Alice was reading the newspaper by the fire. The Mad Hatter was attending to some millinery, the March Hare was playing billiards, and beside the big grandfather clock The Queen of Hearts was sawing The White Rabbit's head off.
"What does `measured military response' mean?" asked Alice thoughtfully.
"Well, exactly as the speaker says, I imagine," observed the March Hare as he chalked his cue. "Saying what you mean and meaning what you say are the same thing, you know."
"I know nothing of the kind," said Alice, rather hotly. "We had this conversation before, and when I said that, the Mad Hatter retorted that that was the same as saying, `I see what I eat is the same thing as I eat what I see'."
The Mad Hatter looked up from his needle. "That was in Wonderland," he said sadly. "Things were different in Wonderland. And Behind the Looking Glass too - remember the Looking Glass, Alice? Happy days, happy days."
"Well if this is not Wonderland, and it's not Behind the Looking Glass, where am I?" Alice asked in a plaintive little voice.
New adventure
"This is a new adventure," murmured the Queen in quietly triumphant tones as her saw cut through the rabbit's neck and the head fell onto the carpet. "And one in which I am in my element. This adventure is called `Alice in Peace Process Land', where nothing is just as it seems."
"I am quite used to that in my adventures, you know," said Alice, a little impatiently. "I'm not a complete fool."
"Maybe you are," said Tweedledee as he sailed through the door. "And maybe you're not," said Tweedledum behind him. "For if you were a fool, you wouldn't know you were one," chimed in Tweedledee. And Tweedledum added: "And if you weren't a fool, contrariwise, you wouldn't know foolishness enough to recognise it. That's logic."
"Oh," said Alice, a little faintly. "I didn't realise that's what logic was."
"Don't be surprised at what logic does in this place," said the March Hare. "The men who used that term, `measured military response' no doubt think it's logic. Logic in Peace Process Land is a universal quality possessed by everybody, right or wrong."
"Is it?" asked Alice in a small voice, and sounding quite appalled. "So there's logic in calling the butchery of a half-adozen perfectly innocent civilians on the outside a measured military response to the murder of a man inside a jail, is there?"
"Yes," said Tweedledum. "Yo," said Tweedledee.
"And for military, I should read non-military?"
"Precisely," said the Queen, popping a rabbit eye into her mouth.
"And I read here," continued Alice, waving a newspaper, "that people in Peace Process Land meet according to the Mitchell principles, and everybody disavows violence and promises to disarm for ever and ever. So that means these UFFUDP thingummies have broken their word, so they'll be out for ever, yes?"
Long silence
There was a long, studied silence in the room, before the dormouse, who had crept in unobserved, remarked sleepily: "No, not quite forever. Six weeks actually. That's a long time for a dormouse, you know."
"Six weeks?" cried Alice. "That's only a week per murder. That's monstrous! What does the Dublin government say about these killings of blameless Catholics by loyalist fascists, pardon my French."
"No pardon needed, my dear," said the Mad Hatter, snipping a stitch with his teeth. "There now. Well, the Dublin Government's Minister for Foreign Affairs says yes, he'd welcome back the political representatives of the killers, once six weeks have elapsed."
"I see," said Alice. "Is that the way of it, that participants in the peace talks can go on a killing spree half-way through the talks, and after six weeks they can come back into the talks, and everybody's loveydovey again, is it?"
"Pretty much," agreed the White Queen, looking up from her snack. She wiped her mouth with her sleeve and it came away stained crimson. "That land of the peace-talks is full of people like me, who sup at the bowl of blood and call it logic. We must be placated. If we are not at the talks, we kill again. That's why democrats must let us have our way. Always."
`Not murdering'
"But you were at the talks, you swore you wouldn't kill again, and you did," said Alice levelly.
"We were provoked," sniffed the White Queen.
"So even though you broke your word by murdering, you'll still be allowed back to rejoin the talks to repeat the same promise you have already violated by murdering?"
"Not murdering, my dear. Engaging in a measured military response, which is now concluded," said the White Queen. "And after a six-week sanitation period, we'll be welcome back, according to that nice David Andrews - so handsome, isn't he, so statesmanlike."
The Queen of Hearts looked down at her bowl and let out a little cry of joy. "Oh, I just love it when the blood starts puckering, don't you?"
"And how long will a peace built on such rules last?" asked Alice, of nobody in particular. There was a long silence, broken only by the soft munching sound of tiny rodent bones as a threshing tail vanished into the Queen's mouth.
She belched. "Dormouse. Yummy."