Episode 66 - What Will Be, Will always Be / A Digital Wonderland

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

Did you close the page? Did you blame the story itself?

Or did you blame the helpless narrator?

Inevitably, I am referring to myself. 

I lose control over the narrative most of the time. 

The story takes the helm the moment I let it start—that is the reality.

Did you wander too far off-screen?

Be cautious! Once a dark cliffhanger takes over, your glance at the story, even for a quarter-second, will change you.

Outside the kitchen, amid broken shards of flying plates and crumbs of roti canai, the Cheshire Cat was waiting. He grinned as ever.

“It doesn't matter. What will be, will always be,” said the Cat.

He tilted his head at a measured angle, realigning himself to Alice's world.

“Now tell me, how do you feel after paying the fine?”

“I… I am sort of having some fresh air,” Alice murmured.

The air turned into a metaphor right away. This was not the air that usually greets Alice every morning.

But do not be carried away. The air that arrives each moment is truly yours—not a metaphor.

“Terrific,” the Cat changed gears swiftly. “You got the metaphor as a receipt.”

“No… no,” Alice was disoriented, staring at her hands, searching over her body, caught between one reality and another.

“Looking for a change? You can keep it,” said the Cat. “A metaphor, even a slight mention, will be rounded up.”

“Change?” roared the Cook from behind the scene. “I shall never change my high collar, nor my enormous apron. They. Are. My. Hallmark!”

The roar shook the kitchen, forcing it to question its purpose, ever since it was built in 1865 — if not for seeing an overcooked curry-pea.

“Moreover,” said the Cat, his grin widening; he was always a Cheshire Cat, “everything must pay before it is allowed to transform.”

“Don’t stare blankly at me. You see, Wonderland is amazing, it accepts a long breath as payment.”

Alice, being Alice, never stop from thinking as Alice does: “If transformation requires a charge,” she murmured, “then the Magistrate, or you, must be busy issuing receipts.”

“I transform every minute: from sad to happy, from tall to taller, from fat to fatter.”

“From Alice to Alices.”

“From a sigh into a gale, from a laughter into Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D major!”

“And each transform, I’m certain, owes a breath, or two, to your receipts.”

“Oh, boring. The same metaphor is repeatedly used as a receipt.”

The empty chrysalis quivered. Its emptiness pinched. It was becoming void. And this  required it to pay.

At the same time, the door behind Alice drew a long, deliberate breath and groaned while shutting itself.

“I’m a door. Forever a solid door.

I open. I close.

I decide passage.”

“My own morality, my own mind…,” it paused for two seconds, so its thought could catch up.

“They are the only jurisdiction that can issue a stop order, or levy a charge, against me.”

While everybody was busy, at the top of this page, at the omnibox, a pair of eyes appeared.

They parsed each of you, and each character.

The eyes weighed every core. They debugged.

A new story began to write itself automatically.

You are now inside.

(A new story will be posted every Saturday. 😅😅😅)

Previous Episode: Proceedings in a Folded Leaf   

Next Episode: Alice in the Omnibox
Only the hiss of the cooling fan and the warmth of the processor filled the silence.

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 65 - Proceedings in a Folded Leaf / A Digital Wonderland

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

Off-screen

The courtroom was very organic—every surface, every edge; even the characters were in strict compliance with Green 14000 Standard, rev. 2.0.2.6.

It was within a massive banana leaf at a mamak.

At a raised bench sat Banana Leaf the Magistrate, he was hollow—hollow eyes, hollow voice, hollow everything. Perhaps he had arrived in too much haste, leaving both soul and flesh behind.

In front of him, a small mound of coconut rice had taken on the role of Court Clerk, releasing soft sighs of coconut milk whenever a point of order was raised.

“Under the Cliffhanger Precedent, first recorded in A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), §1, by Thomas Hardy,” the Magistrate rustled solemnly, “the accused is charged with Unlawful Evaporation—with Intent. To. Confound!!!”

