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 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 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 4 - Windows For Alice / A Digital Wonderland

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

“Double-hung? Casement? Or Bay Window?” cried the White Rabbit.

He looked excited, as though he knew everything — which a rabbit seldom did. And, most surprising of all, he seemed to have the upper paw.

Alice blinked, puzzled.

“Double… this sounds rather big,” she whispered.

The Rabbit tapped his pocket twice; the air rippled, and a glittering windowpane shimmered into place, floating in midair.

“Step through!” urged the Rabbit.

“Quickly now — before it shuts itself down.”

Previous Episode: Queen Not Found

Next Episode: Tumble Tumble Trouble

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.

White Rabbit. White Mushroom

Continued to run speedily, Alice lost the White Rabbit at one of the corners in Wonderland.

Instead, she saw some white mushrooms. Smiling, Alice looked behind the mushrooms trying to find a trivial tail that would reveal the identity of the rabbit.

She believed a flawless transformation never exists; even night has fallen, when a tunnel connects both ends of Wonderland is successful dug , there is a light and there is the sun.

She had this strong belief, not until she found the White Rabbit ran passed the corner of her eye.