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.

Episode 42 - Inflated Chaos / A Digital Wonderland

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

The Head and Tail Game failed to provide any clue.

Alice, always trusting her instincts, went for a pink mushroom. Pink had been her girl-next-door favourite colour.

She nibbled at its side, precisely the side that mirrored her own, expecting a pinkish, lollipop sweetness—bright enough to make the magic feel immense.

"What a rotten‑skunk‑sour‑pickle taste!” she spluttered, spitting the mushy bits onto the ground, her face scrunching as if she’d just sniffed a dragon’s armpit. Yuck—a primeval dragon’s armpit!

The tiny nibble—half a second, too long, or too short?—had already propagated elsewhere.

The Caterpillar’s lower half responded, puffing, ballooning, until it resembled a great, striated watermelon.

The flying cameras buzzed and flashed—as if slipping unconsciously back into New Year mode. Some hovered low, some circled overhead, some zoomed in, all pinging at once: [MIRACLE FOUND].

Alice’s mouth dropped. “Oh! That wasn’t supposed to happen to you!” she exclaimed.

It was a topsy-turvy remark—yet entirely understandable, by a commoted Alice. For if not him, then who should have inflated? The Queen? The Mouse? The mushroom? Herself? Or... YOU? Yes—I meant you. Highly questionable, if not downright piscine.

Oh yes, please don't even stop to hesitate and breathe on the commas; the dragon had never guarded its armpit—🐲💨.

The mushrooms giggled, trying to compose a chime for this phenomenal aberration, but Ti wandered off, Fa burrowed underground, and Do—blushing violently—simply refused to cue. The chime misfired. 

Meanwhile, the garden botched the live feed.

The System grinned—far wider than any Cheshire Cat's.

[Biological Error 000: You sneezed! You sneezed! System forcing Rhinitis Reset.]

The System grinned again, absurdly wide, its capital S forking into C/C—a syntax hosting two Caterpillars, locked in armpit combat, weaponizing scent instead of verbs.

C for Caterpillar—💨!

C for Caterpillar—💨…

[Warning] 

Your ouch wouldn't fix the Caterpillars —they boinged, pffffted anyway...

and left your desk smelling like a skunk holding its own nose—non-deodorantable.

Oops...too late to unread now.

Previous Episode: Alice-in-Kaleidoscope

Next Episode: Pool of Sweat
Tiny ouroboroi of letters, 
searching for its own stable attractor state

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 27 - Tilted Service / A Digital Wonderland

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

A quiet calm had settled in, Alice thought—until a faint clatter above confirmed differently.

High above her, a steaming teapot stood upon a three-legged table, sending milky, lavender-scented embraces through the air, quite undecided whether up was still up—or had absurdly become down.

Beside it, a plate of warm buttery biscuits perched—rounds of tempting round smiles tumbling downward, yet insisting they were rising to greet Alice instead.

All of it hovered above her—on the floor, as though a service had been set, promptly neglected by Wonderland itself, and only remembered a second too late after the sip of “DRINK ME” Red Magic.

“The ceiling… or is it the floor?” Alice asked the air, forcing her thoughts into a C-for-Ceiling, E-for-Floor knot. She was so flustered that the proper F had slipped out of her mind entirely, leaving poor E to do the job—while the aroma rose like a mischievous siren she very much wished to ignore.

“Perhaps I ought to give the room a little tilt—just a small one—and rotate the whole thing round,” she mused, tilting her body. “I do hope I can.”

What a wonderfully silly thought that was—forever silly, forever evolving, and somehow... forever.

Forever Brilliant, 

Wonderlandsome

Previous Episode: How Many Alices Make Ending

Next Post: Door Introduced Itself
One Small Flick by Her
One Giant Flip For The World

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 25 - The Laughter Concerto / A Digital Wonderland

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

The sensation grew—and grew further—until Alice, curled tight into a big, stiff question, could not answer herself anymore; her thoughts slipped out of key, her soul revolving into resonance.

Her body trembled at high frequency, each tremor small but relentless, vibrating the walls, her face flushing crimson.

She burst into wild, uncontrollable laughter—louder than thunder before a storm, louder than applause after a finale.

