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."

Both shared their story 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 in lines. 

Lines in 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.

Episode 75 - The Story Lesson / A Digital Wonderland

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

THE STORY LESSON 

The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids.
Stories stuck on Alice’s tongue.

The first wolf brought his huff and puff—only to Alice's tongue.

The second wolf brought his cap and gown—only to her tongue.

The third wolf brought his trickery—to her tongue.

Alice’s tongue flooded with Assam Laksa—sour, sweet, and sharply hot; the wolves had never been idle, cooking every story into a single broth.

“A crowded place to live in!” the Hatter exclaimed.

"Does the first wolf blow the second’s cap off?” asked the March Hare. “Or does the third trick them both?”

Tricks didn't work.

“Must I really?” said Alice. “I haven’t any ready-made ones.”

“Nonsense!” the Hatter said. “Stories aren’t instant noodles. You simply imagine them.”

“Imagine!” added the March Hare. “A little girl without imagination is 3-in-1 coffee short of coffee!”

“Imagine?” Alice repeated. “You mean like daydreaming? Do teapots daydream?”

The teapot started wheee—wheee—wheeeing. Its spout was scalding; its lid clattered.

The steam gathered into a small cloud.

“Precisely not,” said the Hatter, snapping his spoon so sharply that the cloud nearly collapsed back into the spout.

"To dream, you must close your eyes and be haunted. Once illusion is clicked into existence, a story builds itself," he continued. 

“Whether asleep or awake,” the March Hare said, “you imagine to imagine, and imagination imagines again. Imagine imagines stories."

"Harr-harr," he laughed loudly.

Alice could not harr-harr. This was his voice. Not hers.

She kept her silence.

She turned to me.

I stayed quiet.

We looked to the other side of the screen.

It, too, was quiet.

Imagine to imagine, dream to dream. The philosophy filled the teapot. 

The teapot insisted it was collateral damage.

A toot-toot came from underneath the table. The Dormouse was trying to imitate the harr-harr.

“Tharr-tharr,” it managed—the best sound its throat could find for a laugh that wasn't its own.

Tharr-tharr philosophied collateral damage.

The three wolves muted within the philosophy of Assam Laksa broth.

Alice’s unspoken story still drowned beneath it.

No splashing.

Surface closed over the manuscript.

Previous Episode: Tunnelling 

Next Episode: Four Wolves and Assam Laksa 

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

A surreal chapter in Alice’s digital dreamscape.