across the king with his Suit as if they were on a first date that was going really well, a troupe of performers dressed like Rooks filled the vacated clearing in the crowd and began to stack themselves like building blocks while two stony-faced Bishops played a Rock song on their electric harps in the middle.
Alice and the Suit payed them hardly any heed and indeed were only once interrupted in their congenial conversation when a vendor came by selling chili cheese onion rings and bacon-wrapped corn dogs and the White King had to have one of each.
As he stuffed his face he summoned someone from the multitude over and said with his mouth full: “I’ym can’cling dhe match. Thummon a Bannersnatch for four fivvteen.” Then he shoved the last of the onion ring and the last bite of corn dog into his mouth together and proceeded to wipe his hands off on his royal robes. Alice thought this undignified and wondered that he should sully his appearance in front of so many of his subjects, but when she looked at him again, the stains on his bone white regalia were fading, faded and then completely gone.
No wonder he has been immaculate the whole time, she thought, I was beginning to wonder…
Then something else caught her eye. It was another white blob in the distance, but this was moving towards them. In a moment it had come much nearer and Alice saw that it was the White Queen. She was running very fast. Quickly she elbowed the King (my, haven’t I become very bold and comfortable here), and tapped the arm of her Suit’s suit to let them know. To her surprise, the Suit just gave his Queen a big friendly wave, which she returned even in her haste while running very hard, and the King, he did nothing but cheer her on quietly and wish her ‘good luck’ under his breath.
“But is she in any trouble? Does she need help?”
“I dare say she does,” answered the king solemnly.
“But then aren’t you going to do something?”
“What can I do?” he said shaking his head sadly.
“But…” Alice tried again.
“She’s quite a woman,” he continued quietly.
“But—” and Alice would have persisted had not the Suit leant far over the White King and reminded her in a whisper that although his majesty reigned supreme here, he was yet not the Player and therefore could not be expected to interfere in the Great Game. And seeing the wisdom in this, Alice dropped the subject and continued her convivial chat over and around the king with the guy in the liveried Suit.
But they were soon interrupted again when the Unicorn came sauntering by, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and addressed the White King with poorly disguised cheek. “Everybody’s saying I was the winner, clear and away. Now if you just ruled it so, I would be the next recipient of your crown.”
The little king paled and then began to pretend he did not see the Unicorn, and when that didn’t work, tried to hide behind Alice and his Retainer. There was no way he could have gotten away with it, except that all the ducking and dodging brought Alice to the Unicorn’s attention.
As soon as he espied Alice, he stood up on his hind hooves and stared at her so hard it was almost painful. Alice could not stop staring at him either.
“What is THAT, your majesty?” the Unicorn asked after a spell.
The Retainer answered for him, as the White King was too busy pretending his shoes laces were untied. “THAT is a human woman. Fantastic, isn’t she!?”
It did not occur to Alice to be flattered by this remark, as hearing herself described as an oddity only brought one definition of the word ‘fantastic’ to mind, and that was ‘apparently impossible but real or true nonetheless’.
“Indeed,” the Unicorn responded, still staring in wonder. “So the stories are true.”
“So it seems.”
“Is it intelligent? Can it talk? Is it as fragile as they say?”
“She seems reasonably intelligent. She can talk almost as well as you or I, and as to how easily she would fall apart at the seams, well, that we have not yet tested.”
“Demonstrate,” the Unicorn said simply.
Alice found her voice now and began to protest. “But YOU’RE the fantastical beast out of bed time stories, not me. We DREAM of seeing a unicorn, but know we will never be lucky enough to actually get to…”
“That’s enough,” the Unicorn said to the Suit, “I believe you now,” and he turned a little to one side and looked at something else.
The rest of what Alice had been going to say froze on her lips and she found indignance rising instead. Now the Lion came strolling up, hands also wedged deep into its pockets, and said to the king slyly: “Who knows, one day I might tire of fighting this old Unicorn for the crown and eat the wearer out from under it.”
At this, the White King slid as far down in his seat as he could and held his watch up close to his face, seeming to almost be counting the seconds as they ticked by on it.
