Roses are red. Violets are blue. Sugar is sweet. Says who? Bright red flowerbeds and cool blue fountains fill this room: the Red Queen’s garden. A pig in a baby’s bonnet oinks as it trots past in search of its mother.

Curiouser things happened to-day. Cards lay down in the grass. Guessing faces passes time away. His dear rabbit is a betting lass. Jack of spades, she claims thrice. Her confidence is quite the sight.

“Will you tell me please,” he says, a little timidly before her, “why we’re painting these roses?”

He must have missed the memo. Roses are boxes. Violets are peanuts. Sugar is signs. He thinks that’s not quite right — it sounds like uncommon nonsense. 

“Well, the fact is, you see, this here ought to have been a red rose tree, and you put a white one in by mistake,” she accuses as she coats another. “The Queen absolutely abhors fakes.” Color preferences end in executions.

“I did?” He reels back.

“You did!” She presses forward.

“For you, dear rabbit,” he admits without considering to think — it’s a matter of course! 

“For me?” she states with shock. 

Confessions such as these, by wandering whos in such wondrous wheres, shoot long for one side. But they may hit the other. One side of what? The other side of what? His heart!

“Don’t you see?” He plucks an uncolored rose. “It blooms full and white and twinkles like fireflies on a green night — and lights the way for what wonders can be. Like you, dear rabbit.”

“Did you say, ‘like me?’” she asks.

“No, I didn’t,” he says. “I don’t think they much match me; I’m just a lowly honeybee.” 

“That’s the uncommenest nonsense you’ve said; if it were true, you’d have sooner fled!” she argues with him for him. 

It’s like his mother used to say: there’s rainy days to-morrow when there’re umbrellas to-day — that’s not quite right. Lady Luck had catered coincidental happenstance with buttered biscuits and bonbons for this umbrella. So he chooses.

“I want adventure, excitement, and uncertainty — and I want to learn how to swim,” he declares as he forgets. Really. Riddles, rhymes, and fiddles. We’re all mad here, they say — says who? 

“It’s been very fun,” she closes as she coats another white rose red, “but soon I’ll have to run.”

“I’ll follow you, dear rabbit,” he says and he watches. Heart painted by mistake. Much too fond of the fake. Then Cheshire makes the room shake. 

Shadows grow on purple walls. Paint cans tumble over. The pig in a baby’s bonnet dives into a rose bush. “How are you getting on?” says the cat, as soon as there is mouth enough for it to speak with. A question he barely hears, chasing her through the door into the next room. 

“The trial’s beginning!” is heard from a distance. 

Trumpets roar above two empty thrones. Two crowns discarded. One card, face down, in chains. One judge and one jury. He has never been in a court of justice before, but is quite pleased to find he knows the name of nearly everything there. 

“Get down; Chesire-Cat’s got the eyes of a hound.” She pulls him beneath the jury box stools. 

Important; unimportant: words scrawled onto slabs with black ink. The jurors were split. Between this and that and boxes and wonders and reds and whites. Remember: color preferences end in executions. 

“We call the last witness,” the cat hisses, “Alice — or Lacie — whichever attempted to flee!” It caught up quick. The day of the twelves is drawing to a close. 

Alice or Lacie: say he chooses. Can he come back and choose again? A third, a fourth, a fifth time. No. No, he was told he can only choose one — who told him?

“I must confess my preference,” he admits to his diverging wants and needs. 

“Say the words, and you’ll be thirds,” she states with sorrow flushing her white. His confidence gives her quite the fright. He must be Alice to face Cheshire’s malice. An unchosen piece of gooey mushroom fills his pocket. It’s like his mother used to say: there’re umbrellas and rain everyday — that’s not quite right.