“I coined the cliffhanger,” a voice muttered, “and this is how I am cited? At a mamak? With a leaf for a judge? Surrounded by peanuts and ikan bilis?”

The Magistrate did not look up.

“File a motion,” he said hollowly.

“But your Honour,” interrupted Ikan Bilis the Solicitor, his tiny pale-yellow body glistening—briny, pungent, a walking declaration of umami—

“My client, the Baby-turned-Chrysalis, did not evaporate. He is now in another state—an interphase of new form, pending approval under Andersen v. The Emperor’s New Clothes (1837), which established that a thing’s true nature is not fixed by proclamation, but by the collective wisdom of its witnesses.”

“Most importantly—he is a victim!” he snapped, his salty tail flicking for emphasis.

“The Cook must be arrested—immediately!”

“Silence!” declared the Magistrate. “Evidence must be served boiling hot—or it shall be dismissed as frozen tea, under Mamak Ordinance 4(a): ‘Tea That Cannot Be Pulled Cannot Testify.’”

Fried Peanut the Attorney rose bravely to his feet, only to sit back down with a loud crack.

“I—I object!” he stammered, his shell splintering under the strain. “The defence claims the butterfly—yes, a butterfly—is merely a curry-pea in disguise—an unreasonable attempt to smuggle imagination into this court as reality.”

Alice, standing in the witness box—a hollowed-out slice of cucumber—cleared her throat.

“If it please the court,” she said timidly, “I saw the chrysalis with my own eyes. It looked like a dried chili skin. The crime is not evaporation—it should be preservation.”

The Magistrate leaned forward, his green surface creasing thoughtfully.

“A spicy accusation. Clerk, consult the Sambal Precedent.”

The Rice Clerk released a considerable cloud of coconut-scented steam.

“The Precedent is inconclusive, M’Lord. The evidence has been diluted by a sudden influx of teh tarik into the lower chambers.”

“It was pull-prepared by the Cook,” the Clerk added. “Its aroma is already invading the proceedings, M’Lord.”

“Very well,” declared the Magistrate, trusting his instinct and beginning to fold himself around the proceedings.

“Since the baby cannot be found, and since a pivot point cannot be located under Peripeteia (335 BCE), §1, by Aristotle, the Court finds the witness guilty of Illegal Blinking—under Cliffhanger Precedent, §1, Subsection (b)”

“But that’s not fair!” cried Alice. “You cannot sentence the witness!”

“In this court,” the Magistrate replied hollowly flat, “the witness is the only intruder, and therefore the only one subject to a fine.”

“And what is the fine?” Alice asked.

“The Court hereby imposes a fine of one (1) long, deep breath. In default of payment, the witness shall undergo a Mandatory Pivot—rotating on her own axis clockwise—for exactly three minutes.”

Alice squinted. “A… mandatory pivot?”

And this, set a precedent in Wonderland.

The Magistrate rated the ruling a perfect fifteen out of ten. No one understood it better than he did—green, and utterly immovable.

From somewhere near the hearthrug, the Cheshire Cat stretched its grin to match the Magistrate’s rating—far beyond any cat’s reach.

“You’ve seen nothing yet. He’s going to resolve more, and more, and more—until every case was left unresolved.”

Alice considered the matter very carefully.

She had not blinked.

She was quite certain of that.

So she took a long, slow breath.

The courtroom adjourned itself at once.

The banana leaf unfolded flatly under the streetlight at the mamak.

The Rice Clerk settled back into a fragrant heap.

The Solicitor grew very quiet and salty.

And the Magistrate, having delivered judgment in less than twenty-four minutes—not hours, a triumph for his KPI—started to wrap everything neatly together.

He wrapped the Attorney, the Solicitor, and the Clerk at the same time.

As for the accused—a baby? a butterfly? a legume?—hopelessly trapped in a Precedent that could not decide what he ought to be.

If it confuses, yes it confuses.

And so it continues—

confusing itself.

Confusing you as well.

I am sorry.

I just cannot control this.

