Magic, Free Plan Limit/16

It was the White Rabbit, trotting back again and peering about most anxiously—as if he were hunting for something he had lost. Or so Alice supposed.

“I didn’t take it! Not the watch—goodness, no! I shouldn’t even know how to make it tick properly!” cried Alice, though no one had said a word to her at all.

A wild new thought suddenly bloomed in her mind. “Can a thing truly vanish, so lightly, with only a thought?” she mused, in equal parts doubt and delight. “Very well, I shall think of… of biscuits! Yes—warm, buttery biscuits.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating with all her might. She opened them wide—to nothing. Not a single crumb.

“Hmph!” said Alice. “Then it works only for watches.” She concluded with a sigh, “A most particular and useless magic. It must have run up against its tiresome free plan limit”

Pool of Feed/15

Here was a sharp muzzle that jabbed a flustered Donald again and again, sending him quacking on cue. Here was a tangle of limbs, frozen in midair like a paused cartoon. 

Everywhere were faces, peering out as if asking to be liked or disliked, applauded or ignored.

It was a whole parade of nonsense, as endless as it was absurd.

“How very curious!” Alice murmured. “This must be what a feed is called—a pool that feeds itself, over and over, till there’s nothing left but bubbles!”

Alice looked around at the endless scroll of squabbles and chatter. She felt, in a queer way, proud that it had all sprung from her tears—but the pride sat uneasily. For if the nonsense was hers, then so too were the jabbing muzzle, the suspended violence, the quarrels, the boasting, and the endless noise.

And she wondered, with a small frown that did not suit her face: is it truly a good thing, to have such a pool at all?

Bill. Wet Mouse/14

The Mouse gave a sudden, violent shudder. “C-cat… nasty, vulgar thing!” it cried, then vanished under the surface, leaving only its meter-long tail above the water like a periscope—swiveling about as though it too might catch the signal of the Cat.

Alice could not help but giggle, though she knew it was not entirely polite.

“What a silly mouse! As if my Dinah would swim all the way here. Why, she makes the most dreadful fuss over a mere puddle!”

Just then there was a splash so sudden it set the water fizzing, and up came Bill the Lizard.

He coughed so violently that Alice feared he might shake himself to pieces. 

He coughed and spluttered, until the fit erupted in such a gale of sound and fury, Alice quite expected the Queen to march out of the reeds and order somebody’s head off.

(The Queen, of course, was elsewhere at the time, ordering everybody’s head off, which kept her well occupied.)

Bill seized the Mouse’s tail with one hand, puffed up his narrow chest, and gave Alice such a commanding look that she very nearly believed he was master of the flood. 

But as Alice gazed past him at the waters—her own tears made strange—the illusion vanished. 

They did not merely reflect; they seemed to answer back, their shimmering surface prickling with the promise of comments and likes.

Watch in Recycle Bin/13

“Rabbit!” cried Alice, quite suddenly.

This startled everyone. Even me—though I really ought to know better than to be startled.

Presently, the Mouse’s idea hung in despair, spinning slowly round and round, yet never beginning.

This “running” creature was everywhere at once—his entrances always mistimed.

He rushed nearer, muttering, “I’ll be late, so late!”

With a flash of his glowing pocket-watch, he was gone—toggled into Dark Mode.

“Why was he always hurrying, as if being late were the only thing he was meant—or made—to do?” Alice wondered.

Suppose, for once, he erased it all and lingered instead—to pluck mushrooms in the misty morning, or to chase butterflies like Dinah does!

So Alice, eager to be useful, conjured a grand wish of her own.

How curious it would be to see him without that glowing watch—if only she could right-click it and send it tidily to the Recycle Bin.

Dizzy race. Like/12

It was such a dizzy race—everyone whirling around a clock that refused to stop.

“Stop!” cried the Eaglet, flapping to seize control of the chaos.

And at once, the Eaglet was already thinking the other way round.

The sudden halt flung everyone forward; tumbling in surprise, they hung midair—a tangle of limbs, frozen like a paused cartoon.

Silent. 

A muddled silence. 

But silence never lasts.

The Mouse scrolled and called out, “Sit down, close together!”

“Oh, at least I’m allowed to sit.” thought Alice, much relieved—almost as if a daisy had leaned over and whispered, Sit, it’s what I do best.

The Mouse’s eyes twinkled. An idea—splendid, at least to himself—positively itching to be shared, whether the others clicked like or not.