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, jangling—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.

Episode 74.3.1 - Tunnelling / A Digital Wonderland

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

TUNNELLING

The two-second murmur was so infinitesimal that the audience registered only a hitch between breaths.

Two seconds did not change the weather. They held. 

Within them, Lewis tunnelled.

The Earth became sensory. Sensory became Internet. Internet tunnelled back into Alice’s world.

Studio funnelled into tunnel. Oh Carroll funnelled into tunnel.
Tunnel funnelled into the sour, fish-mint steam of Assam Laksa. 

Tunnel oooo-ed into four bright lines of B-R-Y-G.
Then oooo-ed into a search bar.
He Goooogled. 

Tunnelling through, he traced the disturbance. 

At the first second:
The blogosphere spun.
A line whispered,
"The Dormouse raised his ears upright like a giraffe's neck, but caught only the sound of his own toot-toot snoring."

In the second second:
A dark corner. A prince.
Cinderella's slipper on his hand.
Alice’s foot wouldn’t fit. She slipped in anyway.
The slipper frayed.

Only Lewis would have dug it out.

"Nonsense," he jeered. "A squeak trapped in a silly post."

Then, louder: "Even Cinderella's slipper had been tampered with."

The tunnel constricted. Lewis felt the walls press. 

Then—Collapsed. Silence hummed. 

Lewis remained the archaeologist, forever digging through collapsed passages.

At the first second. In the second second.

Trapped.

Infected.

Lewis-ed.

Pinned.

Tunnelling. 

The two seconds vanished like a two-inch breeze.

He was back in the broadcast studio of the Dodgson Broadcast Corporation.

His eyes fixed on the camera lens. His nervous system—two ticks behind the murmur.

Previous Episode: Oh, Carroll 

Next Episode: The Story Lesson

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

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 74.3 - Oh, Carroll/ A Digital Wonderland

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

OH, CARROLL 

"Good afternoon, I'm Lewis."

"The humidity in Wonderland is 60%. At a crisp 16°C, you are expected to find the Queen hacking at the rose garden."

"The sky is crowded with sheepish clouds. A breeze whispers northward, and expect to return late evening."

"The thunder has forgotten its voice, and the lightning has run out of charge."

His silver-grey hair was a testimony to his expertise.

Everybody said so.

Lewis adjusted his earpiece. 

The weather forecast was going live.

He knitted his brows against a signal only he could hear from tunnelling in.

“Counterfeit! Counterfeit!” he yelled out.

Counterfeit weather.

Everybody thought so.

Confused.

He realised he was already live.

"What sort of ears grow upright like a giraffe's neck?" he murmured.

The two-second murmur was so infinitesimal that the audience registered only a hitch between breaths.

He traced the disturbance.

“Nonsense,” He jeered, "a squeak trapped in a silly post. Even Cinderella's slipper had been tampered with."

Oh, Lewis.

The 8pm slot ended. The red "On Air" sign went off.

The said counterfeit bloggers cleared their throats, trilling their lips.

'Oh, Carroll' began to broadcast.

[A cappella]
Oh! Carroll, I am but a fool,
Carroll, I know you, and you treat me cruel.
You lock me in a broadcast booth,
And you call me a counterfeit heart.

[A cappella]
The studio hummed the missing lines.

[A cappella]
A cappella was confused.

The confusion hung in the damp 16°C air unanswered.

Previous Episode: Crumb-Shadows 

Next Episode: Tunnelling 
Tunnelling through, he traced the disturbance. 

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 74.2 - Crumb-shadows - A Digital Wonderland

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

CRUMB-SHADOWS

Bending low, Alice probed beneath the tablecloth, scrabbling at the floor, straining her eyes in search of cookies, peanut cookies. 

Cookies. Peanut cookies. 

"They can't t be invisible!" Alice complained. 

She found a strand of white hair.
The Hatter's, the March Hare's, or White Rabbit's?
Withered, already unmoored from the head, the hair offered no answer. 

A penny lay half-hidden beneath the carpet.

The tarnished face of King William stared back.

From a table leg, Alice heard papery rustling.

Termites. A quarter the size of a penny.

One stared at Alice. 

Two seconds— 

Then resumed chewing.

Erasing.

"What's that?" Goosebumps stood up.

Bug detected.

She jerked her hand.

The hand jerked her body.

Her head knocked against the table. It was two inches lower than Alice's memory allowed.

Nothing stirred.

A crumb-shadow slipped into her right eye.

She rose. 
The table groaned.
The tea shuddered.

The March Hare and the Hatter saw a head.

In the middle of the table—

Resembling King William on the penny.

Her right eyelid sank. Two shadows of the Hatter.

Left eyelid, lead. Two shadows of the March Hare.

One person. Two shadows. 

Two heads.

One. Two. 

Two strands of white hair.

Two loose threads.

One termite. Two seconds. Chewing. Erasing.

Cookies. Peanut cookies. 

Two.

Previous Episode: Nobody But Alice 

Next Episode: Oh, Carroll 

He knitted his brows, preventing a signal only he could hear from grooving its way in.

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.