Adopt imaginary twins; cry when they say their first word (“quarantine”); ransack new recipes to quiet their insatiable hunger; crank open doors and windows; demonstrate how to run fingers over wild, overgrown grass; bike them to beach; build castles, mermaids, moats; inhale salty ocean air; watch fire-red sun sink into horizon.

Lift face to pale moon and marvel, “Isn’t it crazy that there are more stars in the sky than all the grains of sand on earth?”

“Mmm,” I said, pretending it was delicious. I put it down and asked for more tea. Giggling, she poured air into a pink cup.

Someone pounded on the door.

The pot dropped to the table. I slid our pre-packed bag out from under the bed. She clung to me, like a baby monkey to its mother, and reached for her doll.

The door was giving in. Soon, it’d be off the hinges. I hoped we had enough time. I opened the window and my heart clenched.

We followed down the hole, and past that infernal tea party. We would circle around perdition’s flames before he would give him up.

It was Ahab’s singular obsession. To forever pursue the white rabbit that had trespassed onto his vegetable patch one autumn night so many years ago.

We heard him rant from the back of our carriage deep into the night.

“You are not right in the head,” proclaimed the Hatter.

“Then off with our heads,” laughed the crowd.

The beheadings started soon thereafter. Tea Parties became a national affair, and the national coffers were quickly emptied to pay for wine and biscuits.

“But there is no wine and biscuits,” cried the people.

“I have been turned into a scape goat,” lamented the hatter.

And he produced a goat to prove his case.

The old man was stopped at the front door. “ID please.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Why not?”

“Because ID’s are a plot by the socialist government to try and rob us of our freedom. Before you know it, they’ll have us locked up in death camps.”

“He’s one of us.”