The Lion grinned wide but did not move on. He exchanged an informal, one word greeting with the Unicorn and then remained where he was, hovering right in front of the King’s seat. After a bit the Unicorn asked it in a bored tone if it had seen the fabulous monster, and when the Lion declared it hadn’t, the Unicorn gestured with its chin up to Alice but couldn’t be bothered to look at her himself.
Seeing her, the Lion looked a little frightened, and in a second it began backing up nonchalantly. But this meant it backed up into the Unicorn and the Unicorn thought the Lion had stepped on him on purpose and tried to gouge the Lion with its horn and in response the Lion tried to bite the Unicorn with its many sharp teeth and soon the battle was raging again, but this time the combatants kept bumping into the king’s little bandstand and Alice was sure they meant to knock it over if they could in the course of their fight.
So she started climbing down, but had to hold on for dear life every few seconds as the two creatures crashed into it repeatedly with their large, sturdy bodies, and so could make no headway.
The next impact almost tipped the whole thing over and all three of the people sitting on it barely kept from being dumped off before it righted itself again. Now the Unicorn was circling the Lion and the Lion circling the Unicorn and they rushed at each other with such ferocity that Alice let out a little shriek as she could see their tussle heading right for the bandstand. If both crashed into it at once, over they would surely go!
At that moment the screeching sound of a dreadful creature, far more fearsome than either the giant Lion or the magnificent Unicorn reached them all. People in the surrounding crowd began to flee. Then the Lion turned tail and fled, and even now, being the victor, the Unicorn could not hold its ground and went bounding off as fast as it could go.
By the time she looked around to see how the White King and his Retainer were reacting to all this, they had both already made it down to the ground and were hot footing it off in opposite directions.
Alice heard the flapping of great leathery wings, and the loud screech came again. She saw a creature flying through the sky towards her and it grew with every passing second.
Sitting back down in her same seat, Alice watched it approach with her own sense of wonder in high gear. She took in every detail with wide eyes. She saw more detail the closer it came. Tears came to her eyes. Tears of a muted kind of joy at seeing something that incredible, that amazing. She was seeing something no one had ever seen before except herself, it was that special a moment.
Then it buzzed her with another loud cry and winged away towards the horizon.
Alice got down from the elevated seat and stood in one place looking after it, and marveled.
“So that was a Bandersnatch!” (And instead of describing what Alice saw, I shall leave it to you and your fertile imagination to picture exactly what kind of creature she had just set eyes on.)

CHAPTER 8

Who is Dreaming Who?

Alice came to standing under a brightly painted water tower between some outdoor tables and chairs in a little court yard where food and drinks might be served during the day and evening. The place was deserted at this late hour and she stood under an antique style gas lamp, feeling happily dreamy and wondering if she had been dreaming. But then she noticed she was still clutching an empty coffee to-go cup and thought, NO, I wasn’t dreaming - I am still dreaming.
Throwing the cup up in the air, it disappeared high in the arc before it could fall back down and Alice said: “See, I told you so” out loud to herself. And remembering Michael Gumm and Michael Lee, she said: “If we were all part of the dreams of She Who Sleeps, then… well, then I would be her, by default, because most people dream about themselves, not total strangers, so it could only be me dreaming about me having adventures in Wonderland.”
The idea that I would dream about finding myself lying in a field asleep and dreaming this dream is an odd one, perhaps, but not too odd to happen in a dream.
That brain teaser solved, Alice walked out from under the water tower and out of the little court yard and found herself looking down at a field.
It was a field mowed into an alternating square pattern. And on some of the grass squares stood figures!
Some were red and some were white.
Considering distance and perspective, the figures must be very large, this went through her head first, then…
“My field, at last! There’s the board, there’s the board. I rather thought that if I gave up searching for it I might soon find it, and it worked!”
This was not the same look out point she had stood at with the Red Queen, but a gap in some trees and shrubs much lower and close to the Chess Field. Why I could just walk to it from here.
Alice was so excited she almost didn’t see the two Knights approaching from either direction.
When she did notice them, they both motioned her out of the way, and Alice knew then that the game was in play. She stepped aside knowing all she could do now was wait until the outcome of the battle was resolved by the two unseen Players.
Her head jerked up of its own accord, and Alice almost expected to see two giant people high above in the wispy night clouds peering down on them from above. (But only the moon hung up in the sky like a soft overhead light and seemed to be watching over them all in a more distant, intimate way.)