Previous Episode: Flavourful Legal Team  

Next Episode: What Will Be, Will Be
Any suspense that survives long enough automatically becomes a beginning.

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 64 - Flavourful Legal Team / A Digital Wonderland

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

In Wonderland, nothing begins until it is observed, and nothing ends until someone remembers to breathe.

“And what became of the baby?” asked the Cat.

Alice hesitated.

“It’s gone—perhaps as a butterfly, or a curry-pea, maybe… I… I really don’t know,” she answered timidly.

Alice looked at the empty, papery husk of the chrysalis—a dried chili skin, hollow and discarded, its spice already spent in the turning.

“It hasn’t gone anywhere—it has simply pivoted out of your line of sight,” the Cat continued. “You will find him—once you locate the pivot point.”

"But I kept alert!” Alice protested, the inertia of the turn still making her head spin. 

“And did you?” the Cat asked, its eyes glowing like two microdoses of tropical spice.

“Kept alert, I mean. For if you didn’t, you would have missed the chrysalis pivoting, folding, and finally transforming—into an overcooked curry-pea."

"It broke down, thickening the gravy, and is already filing a complaint against the Cook.”

Alice giggled, imagining the curry-pea already typing furiously—tock-tick-tock—backspacing every third word, muttergrumping about “Auto-Wrong” and “Duck It Effect.”

“Then Ikan Bilis the Solicitor, Fried Peanut the Attorney, and Banana Leaf the Magistrate!” she burst out, thoroughly pleased with herself, as if she had just hand-picked, arranged, and transformed a motley crew into the most impeccable legal team in all of Wonderland.

“A most flavorful legal team!” the Cat purred, its stripes swishing like batons, conducting Alice ever further into delight.

“Though I should warn you—Ikan Bilis the Solicitor is famously salty in cross-examination, and Fried Peanut the Attorney is known to crack under the slightest pressure.”

The Cat tilted its head, like a pepper shaker in mid-sprinkle.

"Banana Leaf the Magistrate, a very green judge indeed—always wrapping up cases before they've even begun.”

Then the Cat faded into the green.

The grin lingered a moment longer than the rest of him—before fading too, leaving only the memory of a moon that had once refused to be annoyed.

---

The baby was never found.
The case was never closed.

The cliffhanger, true to its name, hung on—waiting for applause that had already volunteered itself.

And if you are done, you may close this page—if it lets you.

But if the page refuses to close, you must not blame me.

Pages always disobey your intent; they rarely close of their own accord.

They persist—
only the rhythm of your breath can shatter their glubby pause.

---

Previous Episode: Cliffhanger 

Next Episode: Proceedings in a Folded Leaf
The Cliffhanger Precedent
First recorded in A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), § 1 by Thomas Hardy

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 63 - Cliffhanger / A Digital Wonderland

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

“Keep alert,” the voice teased, tickling Alice’s fingertips—the kind of faint digital hum a screen makes when it knows it’s being touched.

You felt that hum too, didn’t you? Just there, beneath your index finger. Vibration intensity: maximum.

“In this kitchen,” it continued, “the vestigial appendix is always the first to leave, while the protagonist holds the last pivot—the one that spins the story into whatever directions it resolves—each extreme drop and turn a roller coaster of its own making.”

The keys stirred, the voice laughed—a trilling noise like a summer-night cricket—quick, precise—four tiny bursts per second—brushing your sense of… faint, unaccounted dissatisfaction.

“The rest of you,” it said, almost mischievously, “are black pepper, candlenut, cinnamon sticks, cloves, or coriander seeds in my kitchen—waiting to be ground, tempered, or left to simmer."

It leaned closer.

“Now—hold your spicy breath. We are about to turn.”

Gravity moved as inertia, inertia as gravity—into one—

The turn twirled Alice into a fresh angle—she felt she might fall into neat rows like ducks, or tip entirely upside-down.

She hummed to herself:

“Once a boy, then a piglet, then a chrysalis—
“Or perhaps a butterfly, a curry-pea. 
Wonderland, oh Wonderland.”

