Pink Elephant

Author's Notes:
1) In Britain, seeing pink elephants is said to be a sign that you're drunk.             
2) Lizzie Borden was falsely accused of murdering her parents with an axe at the end of the 19th century.The song Alice sings is not my invention but a children's skipping song from that time.

This story has been accepted by Bewildering Stories Magazine.


                                              Pink Elephant.

    I peered boozily into the bathroom mirror. Instead of my own ugly but familiar mug a little girl with long blond ringlets gazed back at me.

    "Hullo," she said. "My name's Alice."

    "Your name's 'Hang-over,' " I mumbled, "and you're supposed to be a pink elephant. Why aren't you a pink elephant?"

    "I beg your pardon?"

    "Pink elephant," I insisted. " 'S'what my ol' dad always saw when he had one too many down the pub. So thas' what you must be--my personal pink eph...eph...ephelant."

    "Do I look like a pink eph...elephant?"

    "You'll do until one comes along."

    Alice sniffled.

    "Aren't you even going to ask why I'm in here?" she said dolefully. "Don't you even care?"

    I sighed.

    "All right, all right," I said. "So what's a pink elephant doing in my bathroom mirror?"

    She burst into tears. "I'm not a pink elephant," she wailed, "I'm not! I'm Alice, and I'm trapped behind this horrid looking-glass, and I can't get ouuut!"

    She began to hiccup.

    "Oh," I said."That Alice."

    "You've got to help me.You've got to."

    "But how did you get in there in the first place?"

    "It's all his fault."
 
    "Who's fault?"

    "Who's d'you think!" the child snapped. She stopped snivelling and glared at me."I didn't get in here all by myself, did I?"

    "Oh," I said. "You mean..."

    "And that's not the half of of it," said Alice furiously. "Oh, no.Not content with sticking me back behind that stupid old mirror of his without so much as a by-your-leave, he went and dropped dead before he could get me out again. And did he give even a moment's thought as to where that would leave me? Oh, no, not him!"

    She seemed to think the poor chap had died just to spite her.
   
    "Mind you," she remarked in a happier tone, "at least I got to teach that Queen of Hearts a lesson she won't forget in a hurry; fixed her wagon good and proper, nasty old bat. And as for..."
   
    "Look," I said, "this is all very interesting, but I think I'm beginning to sober up now..."

    Alice beamed at me. "You're going to get me out of here," she said. "You're going to get me out of here right this minute."

    "I am? How?"

    "You have to believe I'm real."

    "Oh, I do, I do."

    "You'd better, if you know what's good for you; otherwise, you'll end up like the Queen Of  Hearts. 'Off with their heads,' indeed. She won't be chopping off any more heads. Not after what I did to her."

    "What...what did you do to her?"

    "Secret. But I'll tell you this: Lizzie Borden's got nothing on me."

    "Lizzie who?"

    "Don't you know anything?"

    She began to chant.

    "Lizzie Borden took an axe,

    She gave her mother forty whacks.

    When she saw what she had done,

    She gave her father forty-o...."
   
    A sudden knock sounded on the bathroom door.

    "Quiet," I whispered. "It's my wife."

    "How long are you going to be, darling? I'm dying out here."

    "Coming!" I sang out. "Just a minute!"

    "What is the matter with you?" said my wife. "Why are you talking in that silly falsetto?"

    "What?"

    I turned back to the mirror. My own face stared out at me.

    A loud giggle sounded deep in my mind.

    "We're going to have lots of fun," said Alice.