The laughter came in waves—each swelling fuller, sharper, more radiant than the last—reverberating through the narrow space, focused at first, then multiplying, until the concerto and her laughter, first mingling, then fusing, became a single compound propagating like viral code, reprogramming the space thou by thou.

The wafloings quivered beneath it; the chemistry remixed itself into a self-generating echo, bouncing and twisting, too fierce for so small a room to bear.

The echo struck a perfect sforzando; the tiny room shook, released its strain, and snapped back into order. 

For a moment, everything hung suspended—the breath, the soul, the very atoms of her being. Then, Alice exhaled — — — a long afternoon of breath letting go.

A great silence followed—the echo neatly cached by the Wonderlandian system, which sensibly went into sleep mode.

A Concerto Entered Sleep Mode 😴

Coming up next--

A Compromised Finale

Lighter or Emptier?

Previous Episode: Alice in Concerto

Next Post: How Many Alices Make an Ending

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 23 - The Wriggle / A Digital Wonderland

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

The background command knocked — as though the wafloings had finally received their signal, and Alice’s thought had remembered its turn.

A shadow, slender and oddly familiar, slid forward from where the Rabbit had vanished.

“A patch — from the Rabbit?” Alice queried. “Or a bug, in disguise?”

“Oh dear — Bill! You’ve escaped the pool!” cried Alice, as the little figure stopped, fixing her with that unnervingly steady look.

“How were those one-meter Mouse’s tales you once clung to?” Her mouth brushed the wafloings — breathless but bright, as though speaking through a screen to her long-lost friend.

The steady look held its silence.

Was Bill performing a system scan — convinced that no bug could hide as long as the cursor kept blinking?

He stood upright, his tail anchoring him to the floor — miniature enough to maneuver neatly in the cramped space. He offered Alice a widening grin, bright as the cursor that refused to cease its blinking.

As ever, Bill said nothing.

Even a broader grin, by all available philosophy, would scarcely have improved the situation; his silence was the only thing that wasn’t blinking.

With a sudden wriggle, Bill scrambled up Alice’s arm and slipped sideways, clinging to her ribs.

The Steady Look Held Its Silence, Yet Told Not A Tale...

Previous Episode: Folded Within Her Question

Next Post: A Compromised Finale

Lighter or Emptier?

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 22 - Folded Within Her Question / A Digital Wonderland

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

“I wish I could be smaller,” Alice thought. “Foolish me; the room would swallow me whole again.”

The air creaked before her self-chiding was quite done — frantic rubbings, squeezings, and pressings rose through the tightening space — from not very far, to near, to closer — until it was right beside her.

That was when the White Rabbit came into the picture, breathing a thick coffee smell, as though he’d just burst from a café in someone else’s dream. The scent bounced back and forth, looping with his auto-playing idiom: “I’ll be really, really late—so really late!”

He brushed against her skirt, jerked, and wedged himself toward a tiny pinprick of light. The glow widened and brightened; with a flick and a shimmer, he was absorbed altogether—as though minimized into a secret taskbar only he could see.

The light dinged once—and was gone.

Silence hung in its place.

Alice, still folded within her own precarious loop of question, sighed—though in such tight quarters, even sighs had to be rationed.

“When I used to read fairy tales,” she murmured, “I fancied such things could never happen—and now here I am, right in the middle of one.”

The murmuring echoed, then faded—leaving only the faint hum of thought still tangled in the ends of her hair.

The Wonderland system dinged once... 

Whose wriggle, 

in such a tightness?

Previous Episode: Wall Held Their Breath

Next Post: The Wriggle

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 21 - Walls Held Their Breath / A Digital Wonderland

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

But then a sour, musky odour crept upward—heavy and slow in the close air. 

Alice hadn’t an inch—no, not even half an inch—left in which to wrinkle her nose.

“Dear me! Is it roasted beef gone positively pungent?” cried Alice. “How I should catch you, Mr. Rabbit—red-pawed this time!”

The words came out squeezed—thin, crumpled, and quite out of breath.

Every murmur, every thought, and every shadow of the room shifted, twisted, and set about reconfiguring themselves into murshathodowghtmuuur.

Nothing stayed where it ought: ceilings became walls, walls became floors and ceilings and wafloings  — until no one could tell what was what.

Pugin or Barry? They’d have failed the job, I should think—and Wonderland chop-signed my narration.

