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.
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.
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