.metamorphosis:alICE

Alice, Underground

"I can't go back to yesterday - because I was a different person then."

I'm in the process of writing a book. It's called Alice, Underground. Consider it my view of a modern Alice in Wonderland. I've given y'all a sneak preview below.

Enjoy!

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Journal entry

I feel so different. Today. Now. Like someone else.

If someone were to talk to me right now I would not be able to give them any real responses. I'd have to pretend, make up words to say, expressions to put on my face.

I really hope I'm not going mad again.

I find the idea of any intimate contact repulsive now. I don't, won't pretend. Not anymore. I want to be myself, but I forget who I am sometimes.

If I am only my memories and I forget, do I become nothing?

* * * * *

The shop was dusty, and smelled of a faint mold. The autumn afternoon sun filtered feebly through the windowpanes, hitting a glass eye that shone dully at Alice. She tried not to feel startled, feeling that the single eye watched her as she moved about the shop. The sign hanging from the outside had promised antique treasures, with its scroll-like design reading "Old Treasures, New Hopes" in weathered letters. But once inside she felt cold despite the cloying heat, due at least in part to the stuffed animals, frozen in their eternal positions the taxidermist imposed on them.

The shopkeeper had been talking, while Alice half-listened, perusing a dusty volume of the collected works of Poe. "People bring in their deceased pets," he was saying slowly, shooing a lazy fly that was buzzing about his head, "and are happily surprised at the results. We carry a varied line of realistic glass eyes as you can see--" here he pointed to a Rotweiler who seemed to be snarling evilly at Alice "that make the pet owner feel that their pet is still with them."

Alice suppressed a shudder and turned to look at him. "All I'm looking for is a birthday gift for a friend. Something unique, and--" here she paused, saying half to herself, "something that will make her think of me when she sees it. Something that will make an impression."

She was still feeling sensitive over the cold reaction from Lucy that she'd gotten last week; she felt that she'd exposed so much of herself already and been rejected on that basis alone. Alice rarely let others get very close to her, and when she did the inevitable rejection just made her more distant. But a dream she had the previous night had made her want to, for some reason she couldn't fathom, really want to continue the strange friendship in spite of everything. They'd been through a lot together in the past few months and Alice thought that if she didn't save this friendship she'd never be again close to anyone. Ever.

It was on her way home from the myriad of hopelessly homogeneous shops that she found this old store, on a side alley that she hadn't seen before. Spent and disappointed, the shop seemed like her last hope.

He looked at her directly for the first time, unaware that the fly had landed on the temple of his glasses. "I've got costume jewelry, beautiful rare paintings, gemstones, exotic plants, antique bottles, collectors' books, fine furniture, tapestries..."

She looked about at the glass cases that lined the shop along one wall, seeming to stretch back endlessly through dimly lit rooms. Some of the cases were filled with unidentifiable objects in glass jars; one held dried claws and feathers; another vials of liquids and powders and herbs, the packets stamped with faded scripts; another marbles of every color and size that seemed too like actual eyeballs for her comfort. Antique medical equipment. Old wooden tops and dolls. Paintings of gallant knights and fairy-tale meadows. Pendants of gold and silver. Cracked silver mirrors in huge gilt frames. A fainting sofa of stained red velvet. A crocodile swam down at her from the high ceiling.

Alice picked at random a vial of a murky green liquid. She held it up, seeing in distortion a glint off a painted bottle. Startled by a buzzing sound coming from behind her, Alice nearly dropped the tube. A carnivorous plant had caught a fly that was trying helplessly to get away. She felt suddenly quite spooked, feeling that the shopkeeper could read her thoughts and turned to go. "That's alright, I don't think that--"

"Wait. I think I might have something for you." He tapped the side of his cheek with one finger, paused for another few moments- "Yes." The shopkeeper looked up at Alice. "What price range are you looking in? It has been a slow summer, so I've got some particularly vivid treasures I've been waiting to sell to the right person. One in particular might suit your friend." Here he paused his already slow speech for effect, which was not lost on Alice . "But I won't show it to just anybody."

Alice tried to not show desperation in her voice. "I don't care how much I spend, as long as it's the right gift. I mean, I've just about given up." She gave a quiet sigh. Quietly – "It means a lot. This gesture."

He gave her a pointed look, nodded almost to himself. "Come with me," he said softly, padding past massive bookcases and overstuffed leather chairs. He led her through the shop and down an old wooden spiral staircase, where the light was even more feeble than it was before. "Mind your steps," he cautioned, as one of the stairs creaked under her feet. She gripped the iron railing tightly.

Finally they seemed to come to a landing. Alice could gradually make out the room as her eyes adjusted to the light. The walls and ceiling were painted a soft light blue. The room was high, so high it was difficult to tell how much so lit only by – was it candles? But no: the room was nearly empty. Alice was expecting another room filled with ghastly objects, so was not expecting emptiness. Or, nearly so.

In the far corner of the room were a few plants. The light source, feeble as it was, seemed to emanate from them. As she walked closed she could just make out a faint trickling sound. The shopkeeper was bent close to the leaves, leaves which seemed to be growing directly from the floor. "Here," he was mumbling, his hand stretched towards the ground. "Come here you, damnit." He stepped closer and seemed to be taken in by the foliage.

Alice blinked. He seemed to have disappeared. There was nothing in the room but a few straggly plants. They were too small to hide a child, never mind an adult. She slowly approached the plants, now getting annoyed. What fucking game was he playing? She had no time for this!

She peered into the plants, bent over. There was nothing there. Some ornamental grasses, flowers; but where was that babbling-brook sound coming from?

Frustrated and spent, Alice felt at a loss. Should she get the hell out of here? Stay to figure out what the shopkeeper was up to? She plopped ungracefully on the bare floor, skirts all about her, and lit a cigarette.

Lost in her thoughts, she was startled by a rustling coming from the plants.

"You shouldn't smoke, it's baaaaad for you," a rude British voice confronted her loudly, slurring "bad" like an admonishment. Alice was prepared for just about anything at this point, but was still surprised to see a large grey tabby cat sitting next to her. Even more surprised when he seemed to speak to her. "Curious now, are we?" He stared at her, as only cats can, an intense unblinking glare which seems to take your breath away.

"I, I…" Alice stammered. "I was just…" She stopped speaking, realizing she was about to apologize to a cat. A talking cat. "What the fuck," she said, half to herself.

"And you shouldn't curse so. Deplorable manners, I do say." He looked at her for a second, then proceeded to lick his fur.

Before she could say anything, the lights dimmed. They dimmed and dimmed and before she could do anything about it—light a match, speak, they were out.

Pitch black.

* * * * *

"Where am I?" Loneliness, pure desperate black. Black of color, of feeling, of deprivation of the senses. A cold that was more than temperature. And yet Alice felt a single ray, a feeling wherein she felt, felt the source of the black.

"The Darkness has a source," she said, aloud.

"Many Sources," said a voice. The sound reverberated within her, surrounded her. Alice could not tell from where it came.

Alice shivered.

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