The room grew quieter; even the very wafloings seemed to hold their crooked breath—waiting, perhaps, only for Alice’s next thought to execute, like a line of code idling in the background, unhurried but inevitable.

It had proven itself—so long as the Wonderlandian system chose not to crash.

The Wonderland system hummed beneath the walls.

Coming up next: Folded Within Her Question

A trauma—or a despair?

A surreal chapter in Alice’s digital dreamscape.

Episode 20 - The State Of Limbo / A Digital Wonderland

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

Before long, the distinct, four-note humming stopped.

“Red magic,” breathed Alice, exhaling with a grand relief. “You’ve ended just where you should.”

Kneeling in sudden surrender to the shifting room, she curved herself into a loop of her own question—neck pressed to the wall, nose relearning how to sniff.

A soft groaning filled the air, rather like a biscuit attempting to recall a crisp tune.

The mirrors—bent awkwardly like warm toffee, still brimming with dizzling bottles—shimmered faintly, actively composing the next line of the story together.

Their light flickered—brightening, dimming, brightening again—as if modelling with one hand and bargaining with someone on the far side of Wonderland, eager to have a well-reflected story.

Even the bottles quivered within them, their glass caught between cracking and vanishing, as though the words DRINK ME were desperately trying to erase themselves from the code.

Alice, her neck still stiff, cast a sidelong glance at them.

“Hopefully,” she murmured, “the system won’t hang before the next bit loads”—a phrase she’d only learned earlier that morning, and still half believed was a charm.

Coming up next: Walls Held Their Breath 

Episode 19 - Nullity and Hum / A Digital Wonderland

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

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.

Episode 18 - The Default Bottle / A Digital Wonderland

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

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.

Episode 17 - The Thirteenth Step / A Digital Wonderland

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

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.

Episode 16 - A Most Particular Magic / A Digital Wonderland

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

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 the opposite, 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”

Episode 15 - The Pool That Fed Itself / A Digital Wonderland

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

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?

Episide 14 - Rippling Reflections / A Digital Wonderland

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

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.

Episode 13 - The Hasty Rabbit / A Digital Wonderland

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

“Rabbit!” cried Alice, quite suddenly.

This startled everyone. Even me—though I really ought to know better than to be startled.

Presently, the Mouse’s idea hung in despair, spinning slowly round and round, yet never beginning.

This “running” creature was everywhere at once—his entrances always mistimed.

He rushed nearer, muttering, “I’ll be late, so late!”

With a flash of his glowing pocket-watch, he was gone—toggled into Dark Mode.

“Why was he always hurrying, as if being late were the only thing he was meant—or made—to do?” Alice wondered.

Suppose, for once, he erased it all and lingered instead—to pluck mushrooms in the misty morning, or to chase butterflies like Dinah does!

So Alice, eager to be useful, conjured a grand wish of her own.

How curious it would be to see him without that glowing watch—if only she could right-click it and send it tidily to the Recycle Bin.

Episode 12 - Dizzy race. Like / A Digital Wonderland

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

It was such a dizzy race—everyone whirling around a clock that refused to stop.

“Stop!” cried the Eaglet, flapping to seize control of the chaos.

And at once, the Eaglet was already thinking the other way round.

The sudden halt flung everyone forward; tumbling in surprise, they hung midair—a tangle of limbs, frozen like a paused cartoon.

Silent. 

A muddled silence. 

But silence never lasts.

The Mouse scrolled and called out, “Sit down, close together!”

“Oh, at least I’m allowed to sit.” thought Alice, much relieved—almost as if a daisy had leaned over and whispered, Sit, it’s what I do best.

The Mouse’s eyes twinkled. An idea—splendid, at least to himself—positively itching to be shared, whether the others clicked like or not.

Episode 11 - Alice, Tra-la-la-la-ing / A Digital Wonderland

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

A small paw tugged at Alice’s skirt. It was the Mouse, his whiskers twitching in time with the music.

“You’re not running,” he squeaked.

“Am I meant to?” Alice asked.

“The Dodo says everyone must run,” the Mouse replied, “It’s the rule.”

“But the rules were never announced,” Alice countered.

The Mouse blinked slowly. “Precisely. That’s the only truly fair system. Now you must run, or you’ll be Still. And to be Still is to be Out.”