That’s far too literal, she chided herself, but another part of herself said, yeah, but it would have been really cool.
The two Knights, a White Knight in frosty bone white armor and a Red Knight in scratchy brick red armor, rode up and acknowledged each other formally from their off-white and auburn-red steeds. It looked for all the world like a ritual of life and death and Alice became more serious and solemn by the moment.
Both wore cloth masks on their faces, making them faceless figures and larger than life.
“As I saw her first,” the Red Knight proclaimed, “she is my prisoner.”
“As she is your prisoner,” the White Knight declared, “it is my job to rescue her.”
“Then,” said the Red Knight boldly, “We must—”
“—fight for her,” finished the White Knight equally boldly.
“I am ready,” said the Red Knight resolutely, “When—”
“—ever you are,” finished the White Knight equally resolutely.
“Then,” said the Red Knight eagerly, “let—”
“—us begin!” finished the White Knight equally eagerly.
To signal a final agreement, both bowed low in their saddles.
Pulling on their helmets, the knights now looked very much like the game pieces they were, as the helmets had been fashioned in the shape of a horse’s head. Alice did think to wonder how they could fight for her without any weapons, but as neither of the knights seemed worried about it, she didn’t either.
Now began a game of waiting. At first it wasn’t much like a game, but then as time dragged on, and then further on, Alice found she needed to amuse herself in the duration or go mad. So first she imagined what the Red Knight was thinking to himself under his horse-head helmet. He was disgruntled and had many complaints. She imagined he was a bit hot, and a getting a bit tired, and wondered if he had an itch anywhere he couldn’t reach to scratch and if he would be sore when he finally got to dismount his horse.
Then she imagined what the White Knight was thinking under his horse-head helmet. In her mind he was a happy-go-lucky sort of knight whose thoughts were full of chivalry and daring-do. She imagined his proud posture and fierce gaze hidden under the armor, and wondered if his horse was his best-friend and companion like they always are in stories. But still the waiting was not over.
The two Knights stood still as statues, prompting Alice to wonder about who they were, underneath, even more. She could picture the White Knight as a young man with a small short-trimmed beard and shoulder length hair whose eyes sparkled like gems. And she could see the Red Knight looking much the same, but ten years older and with dark red hair and glinting dark eyes. Then she got distracted by a whole ‘nother flight of fancy and sat down on the grass to rest her tired feet.
How much later the move was finally made, Alice never knew, for time passed so oddly in Wonderland, but seemingly at once the White Knight gild across the pavement towards the Red Knight until they were positioned right next to each other, facing opposite directions. Both removed their helmets carefully, for even Alice could see that they were fairly heavy. Holding the horse-heads by their sides, the two knights began to discourse in a relaxed manner.
“Ah,” said the Red Knight staunchly, “I see you take me.”
“”Uh,” said the White Knight uncomfortably, “I guess I do.”
“Then,” said the Red Knight with good grace, “we must make it so.”
“Okay,” said the White Knight, “But as you are such a worthy opponent, we must do it in a way that does not compromise your honor.”
“Thank you,” said the Red Knight gladly, “That would be much appreciated.”
They circled each other slowly on the horses, saying nothing for three full rotations, until Alice worried they might be getting dizzy. Then they stopped in the same places across from each other, horse-heads still clamped to their sides, and began to choreograph the fight scene.
It was a collaborative process, with each knight contributing ideas until they had reached a consensus on something they both could live with but still looked nice and heroic. Then it was time to bid their farewells, put their helmets back on and play out the pre-scripted mock battle to the best of their abilities.
If you used your imagination, like Alice did, you could envision them holding swords or spears and fighting each other to the death. The horses didn’t seem at all worried, so Alice imagined that they were battle-scarred old stallions whom nothing phased any more. Then the White Knight came to the place in the scene where he knocked the Red Knight off of his steed (which he did somewhat gingerly, not wishing to hurt him), after which he himself dismounted carefully and went over to the fallen Red Knight, imaginary blade held high (and, after making sure he hadn’t been injured in the fall), ran him through with one glorious thrust of his imaginary blade.
The Red Knight performed an admirable, though clearly amateur, Shakespearian death scene and then lay still on the pavement just long enough for the White Knight to take a ‘victory moment’ (as they had called it during the choreography phase), then the White Knight helped him to his feet just in time for the Red Knight, and his auburn steed, to suddenly fly up into the air and vanish from sight.
