m.:.a.:.d.:.d.:.s {8}

Sit up and smile Madds, they're looking at you.

I told you not to talk to me anymore, that isn't normal. They'll notice you talking to me if you go one doing so, don't you know that? I guess it' something I don't really mind, you're the only one that's been here the whole time for me. I suppose that makes sense too, seeing as there really isn't anyone else here.

When the lights are out, it's only me.

You poor, demented thing, you.

I don't know what's wrong with me.

I think I might be mad.

That might be the truest thing I've said all day.

It takes a moment to remember that I am talking to myself and not to someone else. It's strange to think that when I'm mumbling into my tea there's no one really speaking. The wiggling in my pocket suggests otherwise but that's just the mouse who lives inside of it. Every now and then he crawls out to find some corner to take a shit in or to pee in Ridley's shoes but he spends most of his time with me.

He likes the little cakes I serve with tea.

If you feel like crying, you should just smile.

I can't remember the way my mother used to say that, though i'm fairly certain that she did.

"If it hurts, just shut your eyes and smile. It'll be over with quickly."

Was it grin and bare it or grin and bear it?

It's difficult to remember.

The door is in the corner today, right near my bed. It's tucked away quite nicely and I do not bother asking the other children whether they can see it or not. It's seven in the morning and some of them are too busy preparing for school to pay any attention. The rest of them need a stepping stone in order to see it.

I have not told them that the door never disappears, that it doesn't just appear when they're drunk or high. I'm certain they'll think me mad.

Get up, Madds.

I never really did sleep. I was brewing tea last night, a special cup for Alice to try. A variety of rose petals, jasmine and just a touch of LSD.

They don't really care about the tea Madds, it's all about the trip. I know that but I like to pretend. I'm very good at it after all.

I lean down and scrape a notch into the frame of my bed. I began on the other side but am already three thirds down the right. Soon I'll have to move to the end post and then after that the head. I suppose that after that I can begin to use the windowsill.

I glance at the door. It seems rather welcoming today, it's just large enough to crawl through and the knocker is made of a cherry red wood. I've been told that I am expected at school today but I have also decided that seeing as it's not my birthday today it isn't necessary for me to go. A day must be taken for the celebrations after all.

But Madds, you haven't attended school since you were five and the teacher called the peacekeepers in when you showed up with a black eye.

All the more reason not to go.

Is Madds even your real name?

I'm fairly certain that my father gave it to me but I cannot be sure. Nothing is certain after all, which is something I find quite alarming in this place.

Wonderland is certain.

I doubt that the others will notice me gone, they're all rather wrapped up in themselves.

Don't be alarmed Madds. It's alright that the door never goes away for you. There's nothing wrong with you.

I pick up a thermos of tea and stow it in my pocket, carefully raising a tea cup to my lips before giving the little door a humble knock. It creaks open, nice and slow of course like it should. I throw one look over my shoulder at the large room I share with the others before crawling through.

They won't notice me missing, they never do.

I doubt that I've really left.

Although I'm fairly certain I have.

The entrance takes me into the gardens, a confined and concise place. I think they came about after Ridley started trying to tell Alice what she could and could not do. The only structure in Wonderland comes from these gardens, where hedges and rose bushes grow high overhead in neat, rigid bricks.

I move past them, on my way to the floating forest. That's where the best leaves grow, high up in the clouds at the roots of the trees, nestled in the waving tentacles.

You really should have gone to school today Madds. They're going to come looking for you and if they find you missing again they won't be pleased.

Please Doctor, tell me what's wrong with him. Tell me what's wrong in his head.

I'm the only one who can really go to Wonderland.

I used to have hopes that I could still be sane.

My mother had no money when I was little and we were starving to death. Michael, older brother and constant source of happiness died already. The men and women did not want her body anymore, she was too thin. It didn't matter in the end. When that first woman offered my mother money, more money than she could ever hope to make by selling herself, just to touch me, she had to say yes through her tears.

We were starving.

Even if it hurts.

Even if it's scary, just smile.

I lost her when I was five. I learned to forget the touching, the strangeness. I put it in the back of my hands and watched them shake in fear. I ate myself alive and spit me back out. I watched myself happen again, like the way the stars do every night. I set and rose.

My father came to take care of me when she died, like a soldier back from war he sat down heavily on the stairs, in a uniform white as snow and told me exactly what kind of mistake I had been.

You ruined my career, Madds.

Just by existing.

God, I'm so sorry.

I'll never do it again sir, I swear.

It's alright because he forgot about me then, stripping me of my last name that was his too and telling me I'd have to make it on my own. An orphanage was out of the question, no one could know who I was, how I existed. He left after selling the house and I had a coat to wear but I was alone.

No wonder you've gone mad, dear.

I was nearly six when the door appeared for the first time.

It stood in the side of a garbage can in the alley I was living in, made from wood and it seemed to beat like a heart. I watched it for awhile, feeling sick, too tired to move. There was nothing to eat and I felt cold despite my jacket. I longed for something warm to drink. If I could just have something warm then maybe I'd be ok.

Don't go Madds.

There's nothing good on the other side of that door, if you go in then you'll leave yourself here.

But I did go.

I went.

My mother lives in Wonderland.

I have seen her here, in the poppy fields.

She taught me how to brew tea, how to pick the leaves myself and dry them out. She taught me how to make the flavours, how to grow the plants for harvest. They don't believe me that she's here but she is. She's a daisy named Marcy and she knows me like I know her. Sometimes she's a tree named Donna and every now and then she's the warmth of Wonderland's son kissing the top of my head. She's here.

