Tailored Hats, Cats and White Rabbits Original

13// "Explanations Take Such a Dreadful Time"

13// “Explanations Take Such a Dreadful Time”

Institutional life continued as per usual. Waking up from a feverish night of dreams and murderous creatures, breakfast was at a least a little more interesting. Cherry always told us what to eat and which items on our plate we should eat first. She had an incredible memory and wouldn’t hesitate to slap us on the hand if we purposely disobeyed her pattern. Therapy sessions consisted of Hillary’s blinding smile and her rainbow charity shirts.

Alisa hardly paid me attention in the sessions, she always muttered quietly to herself, dressed in such extravagant clothing like black tutus, long fingerless gloves that looked like they belonged to Cinderella, her solitaire stockings seemed to always be with her, the curly blonde hair still remained untidy and wild. Free time consisted of me and Blondie doing marathons of TV series. My private therapist, I could tell was not enjoying my company. Sagging bags hung underneath her eyes and her hair seemed to be getting less neat, her clothes more dishevelled.

Soon I began to pull out all the stops to rid myself of the routine. Sure Cherry would probably punch me, but she was light as a feather she wouldn’t do much damage. I played chess and trivia with the twins, watched all of season 4 of Walking Dead with Blondie, even though it was interrupted by Nurse Carrigan on more than one occasion. It was through all of these side projects that I did, that my mind continued to wander down the rabbit hole and to Alisa Wilders.

To say I thought about her consistently would be putting it lightly. I felt her gaze on me whenever I walked the halls, in my dreams her strong yet feathery kiss haunted me till I woke again, only to find that her delicate and warm body was not pressed against mine in a heated moment. Since the night on the roof we hadn’t spoken or even been alone together. In fact none of us had even talked about that night. Maybe it was for the fact that no one wanted to acknowledge the reasons why we had ended up in the institute. Speaking of which, I had been constantly trying to decipher what Alisa had said that night about how she had gotten here. It had been so riddled with…riddles that I’m sure none of us had any clue what she was going on about.

Have I gone mad?

I’m afraid so. You’re entirely bonkers. But I’ll tell you a secret,

All the best people are

 I stand by those words then as I do now. It wasn’t fair that she was constantly treated like a criminal. But then again, I thought to myself. She did say that she had stabbed someone. What had they done to deserve such a response from Alisa? Surely not mere words could push her to violence? Maybe it was in her nature. Maybe I just hadn’t seen that side of her before. Maybe I was slowly, but surely becoming infatuated with Alisa. It paled me every time I thought about that beautiful thing, picking up a knife and cutting into someone’s flesh…it was uncannily familiar.

“This place feels like a morgue” Blondie remarked as we started the third season of Breaking Bad. I think she spoke for all of us when she said that. Cherry looked up as she sat cross legged on the floor sorting out padlocks in order of manufacture date, Jaxon threw his king across the room in defeat, it shattered on the wall just beside the TV, missing it by an inch.
“We need something to liven up our dreary routine” Blondie announced.
“Why change? When everything is so perfect” Cherry retorted as she examined a blue padlock that consumed her tiny little hand. Today she wore nothing but yellow.
“My dear, March Hare” Alisa piped up. I turned around to see that she stood in the doorway, dressed in a long flowing lilac dress, it was sleeveless and glided down to the floor to pool at her feet. A set of silver bangles were hitched up on her forearms, six on each arm. I refrained from sighing in absolute awe. She was so beautiful without even trying. If you had never seen her before you would have thought that she was going to a party, even with her tattoos.