His role in the move was over.
The White Knight now removed his helmet and stowed it on the saddle of his off-white horse, and then clanked over to Alice, walking very slowly in all that armor. Seeing this, Alice sprang up and came over to greet him, saving him most of the distance between them.
I probably ought to say something gracious, something to praise his battle prowess as he did just ‘fight’ for me, Alice thought just as she reached him, but he spoke first. “Lame, huh?”
Alice noticed now that he was almost exactly as she had made him out in her mind earlier, but completely different. His hair was longish, for a guy, but it looked more like it hadn’t been cut in a while than that he wore it at the shoulders. And while he did have a small short-trimmed beard, it was the kind fashionable these days with the thirtysomething guys of Alice’s generation, not one out of a period piece film. There was some twinkle in his eye, but it turned out to be dirt particles that had gotten into his eyes when he removed the helmet.
As a matter of fact, Alice thought, if you take away the armor, he looks just like a regular guy.
“It’s okay,” he said now, “I know it was lame, but it was the best we could come up with in the spot. We didn’t want to keep you waiting too long.”
He sounded just like one, too.
“It would be a lot easier if this armor were plexiglass… titanium… aluminum even, but it isn’t. It’s solid, and heavy. Here, feel.” He held out one armored arm for her to hold up. She did, and it was surprisingly weighty, but what she was thinking instead was, “I don’t think he’s a Wonderland resident. He CAN’T be. We normal humans are ‘fabulous monsters’ here.” She let his heavy arm back down.
“Well, at least you could say something, anything… Otherwise it’s going to be a long walk.”
Long walk, Alice repeated in her head, and then something clicked. “Are you going to take me to the board now?” Alice bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, excitement mounting.
“Those are my orders,” he said in a long suffering tone and turned to head back to his horse, but then he swiveled back: “Wait – you said board. BOARD. Not garden. That means you’re not just a Pawn— of course you’re not just a pawn, you’re in colors, I mean you’re not in either of the colors – red or white – are you here like me? Are you having an adventure in Wonderland?”
Gaping a little in surprise, Alice hardly knew what to say. “But this is all just a dream, my dream… how could you be— no, I must be dreaming you. It makes sense, a fellow geek in the same situation, someone to talk to who understands, someone going through the same stuff, it’s all classic wish fulfillment.”
The White Knight guy now said: “So this is how my dream is telling me that you are just another part of the dream, very interesting. I suppose it was foolish of me to think that I was really in Wonderland and could meet with Alice.”
“But my name is Alice,” Alice cried to this.
“Of course it is,” the guy said rolling his eyes, “What other name would my dream assign you?”
Alice was pretty confused by this interchange, but one thing was certain: she wasn’t going to let her unconscious get away with labeling her the dream-thing in someone else’s nightime excursion. “I’m the main character, and you can’t take that away from me!”
Oops, she just realized she’d said that out loud, and the guy in armor was looking at her strangely. “In my dream I’m going to have to argue with myself over who is real and who isn’t? That’s sheer bunkum!” He trumped back to his horse, calling back over his shoulder, “Come on, you tricksey Figment of my nocturnal imagination, let’s get this over with.”
Now something was finally making sense. The White Knight would lead her to the board, and she could probably get into the game before it was over. So she waited for him to mount, and then stationed herself so as to walk along side of him as they went. And off they did go.
There were tall hedges on either side, which someone had pruned to many different heights. Alice could see tall ones and short ones all mixed together in a random pattern that stretched on ahead as far as she could see. They passed some that got taller incrementally until they reached such an incredible height that they began getting shorter incrementally and after that Alice basically stopped paying any attention to the hedges and hardly noticed them at all.
From up in the saddle her knight spoke now. “Once I’ve escorted you to be queened, then my move will be over. Shall you like being a queen?”
Alice thought for a second, and then answered: “It’s a dubious honor, to be sure, when the other two behave so badly. If I ran a company, I should treat—”
“If you ran a COMPANY? Here he halted his horse so he could rant about this properly. “Is this really how it’s going to be? (this he seemed to address more to the air than to her) I came to Wonderland for the escape, the word play, the nonsense poetry and the Wonder, to refresh myself for dealing with the real world - not to rehash mundane affairs with a dream-manifestation of some part of my psyche!”
