Episode 75.2.2 - Touching the Absence / A Digital Wonderland

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

Touching The Absence

Drooped. Hatted. Lined. Erased.
Drooped. Hatted. Lined. Erased.
Alice rubbed the flat ink.

The page went dotty.

Dots rose beneath her fingertips. Through them, Daydream and Imagine began to speak.

"I daydream that dreams dream at six o'clock. They drink tea, one teapot after another. It's still six o'clock."

Daydream dotted into the March Hatter. She felt it stutter.

"I sow a field of imagines under a drowsy twilight. Some lie down lazily; some chew a stalk of seconds; some watch in Hare-y admiration."

Imagine rooted into the March Hatter. A field of Imagines shifted beneath her skin.

The March Hatter's fingers rose—
fell—
spun.

She felt the pulse from

⠎⠞⠕⠗⠽

Her story began to take shape. 

The dots scrabbled beneath her fingertips. Into a welt. Into narrative. 

Daydream and Imagine suddenly unthought themselves.

And then—

The paper went cold beneath her palms.

The March Hatter's connection sundered.

Page 109 and the props disengaged.

Holes, small to large, scattered across the paper.

The March Hatter lowered one fingertip

                                                                        into

the largest crater.

There was no desk beneath it. No table. No floor.

Not a welt.

She reached deeper.

The props floated there, out of reach.

She was touching the shape of their absence.

The Absence touched back.

"I'm Presence."

Weight upon her fingertip. The weight of an untold story.

"Write this down," Presence commanded.

She wanted to move her hand.

It couldn't move.

The weight doubled. The crater deepened. She felt the props pressing up from below.

"Write," Presence said again.

The March Hatter's fingertip sank to the knuckle.

"What else?"

“The White Rabbit does not stay in the Rabbit-Hole anymore. He's late for stories on Lebuh Chulia.”

The din of Rapid Penang Bus 203 echoed in the March Hatter's ears—

and she realized that she was already on it.

POSTSCRIPT

You're reading on a bus. 

When you get off at Komtar, get a ticket for RM78 and go to The Top at floor 65.

Look for a man with a pocket watch.

He will be late.

Don't wait for him.

You will miss your story—

a nonsensical one.

Previous Episode: The March Hatter 

Next Episode: Enjoy Each Second 

The stitching pulled. ENJOY EACH SECOND unraveled.

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 75.2.1 - The March Hatter / A Digital Wonderland

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

THE MARCH HATTER

On page 109, the March Hatter wrote, "Once upon a time, there was a girl who tried to erase herself."

"She erased her name. Her head. Her ears.

Yet everything remained—on her fingers."

The lines on her fingers throbbed.

She could no longer hear her name when called.

Her Alice was preempted.

She accepted the new identity.

Carroll doubted his page 109. He didn’t remember copy-editing that.

But he was locked out.

The March Hatter already inhabited it.

She wore the hat.

She dropped her ears.

She became the Brotherhood. A place where stories tell stories. 

March Hat·ter /mɑːrtʃ ˈhætər/noun: the stories. 

She became the crumb.
The crumb became the broth.
The broth became the home.
The home became the finger.
The finger became the line.
And the line—
the line became you.

You became the beginning.

You align your spectacles. You blink twice. Begin to mouth.

"Once upon a time, there was a girl who tried to erase herself."

The silence goes online.

A million-minus-one screens flicker in the dark, matching the stutter of the silence.

On page 109.

Carroll is left out.

He buys an 1865 clothbound copy from Chowrasta Market.

"I never wrote this page 109. I found it already printed in this copy."

The one-millionth screen turned black.

Previous Episode: The Brotherhood 

Next Episode: Touching The Absence 

The White Rabbit does not stay in the Rabbit-Hole anymore. He's late for stories on Lebuh Chulia.

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 75.2 - 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 hare."

Both shared their stories 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 on lines. 

Lines on 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.

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.