Episode 74.1.1 - Nobody but Alice / A Digital Wonderland

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

NOBODY BUT ALICE 

Alice felt dreams being duplicated within herself. She no longer knew if she was the container or the contained, inside or outside the Rabbit-Hole. 

Lullaby hallucinated her.

She began to suspect that she was spyware, monitoring the buttonholes of the vests.

Behind them hid Gray-Stirn Vest Pocket Cameras.

One lay on her father's working table.

Learning. 

They waited outside rabbit-holes. Inside rabbit-holes. Everywhere.

The looking-glasses generated a twin, then four Alices. 

Spyware monitored spyware.

Anxiety multiplied in parallel.

So did the lullaby's hallucinations.

Her fists clenched.

Alice closed her eyes. Took one, two deep breaths. 

She hypnotised herself. 

"I'm Alice. I'm Alice. Nobody but Alice."

The words confirmed. 

Reconfirmed. 

Beneath the tablecloth, two trails of cookies crossed the floor.

They flattened into the floor pattern.

Then scattered.

"I'm Alice. I'm Alice. Nobody but Alice," she chanted. 

She dropped to her knees.

Her fingers scrabbled across the floorboards, straining against the dark.

Cookies. 

Just peanut cookies.

Ordinary. Innocent. 

One.

Two.

Buckle my shoe.

Previous Episode: Hallucinated 

Next Episode: Crumb-shadows

The March Hare and Hatter saw a head.
In the middle of the table—resembling King William on the penny.

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.

Episode 74.1 - Hallucinated / A Digital Wonderland

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

HALLUCINATED 

Alice found herself thinking the Dormouse's lullaby was a thief.

She cut herself off from external thought.

But the lullaby was already nested—

walls beyond walls beyond walls,

dream within dream within dream,

Alice in Alice in Alice.

She believed it had already hallucinated her.

The lullaby reciprocated.

Thought duplicated within dreams.

The lullaby thought Alice was Rabbit-Hole.

Alice believed the lullaby a thief.

The lullaby reversed the gaze.

Alice hallucinated the lullaby.

The lullaby hallucinated her.

Alice hallucinated Rabbit-Hole.

The thief hallucinated its own lullaby.

Two small furrows grew between Alice's brows. Her lips twisted slightly to two sides.

Dreams duplicated inside her. She no longer knew if she was the container or the contained, inside or outside.

She thought herself into lullaby, thief, and dream.

The Hatter entered her left hand.

The March Hare entered her right.

The Dormouse inhabited her mouth.

Rabbit-Hole swallowed her head.

Two trails of cookies crossed the floor.

Alice followed them despite herself. 

She found herself murmuring,

"One, two."

One trail stared at Alice.

The other stared back.

Alice hesitated. 

Reciprocated.

Two.

Previous Episode: Carroll Refused Them

Next Episode: Nobody But Alice 

She hypnotised herself. 
"I'm Alice. I'm Alice. Nobody but Alice."

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.

Episode 74 - Carroll Refused Them / A Digital Wonderland

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

CARROLL REFUSED THEM

Sleep slept.

TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT remained beneath the table. 

It sounded artificial—a spyware lullaby, incanted so carefully to be harmless.

Alice hypothesised.
Lullaby.
Spyware.
Two parameters.
Then three.
She counted. 
Five.
No.
Two.

The lullaby had entered her mind.

She TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT-ed.

"My head was inside the Rabbit-Hole."

"No no—The Rabbit Hole has crawled into my head."

The words reached for an anchor, but Carroll refused them. They spiralled out of Wonderland.

Her head remained inside the Rabbit-Hole.

The Rabbit-Hole remained crawling.

"I have to stop it."

Bending low, Alice probed beneath the tablecloth, scrabbling at the floor, straining her eyes to search for cookies.

Nothing stirred beneath but crumb-shadows. They drifted in a faint breeze at the corner of her eye; one slipped into Alice’s right eye.

“What you’re looking for was never under the table,” the Hatter said.

The March Hare broke into singing: "A train goes toot... toooot..." He pursed his lips. "...a girl hunts cook... cookies!"

At last, Alice took a chair beside the Hatter, determined upon tea.

“May I...?” she asked, as politely as a little girl could.

“No.” The Hatter waved his index finger. “Not unless you tell a story.”

The March Hare nodded—a single, synchronized dip—as though he and the Hatter shared one skull.

They waited. Patiently. Impatiently. 

Alice rubbed her eye, then wiped the corner and picked a crumb away. "I've only ever been told stories. How does one tell one?"

The Dormouse raised his ears upright like a giraffe’s neck, but caught only the sound of his own toot-toot snoring.

The ears protested. 

“What a silly simile. Tenniel drew us. We're original."

“But Carroll demanded two inches more ears.”

The ears protested again, stretching until the ink shrieked.

Previous Episode: 

Sleep Slept

Next Episode: Carroll Refused Them 
Dreams duplication detected. 
She felt dreams being duplicated within herself.

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.

Episode 73.3 - Sleep Slept / A Digital Wonderland

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

SLEEP SLEPT

Sleep warmed itself beneath the table, beneath the Dormouse's fur.

It curled up like a fat golden cat.

It purred, a heavy resonance vibrating through the fur. The fur remembered Alfred Schnittke.

The Dormouse felt it.

Eyes shut, he pulled a tiny brass pocket-horn from his waistcoat—A on one side, S on the other.

TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT. 

Sleep fell asleep.

The Dormouse continued dreaming.

He dreamed a bluish-grey cat waited in the doorway.

Behind the door, a mouse rolled a barrel of dynamite.

Jerry rolled. 
Tom waited.

Jerry rolled. 
Tom waited.

The gap coiled
Jerry coiled
Tom coiled

The dream waited.

Harpsichord filled the stillness.

...

Neither arrived.

A foot flustered. 
Tapped. 
One, two.
One, two.

These became a switch switching the dream off.

The Dormouse TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT. 

Sleep slept.

Z z Z z Z z ...
████

Previous Episode: Words Drowned

Next Episode: Carroll Refused Them

The words reached for an anchor, but Carroll refused them. They drifted out of Wonderland.

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.

Episode 73.2 - Words Drowned/ A Digital Wonderland

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

WORDS DROWNED

Alice's words had failed to reach the Hatter. They looped back to her ears. 

Her own voice slapping against her.

Ripples gathered around her like rising water.

She cocked her head, jerking her chin.

The movement unsettled the acoustics inside her head. 

The sound went wet and viscous.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: left ear.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: right ear.

[Eardrums requesting air.dll.

Status: Failed]

Glubs clotted.

Then sank. 

D

e

e

p

e

r

Tea didn't spill.
Her voice spilled.

Drowning.

Glubs coagulated.

Alice pressed down, forcing a pop to silence them.

A heavy bubble rose through a dark pool. 

Glub.
Glub held.
The surface held.
Plop.
The last bubble burst. 

"If I stay down here long enough," Alice thought, "I shall grow fins of lace. I shall speak in gurgles to the Oysters."

"And the Oysters hear nothing, my dear. Nothing at all,” a voice purred.

[Cut]

Narrative didn't include Oysters.

[Take two]

The megaphone called. Glubs returned to the stage.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: left ear.
Glub-glub-glub.exe: right ear.

Ugh— 

Words_Drowned.exe

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Previous Episode: 

Alfred Schnittke's Job Done

Next Episode: Sleep Slept

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.