by Cameron Jace
It’s not easy to see it, so I pull whatever lever my hands come across. What? You think I might push the lever that expedites the fall?
I feel a sudden impact in my shoulders. So powerful I think I am close to dislocating both of them.
Off with their shoulders!
But it’s only moments before it gets even better—or worse. The Pillar and I are floating in the air as we slowly begin our descent.
I try not to laugh myself silly as he pulls out a fishing pole and pretends to be fishing. “A man has to kill the boredom while landing. I can’t tell you how excited I am now.”
“For what exactly?” I say.
“Columbia, of course!”
Chapter 8
Buckingham Palace, London
The Queen of England—discreetly known as the Queen of Hearts—spat on the flowers in her garden.
She jumped in place, angry with the terribly red flowers. Unfortunately, no matter how high she jumped, she was still shorter than the average queen anywhere in the world.
But she was used to that. Ever since Wonderland her height had been her worst nightmare. She remembered having built a tall throne for herself she had to climb up with a ladder, so she could rule and be feared, only to realize how small she looked atop it.
Her own people had made fun of her that day.
However, the Queen always had a solution to shut them up—forever. She’d cut several thousand heads off, silencing the rest of the Wonderlanders.
Off with their heads!
That phrase never ceased to amaze her. It had the power to instantly put things in their place.
Thanks to King Henry VIII, the Queen thought, the Tudor madman whom she had learned the trick from. King Henry had chopped off more heads than anyone else in history—most of them were his wives’. Most people didn’t know he was a Wonderlander, and that his ghost still roamed the darker corridors of Oxford University.
Lewis Carroll had based the phrase on the king. But that was another Wonderland memory for another time.
Right now, the Queen’s problem was with her flowers.
“Why are my flowers red?” she yelled in a loudspeaker she could barely grip with her small fatty hands.
“I thought you liked your flowers red, My Queen,” Margaret Kent, the Duchess, replied.
“I like my flowers white!”
Margaret looked confused. Everyone who’d ever read Alice in Wonderland knew the Queen liked to paint her flowers red as she chopped off some heads. “But you’ve always liked them red,” she argued. “Ever since Wonderland you prompted us to paint them red.”
“See?” the Queen sighed. “That’s the problem with you stupid people. What’s your IQ, Margaret? Five and a half marshmallows? Do you even have a brain behind your surgically-enhanced face? Why didn’t you opt for a better brain instead of a prettier face to address the nation?”
Most guards in the room wanted to laugh, the Queen knew. But none of them would risk their heads being cut off. It was a scientific fact: you couldn’t live without a head unless you were the headless horseman from Sleepy Hollow.
“I’m sorry,” Margaret said. “I thought you like to paint all roses red, so I found a genetically-enhanced species that grows only red flowers. It was designed by the March Hare, and I filled the castle with it.”
Of course Margaret wasn’t sorry, the Queen knew again. This duchess was a vicious woman who only bent over for her queen. There was a reason for that—and it wasn’t respect.
“And what am I going to order my guards to paint red now?” The Queen stepped up on a chair and roared in the loudspeaker. “Here is the logic of it. I paint white roses red because they are white. The purpose is to suppress their nature and force them to turn into the color I want. It’s a psychological thing. A Queen’s thing. A message for the masses. Whatever your color is, I will color you my way. Do you get it?”
Margaret nodded.
“So when the flowers are red, I am losing my argument,” the Queen followed. “Now I have no choice but to force everyone to only sell white flowers in England.”
“Only white?”
“Yes, from this day on, England only sells white flowers.” She jabbed a finger in the air. “What a brilliant idea.” She jumped off her chair and adjusted her stiff troll-like hair. “Not only that. I want the Parliament to have a meeting and issue a law that prohibits the use of white flowers.”
“But that’s contradictory”
“And beautiful!” The Queen grinned. “Let’s mess with those obnoxious human citizens. Let’s see what they can do about it.”
“As you wish, My Queen.” Margaret chewed on the words. “On the side, I wanted you to take a look at another Wonderland Monster who showed up today, if you don’t mind.”
“I have no time for your silly requests, Margaret,” the Queen dismissed her. “I’m more interested in the results of last week’s Event. Please tell me my employees are wreaking havoc and madness all over the world. Please. Please. Please tell me they are driving the world mad.”
Chapter 9
Columbia
I land and bounce on a fluffy large mushroom—did I really say that? Well, it’s the truth. Way crazier than the Alice in the books.
It’s a huge mushroom, coated with what would make a perfect mattress. Yet it’s both bumpy and has a jelly feel to it on a few spots. I curl my body, tangled in my parachute, and roll on until I fall off the edge, right into the mud.
Splash!
Somewhere behind me, the Pillar laughs.
It irks me. I am not going to play clumsy in here. Not in Columbia.
Curling out of the tangled parachute is not an easy task. When I am done, I realize the parachute is painted to look like a huge mushroom from above. I twitch, glancing at the Pillar, who’s standing up straight, his suit perfectly clean, and lighting up a cigar.
“I had the parachutes painted for camouflage purposes.” His eyes look beady, enjoying his smoke. “You see, this place where we’re standing now is off the charts. You can’t find it on a map. Of course, you know where Columbia is, but you can never spot where Mushroomland is exactly.”