“And what does Out mean?”

The Mouse looked at her with profound pity. “Why, it means you’re not In.”

And with that impeccable logic, he vanished into the swirling, tra-la-la-la-ing mass. 

Alice paused, shrugged as if it hardly mattered, and off she ran—darting between legs, bumping the Dodo, treading on the Mouse, nearly tripping over the Duck. 

Her hair streamed wild behind her, her voice tumbling out in song.

“Tra la la la la…” she sang aloud.

Tra-la-la-la-laing like a computer caught in an endless loop---until someone finally pressed Escape.

Episode 10 - The Madcap Caucus / A Digital Wonderland

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

The race rules were never announced. There was no winner, no prize—and, curiously enough, that never appeared to be a flaw. 

On the contrary, all the creatures ran as eagerly as if confusion itself had been the very point of the game.

They sang along in this Caucus-race. Alice could only catch the refrain: “Tra la la la la…”

“Is it a Caucus-race,” Alice wondered. "or a Circle-dance?"

It was all bounce and whirl, so bouncy and infectious, even the missteps seemed to power it along, each surprise adding its own peculiar energy.

Carroll himself might have regretted the confusion.

The mood flared. The tune hopped like a mite, and doubled back—“Tra la la la la…”

The scene reminded Alice of campfires with her sisters. They would sing London Bridge Is Falling Down, Humpty Dumpty and more.

Yet nothing in those songs, not even a tumbling bridge, could match the sheer craziness unraveling before her eyes. 

"Tra la la la la, Tra la la la la..."

It was as if the whole Wonderland itself flashing Error… Error… 

"Tra la la la la..."

Previous Episode: Waddling Side to Side 

Next Episode: Alice Tra-la-la-la-la-ing 

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 9 - Waddling. Side to Side / A Digital Wonderland

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

The Dodo, puffing very grandly, kept on quacking the word ReBoOt.

“Would this change Wonderland?” Alice asked, wide-eyed with curiosity.

The Dodo, catching his breath, answered with pompous pity. “A ReBoOt is simple: one forgets the errors, clears the memory”—he puffed and wheezed—“and hopes the story will run smoother this time.”

“But what if it forgets too much?” Alice pressed.

“Then,” said the Dodo, “Wonderland crashes! Or you crash! Or both—QUAACK!”

No question followed.

The creatures waddled side to side, swaying like a metronome. Wings flapped out of time—up when they ought to be down, down when they ought to be up.

Alice, finding it all perfectly unreasonable and therefore just right for Wonderland, burst into helpless laughter.

The Mouse, usually a champion sprinter, ran oddly slow behind the Duck. Its sharp muzzle jabbed Donald again and again, sending him springing upward—quacking perfectly on cue every time. 

Its tail almost waddled side to side, its little belly sketched along the ground, leaving a faint, zigzag mouse trail behind it.

Previous Episode: Quacking in Chaos

Next Episode: Madcap Caucus

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 8 - Quacking in Chaos / A Digital Wonderland

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

The pool of tears grew restless.

The Dodo came flapping his wings. ‘QUAACK!’ he bellowed, so loudly the Duck nearly toppled over. "Neither double-deckers nor carriages qualify as followers!" he declared, puffing out his chest with his sudden authority.

The Duck nodded again. Donald always seemed so very clever—though Alice couldn’t tell if he understood the Dodo or was merely fond of the word ‘QUAACK.’

By now, the Mouse’s tale seemed destined hopelessly to run on forever.

But excitement, in this damp and dismal place, never lasted long. A chill soon settled, and everyone was shivering.

“ReBoOt! ReBoOt!” cried the Dodo. “The only cure is a Caucus-race!”

“Does he mean English,” Alice whispered to herself, “or is that another word he's just invented?”

And so, at the Dodo’s command, the wet party began. 

The Lory, the Eaglet, the Duck, and several others whose names Alice couldn’t quite recall, ran round and round in a chaotic, patternless loop, desperate to get dry.

“Rule of Nature,” Alice concluded, “creatures dislike getting wet. That was hard-coded long before I was.” 

She very nearly applauded herself, feeling she had at last untangled one of Nature’s riddles.

Previous Episode: Off With The Head

Next Episode: Waddling Side to Side

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.