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.

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.