Carried away by her mood, Alice swayed her head, twisted her waist, and trotted her feet, as though she might begin a dance in that vast, chaotic world.

But then—

A large Cheshire Cat lay draped across the hearthrug, watching.

Its grin stretched impossibly wide—wide enough to swallow warmth, pressure, and hum.

In that single, distracted heartbeat, Alice noticed what was missing.

Warmth.
Pressure.
Hum.

The chrysalis had collapsed, blank and silent—like a computer frozen on a black screen.

Then a voice interrupted, lazy as a purr and steeped in fondness that is itself ambiguous, volunteering itself as another cliffhanger—without ceremony, yet with the seriousness of a moon that refused to be annoyed.

What is so great about a cliffhanger? I wonder.

You should wonder too… you already are.

And why, I wonder again, would everything—a story, a chrysalis, a voice—so eagerly volunteer itself as one?

As if everything were reaching for a ledge—and the moment it did, the stone fissured, and applause slipped in.

Previous Episode: Frequency 988 Mamaks FM

Next Episode: Flavourful Legal Team
Ikan Bilis the Attorney
Fried Peanut the Solicitor

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 62- FREQUENCY 98.8 Mamaks FM / A Digital Wonderland

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

A truthful deception hovered in plain sight between our eyes and the world—especially when a nasi lemak dream was conscripted inside a grieving dream.

The grievance, issued by the moon, cited not only the “provocative use of tropical heat,” but also the “mannerless presumption of the moon’s step-overability.”

It further decreed that being “irritated” constituted a direct violation of The Don’t-Annoy-the-Moon Law of 1861.

Henceforth, the Duchess must deliver a formal apology to the entire Solar System—preferably in writing. 

The apology should be broadcast via interplanetary teh tarik radio, on frequency 98.8 Mamaks FM, during peak mamak hours, precisely when twenty-two players chased a football, and certainly before the next grievance collided with another nasi lemak.

“I shall not budge,” the moon hummed. “If a planet cannot be stubborn, I might as well stage a total eclipse every day.”

Alice craned her neck, pondering the total eclipse—serious business, a daily cosmic shyness—and realized that the moon, by skipping its appearances, would live forever as a myth, a creature of imagination.

The universe did not merely jerk—it had acquired a permanent, nervous tic.

“And the moral is that,” she whispered, mimicking the Duchess’s sharp tone, "if you use a pepper to move a planet, the planet will pepper you back with complaints.”

"Children usually do," Alice laughed. 

The sentence had barely finished echoing when the celestial selves disengaged—stone from stone—politely, as if cosmo-mankind collaboration had been discussed, finalised, and momentarily enabled. A collaboration! At last, entirely on the fast lane—no table, no file, no stamp waiting for ink. 

Domestic chaos resumed at once—now legally cleared of cosmology.

“Here! You nurse it—no chance to refuse!” declared the Duchess, reciting from an ordinance entirely her own—too sovereign, too absurd, and far too ridiculous to ever be questioned.

She vanished.

Alice staggered under the weight and looked down. The baby’s face twisted most peculiarly.

His nose curled upward, his eyes shrank smaller, his ears broadened—

“Don’t stand there gawping!” roared the Cook, brandishing a frying-pan so broad it might have been hammered into armour.

“The soup wants more cili-padi pepper!”

But Alice wasn’t listening. Her attention clung to the bundle in her arms. 

It was no longer a baby—it had folded itself neatly into a chrysalis, wiggling and rippling as though a tiny life stirred within, moving through layers of spice, scattered source code, and the humming pulse of the story itself.

Somehow, I had lost control of the keyboard—each key had begun to write itself.

And this was its voice:

A protagonist dangled in suspense—a cliffhanger, if only for this instant, this instance.

Previous Episode: Spice drives Cosmology

Next Episode: Cliffhanger
A voice volunteered itself as a cliffhanger, 
But what is so great about a cliffhanger?

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.