Present

"Is this a casino?" Hatter asked Alice.

He stared in awe and wonder at the glamorous array of flashing lights and towering buildings. Dead center, amidst the crowd of busy Oysters, Hatter had a perfect view of the new world surrounding him from all angles. He compared it to being very much stuck at the bottom of a shiny bowl. The lights of this new place were so bright the Hatter may have almost mistaken this bustling nightlife for daylight. Alongside all the flashing, blinking lights the buildings were adorned with many screens projecting different still and moving portraits. One depicted a happy group of Oysters dancing and laughing in their fuzzy plaid sweaters. Right above him a black portrait, this one non-moving, held only a red rose and single large white mask in its frame. "Remember your first time?" it read. It gave Hatter chills. Down the block another screen gleamed with many tiny, bouncing, exotically colored—what Alice told him were candies—forming many strange, rainbow shapes. To his left a painting of a pair of white and black and green witches smiled down on him. A single word, "Wicked", glittered.

Hatter was beginning to wonder who all these people in the Oyster pictures were, especially this "Coca-Cola" bloke who got his name on a big, glittering and—what the Hatter would refer to as a geometrically challenged— red sign all to himself.

A horn blared. Hatter jumped, his thoughts scattering for the hills. Many voices yelled at him in unison. Heavy shoulders shoved pushed the Wonderlander with unnecessary force. "Wotchit!" Hatter shouted. Then a sudden, terrible, infectious insect feeling sunk into the pit of his stomach. Alice. Where was Alice? He couldn't see her anywhere in the throng. Hatter spun in circles, shouting her name frantically until—

"Hatter!"

A very strong and equally delicate hand pulled him from the crowd. Alice dragged her Hatter onto the sidewalk, where one could say it was relatively safe. Her breathing was heavy as she scolded him: "You can't stand in the middle of the street, Hatter, you'll get run over!"

There was worry laced in her stern tone. Hatter gave his Alice his most wolfish of grins (that scary thing in his gut had subsided). He loved it when she worried about him. She tried very hard not to give and return the smile too. She was firmly set on being mad, Alice was. This only made Hatter's grin grow wider. He leaned down to kiss the tip of her nose. It had turned such a funny shade of pink from the cold. Alice pretended not to enjoy it. She was firmly set, remember? Of course she would be. Hatter had been acting like the most destructively curious of cats in her world for the past, what had Alice called it? a week.

"Is this a casino?" he said again, this time whispering into her ear. His hot breath chased away all the funny pink chills, and returned her ear to its normal creamy color.

Alice sighed. The first trace of a smile Hatter had witness in hours graced her lips.

"No," she told him, taking his hand and resuming her determined march down the sidewalk, "it's called Times Square."

Hatter's hand slipped from Alice's tight grip. He froze. Other pedestrians angrily slammed into the Wonderlander's back.

"T-time's?" he squeaked.

Alice turned, "Hatter?"

Hatter adjusted his flamingo pink scarf, swallowed the lump in his throat, and pulled the brim of his hat over the tips of his ears before speaking again. "Let's, ahem, let's go someplace else, shall we?"