Alice was puzzled by this, but all she could think to do was continue.
“—I should treat my employees like… kings and queens, thankful for their work and their productivity, else where would I be? But no, the boss is always an unhappy person of some kind, it’s always someone with personality problems—”
“Oh, I see what this is about. (Again he seemed to be speaking to the air) You’re saying I’m being held back by my fear of being like my father and some of my supervisors. A tyrant in a tie!” He directed his horse to begin walking again, and looked at Alice now, “That’s an exaggeration, you know. Some people in authority are monsterish, some are saintly to their own determent, it seems to me that whatever character flaws you have are magnified in a position of authority for every one to see, not that power corrupts you into evil you never had before.”
Alice nodded, mostly to show that she was listening.
The White Knight guy’s horse now stopped of its own accord, and the rider could not get him started again. To himself: “You had to dream yourself into Wonderland as a knight, didn’t you? What does that say about me.” He dismounted and began petting the horse along his shanks.
As the guy was now on the other side of the tall steed from Alice, she couldn’t see him any longer, but his voice came floating over its back. “At least Alice started as a Pawn and worked her way all the way up, now there’s a metaphor for you, even if I don’t know exactly what it means, but you get a sense of progress and accomplishment. Me, I get a bunch of heavy armor, no cool weapons, and a horse that won’t obey me.”
As he was having a bad day, Alice asked as nicely as she could: “Can you just lead him? I’m eager to join the game, and I’m afraid if we tarry much longer, I shall miss it entirely.”
Peering over the horse, the guy asked, “What game?”
“Why the Human Chess Game. The one YOU’RE playing. I don’t mean to be pushy, but I’ve been trying to reach the board for… hours (she said hours but it felt more like days) and hours and—”
“The board?” The guy in the white armor came around the horse so he could see her to say: “That’s right, you said that before. But the game isn’t played on the board so why—”
“What? But I saw it!”
“Yeah, there’s a board, but it’s just a reflection of the moves made, the moves we play out out here.”
“But there were figures on it…”
“Sure, great big pieces, yay high (he held his hand up above his head), but they’re just that, figures. There’s a White Knight piece to represent me out there, for example, but I’m the ‘White Knight’ in this game.”
“I see,” Alice said, not seeing at all. Then she suddenly understood. I’ve been playing the whole time, or you might say I’ve been being played the whole time. “So every time I ‘magically’ ended up somewhere else, that was a move?”
For some reason the stallion chose this moment to resume walking, and so the guy had to scramble to get back to the other side of it so he could try to get on. He got one leg up but then couldn’t get the other over so Alice trotted after them and went round the other side to help him.
Once he was safely seated, he thanked her cordially and reached into one of the saddle bags. From it he removed a small but bulky item which he handed to Alice proudly. As a ‘token of his appreciation’ he said as he did so.
Alice took it in both hands and looked at with curiosity.
At first she thought it might be some kind of weird pen, for there certainly was a pen involved. Then she thought it might be some kind of fancy stapler, for there was certainly a stapler involved. Here she almost stumbled as she could not look down while walking, so the knight reached out a hand to her shoulder and left it there to steady her.
“What do you think?”
She wasn’t ready to answer yet, so she turned it over in her hands, hoping to figure out what it was quickly so she could respond before the silence became too marked. But all she could make out were several office supply products coming out of the central gizmo. Not wanting to delay any longer she piped up and said, “I’ve never seen anything like it” in a friendly tone, hoping that was generic enough to work.
And it was.
“THANKS. It’s my own invention.”
“So, what do you call it?”
“That’s a tough one. Let me know if you have any ideas. I’ve come up with plenty of names, but none of them are marketable.”
Since she hadn’t got any useful information from that question, Alice posed another straight away. “How ever did you think of it?”
“It was doing all those temp jobs.” He stopped when his horse did, and sighed when it wouldn’t get respond to any of his commands. He climbed down again, sighing even louder, and then took its reigns and began leading it forwards, now walking next to Alice. “You go from office job to office job and you always need all those supplies, but they always have different stuff, and probably not the stuff you like, and they’re always running out, you know.”
Alice nodded.
