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
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.
