Sunday, September 26, 2010

Who ARE you?

"The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
'Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ' I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'
'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'
'I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'
'I don't see', said the Caterpillar."

Alice was indeed not herself. She had been having just an horrific day.  Her sense of who she was adrift on those Autumn winds. One moment she had been having tea, and the next she was trying to figure out just why this Toad seemed so familiar.  Of course, she felt sympathy for the poor creature, shut up in that tiny parlour with the jabberwocky,  but there was something more. She felt like she had just fallen down a rabbit hole; and the world was somehow familiar but upside down and inside out.

Of course she had immediately spoken to Old Father William, as he seemed to be the resident expert on the jabberwocky (his grandson is in medicine,  don't you know) though she had no recollection of how she had come to meet him. "Pleased to meet you sir" she began. "Pardon my asking, but why are you standing on your head?" she inquired politely.

"'In my youth,' Father William" had slowly begun,
"'I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.'"

Not certain what to make of this response, she pressed on; "Sir, Can you tell me how Toad came to be menaced by that dreadful beast?"

"'In the days of my youth,' father William replied,
'I rememberd that youth could not last;
I thought of the future, whatever I did,
That I never might grieve for the past.'"

"But sir", said Alice, "Please tell me what might be done for the poor creature? He looks so pitiful!"

"'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
Allow me to sell you a couple?'"
That didn't appear to be very helpful! "Why do you all speak in such riddles?" she demanded (a bit petulantly.)  She had had just about enough.

"'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'"
Said said Old Williams; "'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'"

And that was that. "Dumb", chirped Dee; "Dee!", scolded Dum, and Alice was suddenly  very alone. "Who AM I?" she though to herself, suddenly realizing she may have missed Caterpillar's question totally....  and not being a selfish person at all, she immediately thought of poor Toad and whispered Caterpillar's question to Toad as if he were present, "Who are you?"

And Toad hardly knew.....

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