She understood all too well, having temped herself in her twenties and worked in other offices besides. These days she carried her own pens, pencils, stickie notes and paper clips to every consulting job because she had to have the ones she liked, in the right shapes, sizes and colors - they were her tools and without them she was never as organized or confident.
Halting to let the horse nibble some berries they were passing, the guy went on. “Guys who work in shops carry around pocket knives, and guys who work on buildings carry tool belts, so I thought—”
Here Alice finished for him: “—why not something like that for office workers!” And now she understood that what she was holding was a sort of office supply pocket-knife/holder-dispenser thingee. “Oh, yeah,” she said now, “I see the little highlighter, and this (she poked at a two pronged lump on one end) must be a staple remover.”
They all moved forwards as the horse nickered and pawed at the ground.
“I tried to fit everything I could think of on it.”
“I see that. Perhaps… perhaps less might be more?”
“You think?”
“I think it’s a little too big to be quite as useful as a pocket knife (for in sooth it would nary fit into any pocket every made, she thought to herself), and less easy convenient than a tool belt.” (Alice was getting a bit tired of holding it as it was, and wished for a handle, or strap or some other way she could carry it.)
“But whatever I leave out, someone will surely want.”
Thinking, Alice shifted the doo-hickey into one hand so she could scratch her head with the free one. “Then you could make different models.”
Shifting them around to the other side of the horse so he could hold the reins with his other hand, the knight said: “Ah, Wonderland, where all problems have a simple solution.” Alice didn’t think that was fair, and moreover she thought her idea a good one, but didn’t feel like arguing about it. They were otherwise having such a lovely time.
She was going to be queened, he had said. Despite her grave speech earlier, Alice was looking forwards to it immensely. She’d been having a wonderful time so far, but, she thought, there was something about being the pawn in someone else’s game that wasn’t quite the thing, you know, and less than satisfactory. And so she went on for a while, wondering what it would be like and lost in her own thoughts to such a degree, that when the guy next to her spoke, she jumped a little in surprise.
“You’ve been wondering why I’ve been so quiet, haven’t you?”
But it wasn’t really a question, it was a leading statement, and was soon followed by, “I’ve just invented something, something new. Now what do you say to that?”
“Well,” Alice replied non-committedly, “What is it?”
But before he could answer, the knight stumbled over a branch in his path and fell flat on his face. It was noisy and he fell hard, letting go of the reins as he went down. So Alice had to grab them herself and in the process, dropped the doo-hickey on his head. “OUCH!”
“Sorry!”
He tried to rub his head but getting his metal clad arm up and over was too much for him. Alice thought that this was exactly when a helmet would have come in handy, but knew it wouldn’t help him to mention it. From the ground came muffled, “Would you be so kind as to help me up, I’m afraid…”
Alice bent down and tried to help him, but the angle for the joints in his armor as opposed to his flesh ones was so awkward that she heaved as hard as he could and he pushed as well as he could and all they succeeded in doing was getting him halfway up before he fell back down with a thunk.
“Ow,” was all he said this time.
And Alice realized he must have fallen on his doo-hickey because she couldn’t see it any more.
He began thrashing around now, desperate to get up, but it wasn’t helping. So Alice bent down again and tried to roll him over. Once he understood what she was trying to do, the guy used his momentum to help, and in a minute he was on his back. From there it was much easier to get him to his feet, and once on his feet, the guy stomped off, leaving Alice and the horse behind.
Alice wasn’t sure what to do, and looked at the horse, but the horse didn’t seem to care either way.
But the White Knight hadn’t got far when he stopped and said, “This is too ridiculous: I’m pooped. This armor is heavy and I’ve been walking in it for far too long. Excuse me.” And he proceeded to strip it off right where he stood.
Alice lead his steed slowly until they caught up, and then stood looking awkwardly here and there as he removed all the pieces of leather and metal and was left in something like a set of bone-white long johns and some flimsy looking footwear.
“I wonder how the other guy puts up with it,” mused the White Knight to himself. “Which other guy?” Alice had to ask to relieve some of the awkwardness. “The other White Knight.” “The other White Knight?” “Yes, the OTHER one, the second one… there are two knights per side.” “Oh, I see, of course.”
