Wonderland by Jayla Nickens-Gill
The students were tasked to “picture yourself in Wonderland.” The prompts included the Beatles song, “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which was inspired by a child’s nursery school drawing and the imagery of “Alice in Wonderland.”
We are featuring three very different approaches to the topic. Jayla takes us (and two of her fellow students) down the rabbit hole. Rhys considers it from the perspective of a real world trek to reach America from Colombia. And Kendall reminds us that Wonderland is always within us.
WONDERLAND
Sitting in the classroom, my head felt light. I closed my eyes and started thinking. A few
minutes later I hear this ticking. I try to ignore it, but the ticking continues. I pick up my head,
everyone is gone, and this white, ugly, red-eyed rabbit is staring at me. It looks down at
its ticking clock, then at me, and runs off.
I run after the rabbit. We get to a park, and he jumps down a hole. It reminds me of the movie “Alice in Wonderland.” However, when I jumped down the hole, my trip wasn’t as slow or as nice as Alice. I smashed into a piano, dislocated my finger, and slammed into the ground.
“Damn gang, why you land like that?” Karla says
“What you mean? You acting like this a regular thing” I said
“You saw that rabbit too huh? He threw a rock at me, next thing I know I’m spiraling down
this hole” Karla explains
“Anyone else down here?”
“Kendall, but she ain’t see the rabbit, she was walking and fell into the hole”
“Where is she”
“Over there lying down” Karla points
“Wassup son” Kendall says
“How you fall?” I asked
“Listen son, my ankles gave out and I couldn’t catch myself in time, but I knew I was
going down so I didn’t even try to stop it”
“And y’all ain’t look for a way out?” I asked
“Nah gango” Karla says
“Ard come on” I say
We helped Kendall off the floor and opened the door. Nothing but dry grass and trees. I
look over to Kendall and Karla, their entire outfits have changed. They were wearing big brown
worn-out pieces of cloth, worn-out shoes, and beads. Sadly, I was wearing the same thing.
“Where are we” Karla says
“Who cares? Look at what I’m wearing!” Kendall screams
“This is some caveman type thing, reminds me of a video game I played” I say
“We don’t have no phones, no music, no food, no showers, no nothing” Kendall says
“I can’t listen to YoungBoy” Karla starts to freak out
Before I can say anything, we hear a ton of screaming and people dressed just like us are
running towards us, bows and arrows in their hands. They motion for us to follow them. They
lead us into a cave and they start telling stories with paint.
“Ahhh!”
A bloody scream is heard, and the people are alerted. They hand us weapons and
encourage us to help them fight. We help them but it doesn’t last long. Kendall gets shot in the
head by an arrow, Karla gets shot in the neck, and I was chased and then pushed off a cliff.
As I’m falling, I hear the familiar ticking of the clock, and I pick my head up to see everyone back in the classroom and Mr. Don giving us a prompt. “Wonderland.”
Jayla Nickens-Gill
4/21/23