“Mushroomland?” I trudge heavily in the mud.
“Indeed. This is where all the profitable drugs, hallucinogens, and a few other mischievous plants are grown.”
“Those mushrooms are drugs?”
“Just like in the Alice in Wonderland books.” Oh, he is enjoying his smoke. “Why did you think one side of the mushroom made you grow taller and the other made you smaller, or whatever that nonsense was?”
“I was being drugged, in a children’s book?”
“Well, that’s debatable.” He marches on through the huge mushrooms.
“What’s debatable?” I pick up my umbrella and follow him into the semi-darkness.
“That Alice in Wonderland is a children’s book—but I don’t have time for such debates.” He crouches, investigating the premises. I crouch, too. “You see, Alice. Mushroomland is like Neverland. You’re supposed to think it’s unreal while it is not. No satellite up in the sky can track it. No one is supposed to talk about it. If you die in here, you’re not only going to die alone, badly, but the authorities all around the world will ditch any evidence of your existence.”
“Why all that?” I am whispering. I sense we’re not alone. Danger is on its way. I still need to know why the Pillar thinks this place is where we can get a cure for the plague. Wasn’t facing the Wonderland Monster in London a better strategy?
“Mushroomland grows ninety percent of the hallucinogens in the world,” the Pillar says. “You may think these are a bunch of Columbian vagabonds controlling the drug business, but in reality they are funded by...”
“Black Chess,” I cut in, thinking I am smart.
“Nah, wrong,” he says. “But I’ll get to that in a minute.” We walk ahead cautiously. The moon is the only light I can see next to the orange hue from the Pillar’s cigar. “Those mushrooms aren’t jus
t drugs. They have a substance that controls people’s minds in the world. Some of them are in your every day food you buy from the market. Fizzy drinks, chocolates, and even vegetables. Why do you think they never stop marketing this stuff? Some of it is even sprinkled in the air.”
“What? Why?”
“To numb you.” He bites on his cigar. “So you feel cool about paying your taxes, tolerating the violence and madness in the world. Hell, some of these are electromagnetic mushrooms that affect your thinking on election days.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“Left.” He winks.
I didn’t expect that nonsensical answer. I was expecting a ‘wrong’ or ‘right.’ But this is the Pillar I am talking to.
“I’m not joking. You asked me who is funding Mushroomland? I’d say most of the world’s high caliber governments.”
“So what are we looking for in here? Are we looking to meet someone who can help us find the cure?”
The Pillar nods, now staring through some night-vision binoculars.
“Who exactly are we looking for?”
“The most ruthless, mind-bent man in the world.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Of course he has a name.” The Pillar stands up abruptly and walks on.
When I follow him, I realize we have company.
Men approaching us. Men with machine guns. This doesn’t look good at all. I understand now what the Pillar meant when he said they’d take selfies of your blood on their faces, and I don’t think we’re getting out of here alive. At least, not both of us.
“Don’t say a word,” he hisses from the corner of his mouth. “And raise your hands. Eyes to the ground.”
I do, feeling the weight of the approaching men, listening to the Pillar talk.
“We’ve come here in peace,” he says. “In the name of all mushroom and hookahs and all trippy things.”
“What are you looking for in here?” I hear a man with an accent and a gruff voice inquire.
“I’m looking for a man. A very important man,” the Pillar says, and now I’m about to know the name of the most ruthless drug trafficker in the world. “The Executioner!”
Chapter 10
Mushroomland, Columbia
The Columbian men start laughing.
Although I can’t make out their faces in the dark, their laughs send out waves that rattle the mushrooms all around me.
I must be really losing my mind. I mean really, like the acute pain of a heartache when you know for sure that it’s over.
What the heck am I saying?
“Who do you think you are to meet with the Executioner?”
“I have two reasons to believe he wants to see me.” The Pillar’s words come out muffled with that cigar in his mouth. “Besides, I know about the Trail of Mushrooms.”
The men’s laughter grows louder. “You think you can pass the Trail of Mushrooms?”
“I’d like to try,” the Pillar says. “I burned my plane with my pilot in it, after all. I have no means of going back to where I came from, so I have no choice but try or die.”
“What’s the Trail of Mushrooms?” I hiss in his ear.
“It’s a pilgrimage. A road that has to be passed among the mushrooms,” the Pillar whispers, not looking back at me. “We have to take it if we want to meet with the Executioner.”
“And why is he called the Executioner?”
“He’s a Wonderlander who used to work for the Queen. Remember that scene in the Alice books when the queen orders him to cut off the Cheshire’s head and he argues that you can’t cut a head that’s disappearing?”
“Oh, yes, although most people would forget about him,” I say. “But he didn’t look scary to me.”
“Like most of the other monsters, he turned into a beast after the Circus, except that he works on his own, and doesn’t like any of the Wonderlanders much. Now shut up and let me speak with those madmen.”
“Here is something for you,” one of the men says. “We’re sending you a man who’s been trying to pass the Mushroom Trail.”
“I thought most men die from the dangers of the trail. Either die or make it to the Executioner.”
