Tailored Hats, Cats and White Rabbits Original

35// "I've Been Considering Things Starting With The Letter M"

35// "I've Been Considering Things That Begin With The Letter M"

The hospital is not very busy this time of night on a weekday. Every now and then a nurse pokes her head out or a patient is moved via a wheelchair or the phone rings and the receptionist answers.

"Mr Lantara I need you to remain calm" the nurse who looks like a vampire tells me, putting her hands up to try and hold my arms down.I have them clasped behind my head and I'm pacing like a racehorse.

"I can't stay fucking calm! How do you expect me to remain calm when she's in there and I'm out here!" I shout at the nurse. The few people that are in the waiting room glance up suspiciously and give me ugly looks.

"Please don't use that language in here. I understand that this is very stressful for you but Alisa cannot see anyone right now"

"Let me in if you don't want me to swear." I snapped, my jaw clinched and tightened with bolts. The vampire nurse closes her red eyes and takes a moment to take a few deep breaths, the doors behind the nurse, the ones that she's keeping me out of, open and another nurse comes out to whisper in her ear. I try to make something out of their murmured conversation but I can't. There's too much blood rushing my ears and heart beat about to explode out of my skin.

The vampire nurse looks up at me and gestures for me to follow her. Without a word of understanding shared between us she leads me swiftly down a few corridors and finally to a bed that has a tiny figure perched on top, covered in a sheet and dressed in a mint green hospital gown.

Collapsing to my knees beside her bed, my hands struggle to find hers.

"Alisa, Alisa, what the hell were you thinking?" I whisper yell to her. Her head of blonde curls turn to me and her entire face is sunken and grey, like she's turning into a thunder cloud. The blue jewels of her eyes have diminished and she looks like she can barely stay awake. The sharp contours of her face have been worn down by an eraser and she must just want to sleep. That's when I realise that there are nurses in here with us. Composing myself I stand up and glance across at them.

"Can you leave us alone?" I ask but it's really an order. They give us both sympathetic smiles and then leave.

Pulling up a chair I sit as close to the bed as possible without actually getting on it. Alisa is on her side and in the light I can see that there is a large red hand print on her cheek.

"Who did this to you?" I murmur to her as the silence has stretched so much it's a rubber band waiting to spring back and hit us right where it hurts. A small trickle of water pours down her cheek and drips onto her chin.

"I did this, I made this happen" her voice is dead and tired and I am sorry that I have to make her speak. But no one does this to my Alisa and gets away with it.

"Alisa-"

"Why do you use my real name?" stunned beyond belief I watch as she only asks me sincerely and with no aggression.

"Because I want an answer from Alisa, I do not want an answer from Alice who has been told to keep quite by The Red Queen" my hand moves to brush away a stray curl and tuck it behind her ear.

"She did this." She finally tells me but she doesn't meet my eyes, "when you left she yelled at me, so much that I thought she was going to hit me. And then she did" she sniffs and I am already on the bed, holding her to me.

"She hit me and then threatened to kill my rabbit. And then she did" her shoulders shake and I press her closer to me till our heart beats are against each other, trying to copy one another.