Episode 75.2.1 - The March Hatter / A Digital Wonderland

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

THE MARCH HATTER

On page 109, the March Hatter wrote, "Once upon a time, there was a girl who tried to erase herself."

"She erased her name. Her head. Her ears.

Yet everything remained—on her fingers."

The lines on her fingers throbbed.

She could no longer hear her name when called.

Her Alice was preempted.

She accepted the new identity.

Carroll doubted his page 109. He didn’t remember copy-editing that.

But he was locked out.

The March Hatter already inhabited it.

She wore the hat.

She dropped her ears.

She became the Brotherhood. A place where stories tell stories. 

March Hat·ter /mɑːrtʃ ˈhætər/noun: the stories. 

She became the crumb.
The crumb became the broth.
The broth became the home.
The home became the finger.
The finger became the line.
And the line—
the line became you.

You became the beginning.

You align your spectacles. You blink twice. Begin to mouth.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who tried to erase herself."

The silence goes online.

A million-minus-one screens flicker in the dark, matching the stutter of the silence.

On page 109.

Carroll is left out.

He buys an 1865 clothbound copy from Chowrasta Market.

"I never wrote this page 109. I found it already printed in this copy."

The one-millionth screen turned black.

Previous Episode: The Brotherhood 

Next Episode: Touching The Absence 

The White Rabbit does not stay in the Rabbit-Hole anymore. He's late for stories on Lebuh Chulia.

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 75.2 - The Brotherhood / A Digital Wonderland

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

The Brotherhood

In the heart of a porcelain teapot, Daydream—wearing the Hatter's head—stared down into the swirling tea.

One central eye.

One milky pool.

A story to cyclone out.

At the rim sat Imagine, his cheek resting in his hands, watching a story spiralling and spiralling.

His March Hare-face spun with it.

“To dream, you must close your eye and be haunted,” Daydream murmured to steam, and steam murmured back in Assam Laksa flavour, Penang branch.

"I daydream that dreams dream at six o'clock. Dreams come in one teapot, another teapot, and another cauldron. It is still six o'clock."

The words repeated themselves.

"Imagine it—" Imagine sows a field of lmagines under a drowsy twilight. "Some lie down lazily; some chew a stalk of seconds; some watch in Hare-y admiration, wanting to be a February Hare—to be a senior hare."

Both shared their stories while Alice was still struggling with hers.

She sat in the cold dark outside the pot, holding a pen of heaviness and a book of blank pages. 

She peered into the pot. “How do you both do it so easily?” she cried. Frustrated. “I’ve been trying to think of a beginning, a middle, and an end within a single breath!”

"What if I share your mind?" she whispered.

The tea pool ceased its spinning. Imagine’s hare ears drooped, and Daydream’s single central eye snapped open, fixed upon her.

"Then you are both the Hatter and the March Hare."

"The Brotherhood."

Alice’s ears drooped, and a hat topped her.

A March Hatter. 

Panic.

She erased written lines in the book busily. 

Drooped. Hatted. Lined. Erased. 
Drooped. Hatted. Lined. Erased.

Alice—March Hatter rubbed the lines. 

The lines stuck onto her fingers.

Alice—March Hatter—Alice rubbed lines and her fingers. 

Fingers on lines. 

Lines on fingers.

Within two seconds, the March Hatter—smiled; a smile that retreated by two.

Looking down, she was not wearing skin.

It was—

Triumviratus covered her torso.

Scriptus clung to her hands.

Inanis draped her waist.

Previous Episode: Assam Laksa in Wonderland 

Next Episode: The March Hatter

Once upon a time, there was a girl who tried to erase 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.

Epilogue 75.1.2 - Assam Laksa in Wonderland

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

ASSAM LAKSA IN WONDERLAND

Alice finds it anyway, following the Dormouse’s snoring through Penang Branch.

The smell spreads—Georgetown rain on hot asphalt, the distant clatter of teh tarik being pulled like silk, and flaked mackerel dancing all day in the cauldron.

The steam rises in letters: tamarind.

The Hatter shows up, wiping sweat from his wilted collar.

“Is it 6 o’clock?”

“No,” the March Hare says, licking the back of the spoon. “It’s soup o’clock. Laksa time.”

The fat white rice noodles soak. They choke.

Alice lifts the chopsticks.

The broth has already flooded her mouth, riding over rough chunks of pineapple and shreds of torch ginger flower.

“Home sour home,” she whispers.

The soup keeps boiling—exploding with tamarind, heavy with fish pulp, still sour, still home.