“Nice chaps, all of them. Even the Red ones, though I must say my other counterpart – not the one you saw just now but the other Red Knight, he can be a bit if a Grumpy Gus—well, never mind, that comes of working sales, and in the retail industry, too.”
“Retail?”
“Yes, it’s where you earn your bread by trying to sell hapless people who happened to have wandered into the store whatever you got in stock… never mind, the concept really doesn’t belong in Wonderland so why taint you with it.”
This White Knight now took his mount back from Alice and began trying to tie the pieces of his armor onto the horse’s saddle in addition to the helmet. He would be walking from here on out, Alice noted, as there was NO way to fit all of them and him on the back of that poor horse. She gave it a reassuring stroke across the withers.
Remembering the fallen doo-hickey suddenly, Alice went back for it, but found it severely crushed. Some of the smaller pieces that had broken off she could fit in her pockets, but the mangled base of it was toast. Hoping he was too distracted by his outfit woes to notice, she buried the bigger piece in a pile of fallen leaves and returned to him, feeling a little guilty.
If only I hadn’t dropped it. But I did, she dialogued internally with herself. And there’s nothing I can do about it now? No, there isn’t. So she went back to feeling a little guilty and watching him tie on the last piece, the frosted white breast plate.
When he was done, he could just reach far enough around the breast plate to get hold of the reins and off they went again, albeit at an even slower pace than before.
Picking back up where he’d left off after the last tumble, the White Long John Knight said: “It’s a Sock Sticker!”
“What is?” Alice looked around to see if she had missed anything they had encountered here in the woods.
“My new invention. As I was saying, it’s a sock sticker, so they stick together. Clever, eh?”
“Why would you want your socks to stick together?”
“So they don’t get separated in the dryer, of course!
If they don’t get separated, then you can never lose one.”
“But suppose,” Alice said smiling, “that just meant you always lost them both.”
The guy stopped so suddenly when he heard this, that his horse, looking elsewhere, bumped into him before it could stop, and he was again sent face down into the dirt. Alice winced for him and was feeling sympathetic pain when she heard faintly: “There you go again, trying to sabotage my dreams.” And then again, “I’m beginning to think this is less of a dream and more a nightmare.”
It was odd hearing him speak in such a normal tone, as if nothing was wrong, while his face was almost pressed into the ground. Makes it seem so much more like a dream, she thought, where physical reality was just a plaything and the mind was literally the limit.
Going to him, Alice would have lent a hand, but he remained on his stomach, face down, and was even talking again. “She must represent Discouragement. So you must not listen to a word she says. Ignore her.” And so when Alice called to him and offered to help him up, he said nothing.
This is absurd, thought Alice, and tried to help him anyway. But he shook her off and muttered to himself, “it’s a trick, she’ll just help you up so she can drop you again and make you feel worse.’
Not knowing what to do with him in this state, Alice stepped back and threw her hands up. All she could think of was, that somehow he was supposed to be another delay in her reaching her goals, and that as such, she had to take the reins (so-to-speak) and make them move forward, or else the Delay or Distraction would win again.
Cupping her hand over her mouth, she spoke out loud, but as if to herself: “Methinks I do spy the other White Knight, there, through the trees, and how glorious he looks on his shining steed, in full regalia and head held high. I wonder if he is headed this way? – I should so like to meet him,” and this immediately produced the desired effect. This White Knight jumped to his feet and ran over to his horse and beckoned frantically at Alice.
“Come on, come on, let’s go. I’ve kept you long enough. My mission was to keep you from being captured by the Red Knight, which I did, and then to escort you safely to where you’ll be crowned, which I intend to do RIGHT now.” And so saying, he hurried them all (and by ‘all’ I mean Alice, the horse and himself) off.
Even in the hustle and bustle he still let out a loud ‘ha!’ (which he then clearly regretted in case it should carry and alert the Red Knight to their presence) and exclaimed: “I intend to invent an apparatus for getting into and out of armor, something like a shoe horn, but for a full set of armor, and it’ll be durned quick, in and out in twenty seconds…” and so on while Alice hurried to keep up with him.
Then he switched topics all of a sudden, and addressed her again in a chivalrous tone with, “before we part I must recite a poem for you.”
“Is that really necessary?” Alice enquired anxiously, never having been a big fan of poetry and having received a fairly high dose of it recently.
