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.

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.

Episode 73.3 - Sleep Slept / A Digital Wonderland

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

SLEEP SLEPT

Sleep warmed itself beneath the table, beneath the Dormouse's fur.

It curled up like a fat golden cat.

It purred, a heavy resonance vibrating through the fur. The fur remembered Alfred Schnittke.

The Dormouse felt it.

Eyes shut, he pulled a tiny brass pocket-horn from his waistcoat—A on one side, S on the other.

TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT. 

Sleep fell asleep.

The Dormouse continued dreaming.

He dreamed a bluish-grey cat waited in the doorway.

Behind the door, a mouse rolled a barrel of dynamite.

Jerry rolled. 
Tom waited.

Jerry rolled. 
Tom waited.

The gap coiled
Jerry coiled
Tom coiled

The dream waited.

Harpsichord filled the stillness.

...

Neither arrived.

A foot flustered. 
Tapped. 
One, two.
One, two.

These became a switch switching the dream off.

The Dormouse TO0t-toot->—<-toot-t0OT. 

Sleep slept.

Z z Z z Z z ...
████

Previous Episode: Words Drowned

Next Episode: Carroll Refused Them

The words reached for an anchor, but Carroll refused them. They drifted out of Wonderland.

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 73.2 - Words Drowned/ A Digital Wonderland

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

WORDS DROWNED

Alice's words had failed to reach the Hatter. They looped back to her ears. 

Her own voice slapping against her.

Ripples gathered around her like rising water.

She cocked her head, jerking her chin.

The movement unsettled the acoustics inside her head. 

The sound went wet and viscous.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: left ear.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: right ear.

[Eardrums requesting air.dll.

Status: Failed]

Glubs clotted.

Then sank. 

D

e

e

p

e

r

Tea didn't spill.
Her voice spilled.

Drowning.

Glubs coagulated.

Alice pressed down, forcing a pop to silence them.

A heavy bubble rose through a dark pool. 

Glub.
Glub held.
The surface held.
Plop.
The last bubble burst. 

"If I stay down here long enough," Alice thought, "I shall grow fins of lace. I shall speak in gurgles to the Oysters."

"And the Oysters hear nothing, my dear. Nothing at all,” a voice purred.

[Cut]

Narrative didn't include Oysters.

[Take two]

The megaphone called. Glubs returned to the stage.

Glub-glub-glub.exe: left ear.
Glub-glub-glub.exe: right ear.

Ugh— 

Words_Drowned.exe

Loading...

Previous Episode: 

Alfred Schnittke's Job Done

Next Episode: Sleep Slept

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 73.1.1 - Alfred Schnittke's Job Done / A Digital Wonderland

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

ALFRED SCHNITTKE'S JOB DONE 

1865 carolled.

Beneath the table, stagehands were panting. 

Above it, every time a string snapped, a teapot lid clicked.

1976 refused to wait.

In the right ear, a Baroque minuet hummed. The teacups jingled in a courtly 3/4 time.

In the left, screeching twelve-tone clusters tore through a curtain of cilia. The teacups stuttered into minus two—minus two seconds of panic.

The two worlds piled up directly on top of the tablecloth.

From two inches to four, to sixteen, to sixty-four, and still piling. 

To the Hatter, discord was proper table manners.

1874 hummed through the floorboards.

Within, he conjured Danse Macabre—the violin summoned skeletons to their midnight dance.

Then came a snap.

The Hatter’s knife sliced into a loaf of bread.

Screaming of March Hare halted. 

The tango cut.

Tok tok approached beneath the tablecloth. 

A page drifted loose.

The narrative carried it forward.

The tea party remained.

The teapot lid waited. The next record needle waited too.

Alfred Schnittke shut his eyes. 

2026 holds its breath.

So does Alice.

Previous Episode: Stagehands 

Next Episode: Words Drowned 

"If I stay down here long enough," Alice thought, "I shall grow fins of lace. I shall speak in gurgles to the Oysters."

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 73.1 - Stagehands / A Digital Wonderland

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

STAGEHANDS 

The Hatter’s remark knocked Alice off balance, as though the floor had been stolen beneath her feet.

A family of rats was carrying it.
They were grousing all the way home.

"Where should we keep this floor? Our garage doesn't need any extra," a younger rat asked, panting heavily. 

"Under the house," the mother replied quickly—yet a lump formed in her throat just as fast. 'House' became hoarse. 

"But we already have one there," said the elder one, wheezing while staring at the immense floor.

"Why are we taking this floor home?" the young one asked again.

"Careful. The narrative is writing us," the father said, teeth clenched.

The table's shadow darkened across their faces, then over their entire bodies. 

"What if it names us?"

"That's beyond rat imagination," the parent sighed.

The floor grew heavier, dragging them two inches backward.

Weight dragged, labour pulled.

The younger one's eyes boggled—there stood the narrative beside him.

No face. Scorching.