The pungent shrimp paste finally lingers.

The March Hare’s whiskers taste it gingerly. 

The Hatter’s collar swallows it. 

The Dormouse's teapot wants to contain it.

It contains the chili padi.

Its lid jumps. It screams, asking for more tea.

“Icy tea. Icy cola. I—”

Iron gall ink still stains his fingers.

“Ais Kacang,” says Carroll, inked apron. “Lima Ringgit.”

“Keep the change,” Alice says, placing £1 on the plastic table.

"Terima kasih," Carroll shrugs. 

King William winks from the metal, laughing—

then coughs on the chili padi.

Now,

everybody's home.

APPENDIX 

CARROLL'S STALL

Shaved ice

Ais Kacang - RM5

Shaved ice, red beans, sweet corn, grass jelly, rose syrup.

Comes with: 1x King William Sovereign Pound, 0x changes.

And 1x sweetened ink.

Broth

Assam Laksa Philosophy Bowl - RM12

Mackerel, tamarind, torch ginger, pineapple, chili padi, shrimp paste, rice noodles 

Cooked with 3 wolves, 1 hood, and 7 kids.

No substitutions. The broth decides.

Previous Episode: Three Little Brothers 

Next Episode: The Brotherhood 
Alice—March Hatter—Alice rubbed lines and her fingers. 

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 75.1.1 - Three Little Brothers / A Digital Wonderland

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

THREE LITTLE BROTHERS

Inside Alice's mouth lived three brothers: Filiform, Fungiform, and Foliate.

Filiform could never taste anything, yet always insisted he had the finest palate.

Blind in the dark of her mouth, they were forever ambushed by unexpected tastes.

One day came chocolate ice cream. Another came strawberry.

Every feast ended the same way.

Blind to when.
Blind to what.

And they adapted in the mid-ambush.

This time came Assam Laksa.

Alice's nose had already warned them.

They nodded. They watered—all at once.

Filiform then bristled at the pungent shrimp paste.

Fungiform burned from the chilli padi.

Foliate buckled under the sour tamarind. 

The sour tide withdrew. The heat vanished.

The pungent stayed.

The brothers shivered.

Another choking ambush?

They didn’t know when. Nor did the scouting nose.

The three wolves had yet to set the next broth.

The fourth wolf—

still aligning his spectacles. 

The spectacles slipped.

He didn't see the brothers sleep awake.

Eyes wide behind closed lids.

Whom the March Hare kept mixing up.

Triumviratus Ambushus Perpetuus.

"Triumviratus," the March Hare murmured, "Filiform?"

"Ambushus, Fungiform?"

"Then, Foliate must be Perpetuus!"

The March Hare smiled. Far more than two seconds.

Wonderland-two seconds.

A Wondermouth. Mouth pinned on Google Maps. Triumviratus Ambushus Perpetuus.

Previous Episode: Four Wolves and Assam Laksa 

Next Episode: Assam Laksa in Wonderland 

“Is it 6 o’clock?”

“No,” says the March Hare, licking his tongue against the spoon. “It’s soup o’clock. Laksa time.”

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 75.1 - Four Wolves And Assam Laksa / A Digital Wonderland

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

FOUR WOLVES AND ASSAM LAKSA

The wolves cooked every story into a single broth.

First Wolf insisted, "The recipe is inheritance. The broth remembers every story."

Fungiform nodded.

Holding a cookbook, second Wolf said it another way: “The recipe is structure. Chili padi is the spine.”

Filiform agreed.

Third Wolf only laughed. 

“The recipe is to forget the ingredients. Let the broth become what it is.”

Foliate watered.

The Cook reached for her ladle.

It lifted nothing.

The broth had already spilled over arguments. Over Alice’s tongue. 

Over everything.

The taste returned only to the tongue.

Home sour home.

It missed home.

A hollow chill settled on her lips.

Her tongue refused to swallow.

It could only taste the word.

t a m a r i n d

The word tunnelled. 

Into Assam Laksa. 

The broth becomes what it is.

The fourth wolf—one who interprets and only interprets—doesn't recognise Assam Laksa.

He inhabits the mirage.

Alice Airbnbs him in her tongue.

He shrinks, papillated.

He memorises t a m a r i n d. 

He keeps interpreting. Confused

Forgets to check out.

He stays, juggling—TAMARINDASSAM LAKSAWONDERLAND.

Lupus Interpretus Confusus.

Previous Episode: The Story Lesson 

Next Episode: Three Little Brothers 

The brothers slept awake.

Eyes wide behind closed lids.

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.