“Indeed it is,” he said firmly, “It’s my duty, and must be done to complete the mission.”
Alice was dubious about this, as he hadn’t mentioned it before and it had no relevance to chess, but she thought telling him she didn’t want to hear it would likely cause another delay, and wanted that even less. So she took a deep breath and prepared herself to suffer through it with dignity.
“It’ll take your breath away,” he added.
Alice groaned internally.
Then the White Knight cleared his throat several times like it was an instrument, and said, “The name of it is: ‘On the Wings of Winter Wind Did I Come to Thee.’
Alice gritted her teeth.
“It’s also been called ‘A Treatise on Love Through the Ages.”
Alice clenched her fists at her sides, determined not to make a scene. Just get through it, just get through it, she breathed.
But the version I prefer is a parody of the original, sometimes referred to as: ‘Goosebumps and Kaleidoscopes to Me!’ Are you ready?”
Brightening, Alice said yes, and found she was even looking forward to it a little. (And of all the strange people and strange experiences Alice had here, she remembered the exuberant look on the white knight guy’s face as he recited this poem the longest afterwards.)
Here the White Knight synched his rhythm and breathing to their walking pace and began anon.

You shall hear the full story
I am about to relate,
Of a man, or a woman, or both,
Locked in a crate.
The crate was of chocolate,
So they were not long,
In devouring it whole,
Like you knew all along.

She burped with great fervor,
He slurped with gusto,
They both had big bibs on,
And ate it with pesto.
When all that remained,
Was a few chocolate shavings,
They fought over them
And wagered life savings.

With one tense roll,
Of a sticky ole die,
The winner was determined
to be none but I.
I ate them all myself,
I scruple not to tell,
And if you don’t like it,
I have others to sell…

Feeling the glutton,
As so goes the story,
I phoned up my lawyer,
And bought up the factory.
Now you can come,
And visit me any time.
For I make chocolate, all kinds,
And I know how you like it with lime.

To the question you don’t ask,
Yes, I do make chocolate crates,
It is a rather thankless task,
With high shipping rates.
I lock people inside,
With no key or hacksaw,
For their birthdays sometimes
And let them eat themselves raw.

But whoa there little Missy,
This tale is not done,
For we missed out on rhubarb
And that can't be fun.
Don’t forget my ol’ space ship,
And how we went for a spin,
You to the sun n' moon,
And I to grow my new fin.

If you cannot remember,
If you’ve forgotten it all,
I can have a computer projection
Appear here on the wall.
It will regale us with video,
Subtitled in code,
Of our cave wrapping days
And other adventures of old.

The man, or the woman, or both,
Who were featured before,
Were merely faints for our enemies,
To make them follow a detour.
You and I know the rest,
The secrets and popped pcorn,
Of toe nails and pancreas,
Though I toot our own horn,

Which blows something fierce,
Which shines in the sun,
Which is out of tune,
Which can be used to stun,
With a blaring loud ring,
With accompaniment that can sing,
What a joy to play,
What a marvelous thing,
Where did I leave it?
Oh where could it be?
Pray have you seen it?
Please, I’ll pay you a fee!

As the White Knight spoke the last words in the rhyme, they reached a break in the endless hedgerow and he now motioned for Alice to step through.
Grinning at the nonsense she had just heard, Alice put her hand out to shake his in parting.
He looked at it and then her, “Wasn’t that deep?”
“Like a well.”
Breaking out in a big grin, he laughed at his own joke. “Sometimes a little nonsense is the best medicine.”
Alice agreed whole heartedly.
He took her hand now and continued as if talking to someone else: “Make your way through that (here he gestured to the gap in the hedge), Pawn, and you’ll become one of them Queens for sure, though why we need three is beyond me.” Pumping her hand vigorously, he left go after a few seconds and made as if to check his watch, although of course he wasn’t wearing one.
“Good-bye, White Knight. Well played, sir.” But this seemed too formal, so Alice added gaily: “If I ever see one of your products in a store or online, I’ll buy one of each!”
Pleased, the guy walked back to his horse with more of a spring in his step, and began leading it away in an almost cheerful manner.
There, thought Alice, that seemed to encourage him.
Now to conclude my move, I step through here and—”

[end of chapter 8]