« At
the beginning there was nothing. Empty places without heaven or hell…”
The wind turns the pages of the book
on her knees. She’s laying on the grass in a half-sleep. Suddenly, a noise behind trees makes her open the eyes. She wakes up and looks around her. She’s
alone, any cars in the street next to the university and for the first time in
her little student’s life, nobody around her in the campus area.
Surprised and maybe a few afraid,
she bypasses the trees and discovers a rabbit.
“Oh, you scared me!” she says,
relieved.
The rabbit turn his blue eyes to
her. What a strange creature she thinks, looking at his white fur and his red
frock coat…
“Scusi signorina, sono in ritardo!”
it says before it disappears in the bushes.
“What the hell? Why this rabbit is
speaking Italian?!” she asks to her-self before realizes that she was talking
to a rabbit with a frock coat.
“That’s reminding me a story, she
says, something tells me that I better have to not follow him but…”
And instead of following her conscience,
she runs after the rabbit.
She sees it jumping in a black hole
between roots. She leans over the hole, it’s narrow and she can’t see where
it’s ending.
“I’m not afraid, she said out loud
for reassure her-self, I’m almost twenty, I could handle that.”
She tries to dive too but her back
refuses to follow her. She swears and regrets her delightful snack before her
nap.
“Oh food, she apostrophizes, you
will be my loss one day.”
With some effort she succeeds to go through and
she falls into the hole. Around her, she sees broken clocks and deformed
mirrors, she can also recognize all the stuff she had buy in Ikea’store for
furnish her apartment. All this crazy things on a musical background.
“Wait a minute, it’s my iPod playlist!”
she exclaims. Nirvana, Queen, Aerosmith, U2 for the good ones, and Christina
Aguilera, Adele, Agnes Obel for what reminds her she’s still a young woman.
The fall becomes quicker and she
dreads the finish. Fortunately, she can see now what will happen to her, a big
mattress is waiting her on the ground.
She hits it with a huge speed. The
mattress explodes in a feather ‘swarm like a cloud during a tempest.
She sneezes a lot of time before she
success to calm her. She is in quiet room with a little door at the other side,
a very little door.
“This time I can’t go through, it’s
sure, snack or not.”
Something “pops” behind her. She
turns and sees a table with a little purple flask with a label which “Drink me”
written and a key. Without more reflection she drinks it. She becomes to shrink
and shrink again.
“I wasn’t really tall at the
beginning and now…”
When she’s just the good eight she
tries to open the door.
“The key! she says, It’s on the
table and now I’m too little to take it!”
She runs-up to break down the door,
preparing her-self to the impact, but her shoulder only meets empty and she
falls on the ground. She swears again. Now on her feet she walks on the forest
in which she was just falling.
On her road she meets a huge
mushroom with a caterpillar on the top.
“Nice to meet you.” she says.
If rabbits can talk, caterpillars can talk too.
“Nice to see you again Alice, replies
the caterpillar.
_Sorry but I’m not Alice, I’m Lucie.
_What?!”
The caterpillar looks at her, Lucie
can see that it is smoking.
“Yes, I’m Lucie Bonato, I’m nineteen
years old and I’m in L2 language, literature and Italian civilization… she
explains. Oh, and where are we?”
The caterpillar seems confused.
“You’re not Alice? That’s crazy, why
are you here?
_I was following a white rabbit.
_So, you have to continue and to
stop annoying me! Now, leave me alone”
Lucie, who doesn’t really understand
the caterpillar, continues her way on the forest.
Now, the trees are taller and woods
become darkest. She feels like in an Edgar Allan Poe’s novel.
The road forks and Lucie doesn’t know
where she has to go. She is lost and she regrets her decision.
“I’m too curious… And now, I’m scared.”
But when she’s just about to turn
back she hears a voice singing a strange song.
“Who’s here? she asks.
_Who’s here, who’s here, who’s he… “the
echo replies.
“Maybe it’s just my imagination, or
maybe I’m crazy, or worst it’s a big spider which sets me a trap!” she thinks.
“Hello, the creepy voice says.
_Where are you?
_Here”
The cat appears, a smile on the
face.
“The Cheshire cat!
_Well, you’re learning something
actually!
_Sorry?
_That’s not really matter, by the
way if you'd really like to know, he went that way.
_Who did?”
It smiles. That wasn’t the first time
it made that joke.
“Follow me”
Lucie, afraid but full of questions,
follows the cat right up to a castle.
“Good luck Lucie” it murmurs before
leaving.
She decides to enter and go through
the door. Lucie crosses all the castle rooms and arrives in the end at the
throne room. The Red Queen is here, asleep, her crown fallen at her feet like
she’s a deposed queen.
“I’m really in Alice in Wonderland,
she says, I’m totally screwed up!
-Shhht” says someone behind her.
She looks at him. He’s young man,
dressing like an ancient knight.
“If you are the Prince Charming I’m
all yours.”
He laughs.
“No, I’m not here for that. And by
the way, you better don’t try to wake her.
_Why?
_You have more important things to
do.
_Like what?
_Like revise your grammar test.
_Holy cra…”
The shock makes her open her eyes,
for real this time. The campus is full of life now. Her friend looks at her.
“Seriously, you will not pass if you
don’t succeed your grammar test, so work!
_Yes, you’re right” replies Lucie.
She closes her book and get out of
her crazy and eccentric dreams. She stops a moment, thinking at that she had
just dreamed or that she had just lived, like Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream.
