Episode 76 - Page 106 / A Digital Wonderland

Series: Digital Wonderland | Meta-Logs | Ongoing Absurdity Chronicles

PAGE 106

This episode is an axle. The satellites follow.

“Well then,” Alice said, “perhaps I should offer a question instead?”

She always asked, "How come?" —two words, two seconds.

The Hatter raised his eyebrows, watched her with a sly smile and said, “So long as it hosts stories—remember that!”

The March Hare had already buried his head beneath the tablecloth.

The cloth smirked. Laughing. It couldn't help it.

His tail dangled in the air, his tip touching a book of air. The book bent toward his tail hair. 

They said. Tail hair read faster than eyes.

He was, unquestionably, a March-hare. And somewhere on page 106, in a dust-choked allegory, he was a transformed witch.

The allegory relocated when the March Hare tried to host it—faster than his hand.

Page 106 was Whac-A-Mole.
Went down.
Came up.

Alice leaned forward, chin against the edge of the wood. Question marks came out of a tilted head.

“Do you know how to catch up with Yesterday?”

The Hatter turned his cup upside-down, rubbing the bottom. No traces of time. No tick. No tock.

The white space of Page 106 revealed no clue. It ate them all.

“Catch up?” he repeated. “My dear, I always find myself recreating teatime at six o'clock!”

Six o'clock had six o'clock inside it. 

The white space was full. Full up against the Hatter’s six o'clocks.

Full until 106 ducked behind a 1.

The page would not turn when reached. It floated.

“Unreliable indeed,” said the March Hare, his shoulders shaking beneath the cloth, the tremors vibrating straight through the table legs.

The tremors reversed. Straight to the page.

106 grinned. 

“My time froze last week! I had to restart the calendar just to find carrots,” he ground his teeth. 

Alice's mouth rounded. The Hatter's rounded. Two O's at the word 'restart'.

Beneath the tablecloth: Harr-ha-ing.

The Hare stiffened, catching himself. "Harr-Harr is not my signature," he muttered, smoothing his whiskers. "It is my alibi."

A quick grin surfaced underneath the table. It dissolved into the rhythmic toot-toot of the Dormouse, who continued toot-tooting because he had no other voice.

Just before the sound went, a line lingered in the air:

Page 106 tunnelled into a weather forecast slot and a hawker stall. Carroll was last seen following it.

Tick. Tock. Toot.

Page 106: more than two inches out of reach.

Alice's question reached. Two seconds short.

The fast-reading tail hair. Same fate.

Previous Episode: Tharr-tharr

Next Episode: Alchemy

The witch-hareness trapped within his bones. It took root right there, performing its magic on 1, on 0 and 6.

A surreal chapter in Alice’s digital dreamscape.

This post is part of an ongoing original metafiction series exploring identity, systems, and absurdity through a digital Wonderland.