tamingthemuse | Monthly Challenge - Favorite Poem - I Know What's Real - Sarbear12456

Title: I Know What's Real
Prompt: Favorite Poem (Monthly Challenge)
Fandom: Alice in Wonderland
Warnings: Only losely based on Alice in wonderland...don't fault me on the little details.
Rating: Teen
Summary: A once prominent scientist sits in a mental institution and contemplates what she knows of the world.

The walls were white and cushioned. The chairs were in fact bean bags. Pens were a luxury for those deemed unlikely, or unable, to hurt themselves. Then again, most of the people were too doped up to notice their surroundings. It was Longfield mental institute, specialising in ‘reality correction’. For the non-psychologists, that’s the crazy people who don’t know they’re crazy.

Lara Anne was sitting with her scrapbook and crayon (apparently she was delusional enough to warrant concern) and contemplating what she knew of the universe. The universe had fascinated her since she was a small child, she wanted to know how things work, why they worked, and what they could do. She also needed very little time to learn these things. By the time most people her age were learning to write, she was learning complex physics and mechanics. When she was working on her third research paper some were graduating from school. She had always been detached from ‘reality’, more so when she had her ‘nervous breakdown’.

One of the things that had interested her most, the subjects that Lara had heavily researched was the idea of the multiverse. The idea of different realities astounded her. She wanted to see them, to experience them to prove their existence. In fact, our heroine had been at the forefront of her field before she did prove their existence. Pelt enough particles into a temporal anomaly and you had your own rip in the universe, one that sealed itself in exactly 24 hours. She researched the particular anomaly for years, even perfecting a way to control the realities you could glimpse. The final step was to stride through that little tear in the universe and get some results.

Oh, she had visited so many. Some were exactly the same as our own universe. Some had entirely different rules governing nature. The most appealing, she found, were the ones that resembled the books she read as a child. For hours she would marvel at the witches sugar-coated house, dine with Goldilocks and the three bears (who had actually become good friends) or dance at balls where Cinderella reigned with her prince. Imagination was simply the ability to glimpse other worlds.

One day she stumbled upon what would soon be her favourite and most often visited reality, just as it had been her favourite and most read book. Lara found Wonderland.

“How do you do today girls?” cried the Hatter as his two favourite mortals approached the haphazardly constructed table piled with just as unstable and uniquely made food. Alice and Lara, though from different times, different realities even, bonded over their ability to traverse the gaps between worlds. Of course there were others, but these two had similarly unique outlooks on the world since their time as children. Who would dream of painting flowers red? Who would dream of walking into the world of fiction?

“Oh, today’s a splendid day, Hatter” Alice replied, “The twins are coming for a visit”.

Lara, still new to this world had to ask. “The twins?”

“They visit sometimes. Oh! They have a lovely song they may just tell you.” Alice replied.

“Ah…” was Lara’s only reply. Suddenly remembering what her favourite poem as a child was, and the very twins who had told it to Alice. “Well, if this is our first meeting, I must change.” Exclaimed Lara. Running her hands over her lab coat and the T-shirt and jeans it concealed she willed them to become a nice, form-fitting dress. Reality in Wonderland is what you make it, and Lara made her dress long, sleek and elegant. The silk of her dress was adorned with diamonds, similar to the diamonds that now adorned her neck, earlobes and wrist.

The group spent a lovely day discussing China(the one you visit), china (the type you eat from), chisels, cherries and cherubs. Unfortunately Lara had to part company, lest she be trapped there forever.

Finally, after ten exhaustive years of research, she was ready to present her findings to the world. After ten years of what some believed to be seclusion Lara Anne was presenting a theory, no-one knew what theory, at one of the most renowned physics seminars worldwide.

It would be cruel, embarrassing and monotonous to tell of that seminar, or the ones that followed. The evidence provided, protests of sanity and everything else she provided did no good. Six months later she sat, crayon and scrapbook in hand, and wrote out those things she had seen. To her therapists this was a part of her treatment, a way to see what was wrong so they could fix it. So they could fix her.

“How are we doing today Lara?” her therapist asked. Suddenly she was in a group session and it was her turn. Funnily enough, being in a psychiatric hospital was making her loose her mind. Lara no longer understood where she was or how she got there a lot of the time. Glancing at her notebook then back to the therapist who spoke to her in a tone that insulted her intelligence, she gave the best answer she could. Forcing a smile to her face she replied “I’m fine thank you”. During her stay she had learnt to stop talking about the wonderful things she had experienced. If she kept quiet, convinced the therapists she was normal, maybe she could go back. Get back in the lab, get back to Wonderland. Hell, if she stayed more than a day, she could stay there forever.

What reason did she really have to stay? Her mom died in a car crash shortly before her ‘breakdown’. Her dad left before she had graduated. She no longer was the leader of her field. Actually she was ridiculed in her field, a cautionary tale: don’t look to deep, you’ll end up like Lara.

All she had to do was act ‘normal’ and she could return to Wonderland. This time forever.