This short story was inspired by a tarot reading with the following cards...
1. Prince of Swords
2. Death and the Tower
3. Princess of Cups
4. 9 of Swords (cruelty)
5. 10 of Swords (ruin) and the Hanged Man
6. Moon, Ace of Cups, 8 of Swords (interference)
7. High Priestess and Hierophant
8. Adjustment/Justice and the Hermit and the Universe
9. the Lovers
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The Knight’s Templar start us off on our journey through the under-deathed region by the Prince of Swords called to the highest gate and as the speaker of the house, what shall we have for entertainment tonight. The beacons are out in their flocks and the head priest is on summer vacation. It all started on a Monday night in January. I fell and broke my skull open, ten inches from the carpet and otherwise very interesting specimens in the current living establishment.
Alice wondered how she had been writing for so long and had totally not remembered the day she sat to write this novel, in the midst of a hurricane, bob Dylan songs, and tarot rabbit holes. She awoke from her dream in a start and looked around to say, ah, this must be what the mirror looks like on the other side: a whim of chance and illuminati.
As she fell, not remembering this fall whatsoever and to the left side of the orphanage, she came to an abrupt stop that corrupted the very mud on the bottom of her yellow lace up shoes.
Death said with a snicker, I thought you’d be quicker to here on a day like today in the heat of the night and the life worth taking so soon. Alice replied, ‘well, tis true what they say then that if one falls through the sent of the earth they are libel to fall and come out the other side’. The tower then shuddered her out like smoke out of a pipe, a lantern on a late London night in 1764, or a witches brew in the age of the Stone hedges (of which there are several) and Druids.
We arrive, my dear friends and crusted kidneys, at the center of the earth, a molten structure in the form of maybe an eye or a pyramid or a maze that leads to nowhere and everywhere at the same time.
The princess of cups jumps up with a start and turns to Alice, “oh my, we shall be ever so late, your kind of kindness and channel of channels of frostbite. We start off, the rabbit and Alice, to meet the Dodo (the 9 of swords, cruelty). Dodo shrugs his head from side to side, burning his flesh in front of them and laughing. Committing Harry Carrie is not for the light at heart in the land of the Queen of Hearts. The Dodo comes to the surface of the water and knows instantly where he is and how to pin you down, Alice, in just a wink of an eye and a grin to the Cheshire cat. “Will you walk a little faster said a whiting to a snail, there a porpose close behind me and he’s treading on my tail.” The Dodo never lets us forget, that we my friends (Alice shouts up through a hole in the sky) are in hell.
Alice and the rabbit continue down the wormhole (if you will allow me to prevent this word from being said out loud in loud voices while the Apocrypha is raping the girl in the back room). The tea party’s begun, the tea party’s begun, screams the mad hatter into Alice’s very sensitive ears. Good grief, captain, while I am on this ship, I will not be yelled at in such a vulgar manor. I come from good family and fine upbringing, and it will not be tolerated (the table set with the 10 of swords and the Hanged Man).
The Mad hatter shutters to the side and lies down on the table, “eat me” forms the words in the March hare’s mouth. No, Cries Alice, I most certainly will not. What a vulgar suggestion. One more suggestion like that and I shall leave this game immediately.
All right, all right, says the mad hatter, we shall be discreet and have tea in this arena then. Jousting is for another time entirely.
The mad hatter gives a wink to Alice, and they sit down for some of the finest blood and water you ever did see down here in the great lakes of New Orleans. I will have a smoke and a bottle of wine with tea as well, since we are just pretending.
Chess is just chess, right? Why yes of course, my dear, chess is just chess (and gives her that Cheshire grin that she has seen so many times before on her journey through the underworld).
Alice leaves the mad hatter with a sigh and a promise to stop back in for tea (on time next time if you don’t mind) and we will fly high another day.
Alice is left loneing in the world below, friendless, and without any protection. The moon is a hard labor to carry and one must be patient will Alice, from time to time, even though she can have dreams of grandeur and art. She feels the Ace of Cups deep inside her, aching to be completed and succumbed to. However, in the dark watery recesses of the mind, we find ourselves in Alice’s shoes (twice my height by now I assure you my readers). Interference (the 8 of swords) plays a delicate roll in today’s production of this play. Interference is a trickster and a fiend. A little demon stuck in your ear that keeps urging you on, further into the depths of the wonderland.
The Caterpillar shows his topsy-turvy imaginarium to his students of the art and entertainment business. Alice is impatient with him, she has heard all of this before, but this caterpillar will not be cut off (a colonial from world war one will not be stopped as
Alice should have known before opening her mouth to argue).
This was a high-ranking officer, a lieutenant in the right brigade of the Queen of Hearts and no one dare disturb her slumber). The 8 of swords blows out of his pipe and addresses Alice, “who are you?” to which Alice replies, “I hardly know sir, for I am not myself today, you see?” Of course the caterpillar understands none of this let (of course due to his transformation coming a bit late in the game). Alice huffs a huff that could only come out of Alice herself, and stomps out of the forest of interference and not even looking back for a quick second to thief away a night to stare back at that place lovingly.
Next, my dears and gentle dears, we meet the priestess and the hierophant, each being a griffin (part eagle, part lion) and the priestess being the turtle: wise and tender, the great griffin man and the high priestess in their natural forms. They have been hurt by the powers at be and have not been able to ascend top that greater whole in the sky. They sing of the old days, days of art and dancing, connected together by a bright light and a wisdom tooth they carry Alice into a new age of performance.
Next (we must leave the griffin and high priestess for now, they will act again and again through time as if Alice had never left....not even in her dreams...). We have the honor and privilege to meet the queen of hearts (Adjustment) herself. All power and smiles she stares a hole through the sky and Alice and does not understand why people refer to her as sir.
What? That was not the queen’s idea of a celebration of her tyranny and her frequent outbursts of suicide attempts and mania. She speaks, tongue between her teeth as always, to Alice and her followers past and present and future.
I think the Cheshire cat will lend me a hand in the capacity of the narrator and the hermit for this part of the story. The Cheshire cat is a being of many faces and roles to play in this story within a story.
Alice stumbles, once again, at the end of our story through another rabbit hole (the universe) back to the surface of the ice. The queen and her cards, out of the wonderland, chase Alice even though the other caricatures want Alice to stay and play with them.
Alice however cannot stay and sends her spirit out of her dream and back into the “real” world in which she had a following of a different kind on this plane. She was off, like a flash, out of bed, to go and find her final journey that would entail the Lovers card at a surprise dead end for this rabbit hole.
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