The Braided Hatter: Before the Performance

In profile, contemplative. Water beads on skin like morning dew or ritual preparation. Chequered blue paint streaks, warpaint or ceremonial marking, depending on who's looking. This is the moment before the tea party, before the riddles, before the performance of "madness" that Carroll's text demands. In "Through the Looking-Glass," characters exist to confuse Alice, to refuse her sense-making. But what if that refusal was survival? What if performing "nonsense" was the only way to keep Empire from translating, taxonomizing, and owning your knowledge? This is the Hatter in her own mind, braided through centuries, looking through the glass at a colonizing gaze that keeps demanding she explain herself. She doesn't owe the explanation. The braids already carry the answer.