I have not been cold since.

When I came back out the door that first time I was in a hospital bed, a worker from the orphanage sitting by it.

She told me that they thought I was a goner.

I was gone though, I knew I was.

They didn't believe me, they gave me tests and watched me. They told me to tell them about Wonderland. They said I was gone when I wasn't and I'd point at the door, showing them how it always stood in the corner of the room or the base of a tree or sometimes on the floor. They'd tell me that it wasn't there, they couldn't see it.

They asked me about when I was little, if I had been abused.

I told them about the trees that grew upside down in wonderland.

I screamed at them, I told them they were wrong, the door was there. It was always, always there. If I wanted my mother, if I wanted Michael then I could go and see them whenever I liked. They were wrong to tell me otherwise.

When I didn't want to talk to them anymore, I would go to Wonderland, moving quickly so they could not catch me.

One day they set a trap for me in my hospital room. I woke up and the door was there, on the window pane. I tried to get up but they had tied me down to the bed. I could not move my arms or legs, they had bound me. I struggled against the constraints but they would not let me up.

I screamed then until my voice ran raw and they put tubes in me and attached machines to my head.

They told me that it was going to hurt a little bit but then I would be cured.

I became lightening.

With every shock the door grew bigger and bigger until it seemed to take up the entire wall. I screamed past the piece of plastic they'd put in my mouth and the door grew bigger still.

The door grew so big that it took p the floor and then it grew bigger until it took up the bed. The door opened and I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, I was in Wonderland, safe and sound.

I resolved to stay in Wonderland where it was safe. I made myself a shelter in the poppy fields and the creatures of Wonderland came to help me build a house for myself. They built me a long table to have tea parties. I'd had a party once, when I was four for my birthday. I decided that everyday that was not my birthday would be a party. I'd never had a good one after all.

I stayed in Wonderland for a very long time and made many friends. Mother decided to become a deer and she taught me more about different teas and how to brew them. My tea parties became the talk of Wonderland.

One day, a very long time later, Frances the Otter told me that he had found the door to go back out again. I'd misplaced it some time before. There was nothing to go back for but Frances insisted that I give the outside world a look and so I went.

The real world was cold and colourless. There was a distinct lack of tea.

I found myself in the hospital room again and the sound of machines in constant rhythm came upon my ears. I listened to a clicking tock of a clock and the steady sound of a heart monitor. It was attached to me.

I shut the door to Wonderland then and realized I was rather tired, so I settled in for a nap.

A few days later they told me I was nine and had been gone for two years. That seemed a bit wrong time me. I was certain that I had been in Wonderland for at least three.

Now that I was back though, the orphanage decided to take me out of the hospital and put me in a large room full of other children. I didn't mind so much, especially when they bought me all the teapots and cups that I asked for. They seemed afraid, as if saying no to my requests would break me in half.

I tried my luck then and asked for them to write a letter to my Mother and tell her to please water the garden in Wonderland.

The medication came soon after but I decided to ignore it, finding it was better to crush it up and brew it into tea for the others.

The other children were allowed to attend school so I was sent as well. I chose not to go however, it held no interest to me. Besides, if everyone else was gone then I could go to Wonderland with no one the wiser.

I never misplaced the door to get home again either.

It's been a fine arrangement for me for a long time now. Time has never been important to me, it's simply a structure made by man that does not apply to me. Carmody believes the opposite. Time is always of the essence to her. We still manage to get along despite this.

I know that time has passed because my hands are bigger. My fingers are much longer than they used to be and much more veins stick out on the back of my hands than before. Overall I think I must be much more muchier than I once was. Like how a tea leave can only be plucked at a certain time, I may be becoming ripe soon.

I'm taller than before too.

I can tell because the doors have grown larger with me, like puberty has hit them just as hard as it has hit me.

I've gone from a small height to an average one. I know this because some of the girls in the dorm are taller than me and some of the boys are too. In that case I may be shorter than I originally planned to be.

Lightening paints my torso and legs, scorch marks from where they shocked me too hard. They said that's why I went away to Wonderland and couldn't get back. I wish that they would do it again.

Josephine cuts my hair for me because I don't like going into town to get it done. The ladies with the scissors are untrustworthy but Jo isn't. They say Jo has anger problems but when she's cutting my hair she's careful and doesn't hurt me. She told me that she likes it, my black hair is like feathers. I tell her I'm a raven.

Or maybe I tell her I'm a writing desk.

They're very similar things after all.

You're here Madds.

I reach the forest of floating trees and push my way through the hanging branches that fall gracefully from the sky. I take one and tug carefully, checking to make sure that it's sturdy. In my pocket is a biscuit. I pull it out and it says to me in careful script, 'Eat Me'.

I put the entire thing in my mouth and chew carefully. It tastes slightly of lavender. My mother must have made it. Lavender is her favourite.

I shoot up quickly and raise my arms over my head to protect it from stray branches. My teacup grows smaller and smaller as I grow bigger and bigger. I drop it in my pocket as my head breaks the root line and the sun hits my cheeks, warm and welcoming.

The flowers grow between the roots in many colours and birds fly over head.

I'll wait here in Wonderland until the others come. I'll set the tea table for them in anticipation.

It's my un-birthday today, there's a party at my tea table and they were all invited. Even Ridley.

I hope that they'll come, I brewed them something special today.