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Golden brown leaves crunched underneath her feet as Alice walked along the garden. There were a few maple trees scattered around and there were bushes - loads of them. A nurse was walking alongside Alice, talking to her but Alice was sort of in a trance.
" - and the bill's just come out, your mum says she'll visit soon to pay for it, aren't you happy you'll be seeing her again, Alice, dear?" the nurse was saying, but Alice had this odd and empty expression on her face that told her she wasn't listening. "Alice?"
Alice nodded blankly even though she didn't hear what the nurse had just said. She was looking at the maple trees, and the bushes, and the cloudless blue sky above - truth be told, it had been a while since she'd come out of the mental hospital to walk around the beautiful garden they had. She was surprised at how fine the day was.
While she was deep in thoughts, something caught her attention. It was a white rabbit - not just a rabbit, but a rabbit in a suit, hopping along until it disappeared behind the thick bushes. Alice brushed this off, seeing as she was used to seeing things that were not really there.
"Did you see that?" she turned and asked the nurse; even though she knew she was just hallucinating again, she wanted to make sure that the rabbit was merely a figment of her imagination.
"See what, dear?"the nurse said, her eyebrows knitted.
"Nothing," Alice sighed, and the nurse resumed her talk about how high Alice's mental hospital bill was. Alice couldn't care less. Her parents wouldn't have paid for all this crap if her mother hadn't sent her to the mental, anyway. Alice had kept on insisting that she was okay, that being crazy and seeing things was fine and that it didn't even bother her, but her mother, Alice saw, was scared of her and her craziness, so she whisked Alice off to the mental about a year ago.
The hallucinations didn't stop there, even when she took her medications. Alice still kept seeing things in her ward - a talking blue caterpillar, a set of huge eyes and a wide and crazy smile that suddenly disappeared into thin air when Alice went to get her adult version of a coloring book from underneath the bed. There were plenty other more, things that Alice always forgot about but remembered when she saw them again.
And there was also the rabbit in a suit she just saw.
She saw it again, when they got near the huge maple tree that Alice always adored from her ward window. It was there, pressed against the tree trunk, and it was holding a golden chain watch. "Fuck it, I'm late again, he's going to kill me," it was saying to itself, and Alice couldn't help but smile at what it said. None of the things she ever saw cussed, so this was a first.
The voice of the nurse broke through her thoughts again, and Alice turned to look at her. When she looked back, the rabbit was gone. "What was that?" asked Alice.
"I said," the nurse implored with a tinge of annoyance in her voice due to the fact that Alice wasn't even paying any attention, "will you be fine if I leave you for a second? There's this really important person I've got to meet, it's about my other patient, this old man named Alan, and I can't bring you along, I know you hate going back up to the hospital - just don't go wandering off, okay?" She looked sternly at Alice, who nodded.
"Stay here," said the nurse, as if Alice was her pet dog that obeyed to every instruction that she gave. Alice watched as the nurse walked back to the hospital, through the glass doors, and then she was alone.
Finally. The voice of the nurse was killing her; it made her temples throb and made her head feel like it was about to explode.
Alice fully appreciated the silence; it was nice to be finally alone for just a moment, without having a nurse or a doctor bustling and gushing over her, or a specialist checking her mental condition.
"Fuck - I can't be late - that tosser will kill me - "
Alice whirled around. It was that voice again - it was the talking rabbit in the suit, and it was right behind Alice, still staring distractedly at its chain watch. It didn't even notice Alice standing there directly in front of it.
The rabbit started hopping to where the thicker bushes were, and without even thinking, Alice started to follow it quickly. It came to a stop in front of another huge maple tree and, looking closely while crouching behind the bushes, Alice saw a rabbit hole, just big enough for a small girl to crawl through. She watched with interest as the rabbit took a quick glance around, muttered another swear word, and jumped right into the rabbit hole.
Alice looked quickly around. If she jumped into it, would anybody see her? If the nurse saw that she was gone, would she panic and call Alice's parents right away, tell them that she was either missing or had run away?
Sod it, Alice thought, gritting her teeth. She didn't even care about what her parents thought of her anymore, and anyway, Alice was sure that this was just a dream - a hallucination, and that she would be waking up back in her ward any time now ..
Walking forward, she stopped right in front of the rabbit hole before looking around, just as the rabbit had done. There wasn't anybody else in the garden save for an old man sweeping the leaves, and besides, he couldn't see Alice from her position ..
Taking a deep breath, Alice lifted her left foot above the rabbit hole and let it fall down, taking her body along with it.
