Hatter had come to a conclusion. It wasn't absolute, because he didn't quite trust his own mind to think of things in that way. But it wwas as close as he could get. It had taken him a week or more to reach the conclusion, but that was because it was so difficult to keep a single thought in his mind for so long. But the conclusion was this:

Women were insane.

Now, Hatter knew something about insanity. Quite a bit, really. You don't earn the title "The Mad Hatter" without good cause. He'd been the Mad Hatter for so long, that people tended to forget his real name. Himself included. Why bother with Reginald L. Theophilus III when 'Hatter' worked just as well? Besides, nobody but the Hare had called him 'Reggie' in over a hundred years. On a good day, he could remember how to spell it properly. Other days, he would launch pencils at the terrible Windowshade and make sailboats out of the paper. There were the occasional times when he could actually carry a conversation, if the topic was right (like tea) or if he was angry enough. He'd had some decent rows with the Dormouse. But for the most part, thoughts breezed through his mind like air currents. Some were easier to grasp than others. Some were rotten and moldy, so he avoided them. Others were threatening.

But that was madness. His insanity. Understanding it didn't make it any easier to control. Controlling it would mean facing those moldy throughts or the threatening ones, and Hatter didn't want to. He was scared to. So he lived that way, managed to survive, and living was made possible by some very strict routines that he followed every day.

Routines that she had destroyed.

Female insanity, Hatter had painsakingly put together, was completely irrational, completely emotional, and impossible to comprehend. One moment, Alice would be screaming at him, and the next, pressing herself against him for... who knew what reason? And then she would storm off, infuriated, the moment he tried to speak. For the love of tea, what was wrong with her?

All at once today, he had been afraid to go home. Home was his sanctuary, the place where things made sense to his fractured mind. But she had turned it into a nightmare, complicating his simple rituals, clearing away his small comforts with some evil she had called 'cleaning'. It wasn't safe there anymore. It had become twisted and confusing, a place of both fear and satisfaction. He couldn't, couldn't, wouldn't ask her, tell her, command her to leave, and he didn't know why. She'd broken down all the borders that had kept him going, and he didn't know if he liked it, or hated it.

So he fled. Running at first, then walking once he got tired. He hopped for a while, first on the right leg, then on the left. Then he switched around the order so both legs had been hopped on properly. This of course was off-balance, since the left leg had been hopped on twice in a row, while the right leg had gotten a break. So he started over, hopping with his left leg, then the right, right again, and left. By this time, both of his legs felt quite tired and rubbery, so he secured his hat tightly upon his head and walked on his hands for a bit.

Hopping on his hands quickly proved futile and made for slow progress when he fell over after each attempt. By the time he had finished falling over enough to balance out the number of bruises he had on either side of his body, his legs were sore, but recovered enough to start running again. They gave out much more quickly this time, and when Hatter finally came to a stop, he was far too exhausted to see where he was. Someplace with lots of trees. He collapsed, rolled to the side of the road, and passed out under a large plant with wide green leaves.

Tags: mad hatter, puss