"Is that—?" he rasped.

The floor was no longer there.

Alice didn't notice. She kept speaking while two seconds went missing.

The narrative tapped. Gloved.

Tok tok sounds from a prepared piano crept in from the background. 

A snap.

No fingerprints left on music.

Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No.1 simply stopped.

The harpsichord ticked away.

The rats reset to routine—shuffling, running oddly slow behind the Duck, jabbing him during a Caucus-race. 

Their hands hurt. They blamed the Caucus-race.

No one mentioned the grounded floor again.

Not even the floor.

Floors were not meant to remember.

Only narrative did. 

Previous Episode: Lewis's Weather Forecast

Next Episode: Alfred Schnittke's Job Done

The Caucus-race reset.

Alfred Schnittke shut his eyes.

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 73 - Lewis's Weather Forecast / A Digital Wonderland

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

LEWIS'S WEATHER FORECAST 

I didn't withhold any truth.

I even included a detailed weather forecast.

Readers ruled. That much was undeniable.

My only mistake was omitting the source:

Lewis's weather forecast, 8 p.m., Dodgson Broadcast Corporation. Formerly Charles Broadcast Corporation.

The weather at the table matched.

The skin corroborated the report; no goosebumps to betray a chill.

But none of this trivia delayed Alice's anger.

The Hatter's remark caught her off balance, as though the floor was stolen.

Right under her feet.

“I beg your pardon—and how rude of you to say such ill-mannered things!” she cried. Her cheeks reddened, but she refused to hunch an inch.

Her words missed the Hatter entirely.

He had not turned away.

Her voice simply failed to arrive.

Between them, the air circled.

Above a cup too, circling like a housefly.

The cup straightened its handle to swat the buzzing away.

The air circled above a crumb, but not enough to tip anything.

Still, the words looped back to Alice’s ears, her own voice slapping against her.

Her ears hummed. 

She cocked her head to shake it away, but the sound remained glub glub glub.

“We’ve been expecting you since yesterday,” said the March Hare at last, smiling.
He turned to the Hatter. 
The two of them shuddered. 

So did the teapot. Even the cups. Whispering scandal under the steaming web.
The tablecloth shrugged, sending tiny ripples across teapot and cups. 

Everybody was gossiping—under streetlight, under table, under mamak. Someone shouted: "One teh tarik." Another one responded, "Satu teh tarik."

Then the shouts in Premier League on live, filling the air.

A Mad Party.

"Oh, my dear! Don't make your memory short once your head was out from the Rabbit-Hole." The Hatter shook his hat; "surely you remember." His voice was calm and flat, as though flattened by the narrow, tapering walls of the Rabbit-Hole.

“Hair full of dirt and grasses…” the March Hare added, still smiling, apparently he had seen it himself.

Gossiping didn’t end; it didn’t stop sleep from warming itself under the table. 

From inside that warmth, a lullaby rehearsed itself:

“Toot … tooot … toooot …” the Dormouse snored. 

Not yet 8 p.m. Truth is timeless.

Previous Episode: A Ruler 

Next Episode: Stagehands
"Where should we keep this floor? Our garage doesn't need an extra one," a younger rat asked, panting. 

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 72.1 - A Ruler / A Digital Wonderland

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

A RULER

Every inch of a ruler marked an unspoken history.

The wall it hung from in the Hatter's tea-party house thought it knew everything.

It was nothing.

Only shadow.

In another story, it ruled for the Queen—until “Off with your head” snapped its leash.

The phrase was spelled into a spell.

Earlier still, it ruled in a story of yore, in which two weavers turned air into garments. It was a ruler in new clothes.

When Gallons, Ounces and Inches prevailed, the ruler notched the tea party—
Still in new clothes.
Still ruling everyone.
Measuring the two-inch swelling of the tea-party house.

Once, a child measured the Ruler with a naked sentence.

Now, Alice ruined her way into a wrong tea party, walking a trap of milky-trick narrative air. 

Eyes parsed Alice—inch by inch.
The ruler followed.

The six-inch ruler on everyone's desks, on yours, too.
Measuring every line in two-inch couplets.

The weavers spun air. Stories grew tall. 

The ruler measured older ruler's pride. 

It measured the shout of the Queen. 

The Seconds' story came out two inches shorter.

It declared those measurements canon.

Its cold thickness sealed the gap between stories—

"Skritch. 

Skritch. 

THUCK."

This distorted voice morphed into a song:

"Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, come into my notch?"

Everything hesitated. 
Narrative too.

Carroll decreed:
Two turned official in the first line of the preface.
Readers deliberately skipped it.

R  E  A  D  E  R  S    R  U  L  E  D.

U  N  S  P  O  K  E  N  L  Y.

Previous Episode: Perfect Weather 

Next Episode: Lewis's Weather Forecast 

Lewis's weather forecast at 8pm on Dodgson Broadcast Corporation.

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.