The men laugh again. “Well, this one ate a lot of mushrooms and lost it, so we keep him for entertainment purposes.”
We stare at a half-naked and skinny man barely straightening his back as he walks toward us. He is old, skinny, and disoriented.
“Why is he so unstable?” The Pillar asks.
“He thinks he is walking the rope.” A man muses from afar.
We wait for the man to arrive.
“Nice job,” the Pillar plays along. “I’ve never seen a man walk a rope like that.”
“I’m not walking the rope,” the scruffy man retorts. “I’m being careful while walking. Can’t you see I’m a bottle of milk?”
I am going to burst out laughing.
The Pillar pushes the man to the ground. “I guess I spilled the milk now.” He raises his head at the men afar. “Listen, I have no time for games. Let me walk the trail to meet the Executioner. I will take my chances.”
Silence hovers all over Mushroomland, except for the faint rattling of grass.
One of the men approaches us.
Slowly, he shows up. Scarred, wasted, a muscular giant with a machine gun.
Normally, I would be worried, but I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I want to laugh even more now.
The man flashes his gun toward the Pillar. “I’ll let you pass,” he says in a foreign accent. “If you tell me the password.”
“There is no password.” The Pillar steps up to him.
“Of course there is.” The man nudges the muzzle of his machine gun against the Pillar’s chest. “Can you do division?”
“As in mathematics?”
“Yes, but not the stupid real life mathematics. The Lewis Carroll mathematics.”
This is when the need to laugh ends. How do these men at the other side of the world know about Lewis Carroll? Not just that. The man is about to tell us a Carroll puzzle to solve?
“Only a few people are allowed to see the Executioner. They all are capable of answering this question,” the man says.
“I’m listening.” The Pillar and I await the puzzle.
“In mathematical Wonderland terms, what do you get when you divide a loaf by a knife?”
Chapter 11
Another Lewis Carroll puzzle. Ugh.
That’s all that comes to mind, and I have no idea why I am thinking this. Staring at the man with the machine gun I should act more mature and responsible, but I still have this strange feeling; I just want to burst out laughing like him.
“I don’t quite remember this,” the Pillar says. Is that possible, a puzzle he doesn’t know of?
“It’s simple mathematics,” the man says. “Wonderlastic Mathematics, if I may say so.”
“Look,” the Pillar says, “we just want to pass through.”
“No can do.” The machine gun man roars with laughter again, followed by the same mockery from a few others, farther beyond the mushrooms. It’s the kind of pretentious laugh all cartoonish evil villains have in movies. “Or I will shoot you like this man.” He points at the man on the floor who thinks he is a bottle of milk.
Then something horrible happens.
Something that makes living in this world too hard to understand. The machine gun man shoots the man on the ground, blood spilling all over the mushrooms around us.
The Pillar fakes a smile.
I try not to pee my pants. Only for a second. Then I see the men take a selfie with the dead man.
The Pillar’s face tenses, as if telling me to hold it together.
But I can’t. I am scared mindless.
Then something even stranger happens.
I burst into laughter. The kind of laughter that hurts in the stomach and makes it harder to listen to what others are saying.
The Pillar stares at me with fiery
eyes. He’s even tenser now. I haven’t seen him this angry at me before. “Hold yourself together.”
“Why?” I barely mouth the words between my hiccupping episodes of laughter. “I feel good. Really good. Tararara!”
“I get it. It’s the mushrooms,” the Pillar leans over and whispers. “They affect your brain, like I told you. But you seem to be too sensitive to the effect.”
“Mushrooms!” I find myself hailing. I grab one and give it a big smoochy kiss. Then hug it. Then snuggle it.
As I do, I see the stars in the sky have turned into diamonds. So awesome!
I’m Alice in the sky of diamonds.
“What’s wrong with your daughter?” the machine gun man grunts.
Did he just shoot bees from between his teeth? I can’t stop myself. I start chasing the bees flying around in Mushroomland.
“She’s not my daughter.” The Pillar purses his lips. He’s pissed at me. I know it. But you know what? I love the mushrooms’ effect. Because I don’t freakin’ care. “Don’t pay attention to her.”
“I’m beginning to lose my patience,” the machine gun man says. “You don’t know the password, and your daughter is a lunatic.”
“I told you she isn’t my daughter,” I hear the Pillar say while I’m trying to catch a diamond from the sky. “And I don’t know the answer to your puzzle. Divide a loaf by a knife? What kind of mathematical question is that?”
“Wrong answer.” The man is about to shoot the Pillar while I’m chasing stars.
This is when I find myself standing before the Pillar to protect him. “You will not shoot my father!” I have no idea what I am saying, or why I am saying it. It’s strange that in the middle of my hallucination I care for the Pillar.
“Tell her to move, or I will shoot you both,” the machine gun man warns.
Then another totally bonkers thing happens. This time it’s too insane to swallow.
“Tell you what? You look like you’re itching to shoot someone today,” the Pillar says, pushing me away toward the man. “Why not shoot her, and let me pass?”
Suddenly, I am two feet away from the machine gun itself, unable to determine if what I just heard was part of my hallucination or for real.