Nullity and Hum/19

Alice lifted the obliged bottle with extreme care, as though it might uninstall itself at a careless touch. Then, quite without consulting the rest of herself, she took a sip.

The taste was impossible to describe, which of course made it terribly interesting—part strawberry, part apothecary, and part… something that did not quite belong to syllable at all.

For one infinitesimal moment, she felt the room hesitate—as if waiting for her to save her progress.

Then Alice was caught in it.

The walls bent inward like soft clay, the ceiling drooped like a heavy curtain, and the floor curled at the edges. The effect was not gradual but total: her surroundings were reformatting themselves, wrapping up her as they went.

Her thoughts, too, began to fragment—one whispering behind her ear, another straying somewhere about her toe.

What was once a room resolved into a nullity.

And amid that nullity rose a long, sinking hum—the unmistakable drone of a Windows shutdown.

Alas, Alice had no room to hum along—a most regrettable error both in design and in situation, for she was always so fond of a good one.

The Default Bottle/18

Alice paused in the middle, wondering if she’d reached the edge of its story.

But there, after another two steps round the corners, before three mirrors that made a thousand bottles out of one, waited a single bottle—as if that were its default setting; its neck drawn out—perhaps in mild impatience at Alice’s tardiness.

It was filled with a liquid, as red as any garden rose. Its label read, quite clearly, “DRINK ME.” The letters trembled ever so slightly.

“They could hardly sit still to be read,” she giggled. “How very Alice of them!”

“Well now,” said Alice to herself, “it is remarkably obliging for a bottle to ask so nicely.” 

She looked all around, half-expecting a second label to appear with a “PLEASE DON’T.”

She was—as I could have told you—quite as cautious as a download, pausing at ninety-nine percent—and she could never quite master the Hot-and-Cold game—shivering when she should be seeking, flushing when she ought to be freezing, and generally confusing herself, most delightfully, all the while.

When no such warning appeared, something triggered—like an invisible program buried deep inside her curiosity.

The Thirteenth Step/17

Alice might have shouted or cast a bit of magic—nothing could pierce the Rabbit’s perfect ignorance. He whisked himself into a neat little room just round the corner.

"You have arrived at your destination. Welcome home!” chirruped a voice.

No one was to be seen—except, perhaps, a doormat stitched in the pattern of tiny musical notes, lying there and looking suspiciously pleased with itself.

Upon the door shone a bright brass plate engraved with the name W. RABBIT.

Alice nipped inside, as adventurous as ever and twice as curious.

There was no greeting of a cup of tea or some warm, buttery biscuits, which was not at all what she had expected. It was, Alice supposed, nearly tea-time.

“How small!” thought Alice, immediately realizing it was hardly polite to think such a thing, even for half a second. 

But it was true—never deny the truth. She had walked from the front to the back—the full extent of the little house—in no more than ten steps.

“Oh dear, that will never do! I ought to have at least two more. I always find the thimble on the thirteenth step,” declared Alice.

A Most Particular Magic/16

It was the White Rabbit, trotting back again and peering about most anxiously—as if he were hunting for something he had lost. Or so Alice supposed.

“I didn’t take it! Not the watch—goodness, no! I shouldn’t even know how to make it tick properly!” cried Alice, though no one had said a word to her at all.

A wild new thought suddenly bloomed in her mind. “Can a thing truly vanish, so lightly, with only a thought?” she mused, in equal parts doubt and delight. “Very well, I shall think of… of biscuits! Yes—warm, buttery biscuits.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating with all her might. She opened them wide—to nothing. Not a single crumb.

“Hmph!” said Alice. “Then it works only for watches.” She concluded with a sigh, “A most particular and useless magic. It must have run up against its tiresome free plan limit”

The Pool That Fed Itself/15

Here was a sharp muzzle that jabbed a flustered Donald again and again, sending him quacking on cue. Here was a tangle of limbs, frozen in midair like a paused cartoon. 

Everywhere were faces, peering out as if asking to be liked or disliked, applauded or ignored.

It was a whole parade of nonsense, as endless as it was absurd.

“How very curious!” Alice murmured. “This must be what a feed is called—a pool that feeds itself, over and over, till there’s nothing left but bubbles!”

Alice looked around at the endless scroll of squabbles and chatter. She felt, in a queer way, proud that it had all sprung from her tears—but the pride sat uneasily. For if the nonsense was hers, then so too were the jabbing muzzle, the suspended violence, the quarrels, the boasting, and the endless noise.

And she wondered, with a small frown that did not suit her face: is it truly a good thing, to have such a pool at all?

Rippling Reflections/14

The Mouse gave a sudden, violent shudder. “C-cat… nasty, vulgar thing!” it cried, then vanished under the surface, leaving only its meter-long tail above the water like a periscope—swiveling about as though it too might catch the signal of the Cat.

Alice could not help but giggle, though she knew it was not entirely polite.

“What a silly mouse! As if my Dinah would swim all the way here. Why, she makes the most dreadful fuss over a mere puddle!”

Just then there was a splash so sudden it set the water fizzing, and up came Bill the Lizard.

He coughed so violently that Alice feared he might shake himself to pieces. 

He coughed and spluttered, until the fit erupted in such a gale of sound and fury, Alice quite expected the Queen to march out of the reeds and order somebody’s head off.

(The Queen, of course, was elsewhere at the time, ordering everybody’s head off, which kept her well occupied.)

Bill seized the Mouse’s tail with one hand, puffed up his narrow chest, and gave Alice such a commanding look that she very nearly believed he was master of the flood. 

But as Alice gazed past him at the waters—her own tears made strange—the illusion vanished. 

They did not merely reflect; they seemed to answer back, their shimmering surface prickling with the promise of comments and likes.