Her name: Not Alice. It was left at that.
By the Tumtum tree sat she,
Flamingo in one hand,
Body in the rest,
Spirits circlith from the Jabberwocky
as bodiless as Not Alice.
Stretching out the neck, the negate Alice furled the pink feathers, strumming to a tune without a chord, but who needed one in a land of wonder? "I look at the wonder and see it turning, while my flamingo gently weeps," she whispered. The flamingo, Hewit, squawked in agreement. "No bass guitar or smallest violinin', to get these dusty robes a learnin'. I notice you know nothing, and the love is a slumberin' as my flamingo gently weeps... God this is horrid," Not Alice laid down Hewit, who ruffled his feathers, screeching at her again at the physical manipulation and deplorable music. "Please, it's better than hitting hedgehogs," Hewit would've made a very persuasive counter argument if Not Alice hadn't got up and left the Tumtum tree. "Pff, humans," began Hewit "Always in denial, always using you as an instrument," he harrumphed in perfect Cockney, he mused "Even as a paddle, it's never been as it should be..."
In fact, Hewit was right, ever since real Alice left her dreams, Wonderland never was the same. Sure, the Queen of Hearts was gone, the Jabberwocky was gone, most of everything that added flavor to Wonderland was gone... Then Alice left, and Wonderland was a ridden reservation of cards, hats, and tea; gambling, lace, and moonshine. Once Alice left the throne, there was a croquet match to determine the next ruler. The King of Hearts won, which really meant the Duchess won, they're together now since the Queen was killed by a writing desk, but it could've been a raven for all Not Alice knew. Since then, the leftover card guards collaborated their own union, no more kings or queens, but communism, that is, sharing alcohol, the lace, and the winnings, although the latter never shared. Cheshire decided to reside as Dinah for the real Alice, watching over her, apparently comfortable since he never came back. As for the others, the White Rabbit is still too busy on whoknowswhatsit, and in his free time, he’s quite the roulette player. Tweedledee and Tweedledum ran off to follow bread crumbs through a forest, to a candy house where, invariably, everyone lived happily ever after. Dormouse and March Hare are in perpetual alliance and run the illegal tea trade, since it had been prohibited by the Duchess who thought tea turned babies into pigs. Humpty Dumpty well, everyone knows what happened to him... And Hatter? One could only imagine...
All too soon, Not Alice came back to the Tumtum tree, stroking Hewit, she sighed and kept her woes silent, for once. "Hewit, what was it like pre-Alice?" Hewit slanted his neck as ex- croquet flamingos often do and concurred. "Alive, yet tangy," Not Alice nodded, accepting the nonsensicality like a student nodding to the Quantum Physics professor. "If you could, which would you prefer, music or croquet?" If flamingos could slap... "Well, considering those are my only options, I miss croquet, at least I never missed a beat." Not Alice, instead of laughing, clung to the only similarity between her and real Alice. The piano. The beat of the metronome one two three four, do re mi fa, do re me far away.... The tempo, staccato, crescendo, decline, bass, falling, falling falling into the hands of the metronome, carrying her to a place she'd never asked to go.
"Tell me Hewit, why am I here?" She asked, cracking her knuckles, a habit picked up from her piano teacher. Waiting for the flamingo to respond, her personal popable apparition appeared, from what seemed to be nowheres; as was always the case. His translucency perspired into his personality, seemingly there, seemingly not. The comical orange was all from funny, especially when he began to rhyme:
“Oh Not Alice, always uffish in way
beruining all’s frabjous day
Ask this not said Cheshire
“Should today hold no aspire?”
For you are closer yet
to grave the end you’ve met.”
Not Alice rolled her eyes, another go at archaic language: “O nameless Apparition, leave me to beweep my woes in peace,” she figured that the apparition gave her answers if spoken to as he would others. The orange grin swirled as a sorbet... “Answer me this, one of old, old of nouveau, why shouldst one humanling deprive me of all Wonder?” In what context? Was there ever one? Not Alice mused for the sake of entertainment, Wonderland was quite boring, but it was not this Alice’s fault for everything. “Mistook me for my double dentity. Surely not thee, one of old, so wise is he, can denounce one so lost and cold, as to accuse me of Wonder old,” Hewit raised a feather, interested in these archaic battles, usually Not Alice lost. Hewit sighed, his fascination in a typical conversation was pathetic in too many ways. “Ah,” the apparition nodded in agreement, swirling around her like his grin, hovering just so slightly up down, up down. “Tis not so, the mind remeans of what many cannot glean. Take the wheat, then the hollow chaff, you my Alicelet, are chaff befar we met.” Not Alice stood from the grass, feeling, sinking, as rooted buildings often do, sick of the semantics. "Look, why don’t you go haunt a closet, I don’t like to hear what you’ve already said,” she spat. It was repetitive, and very annoying. All the time, it was Not Alice’s fault for destroying Wonderland, her fault for ending up here, her mind that couldn’t accept what was right in front of her face. The apparition made a tsk sound and circled around her. “O, but didst thou not want to know, why here now with me in tow?” She shook her head, and gathered up Hewit in her arms. “Too many times of underused rhymes, all the chances lefted when happening upon me that bitter night of york. Dost thou remember my pain, the sorrows. Let be death as dead is quiet, for yesterday may surely be not my tomorrow, but thine.” Hewit squawked in agreement as he often did, for, what else would he do? His only companion, her only friend, as pathetic as they are both, some happiness did remain. “Besides, I already know where I am... Hell, isn’t it obvious?”
Leaving the apparition to muse, the two headed on their journey to nowheres in particular. Following down the Tumtum tree lined road, passers-by pointed and sneered at Not Alice, mistaking her for the real one, all the while, the boiling hypocrisy of this has been oasis reached far past the water level. "Take a bloody picture!" Fuming into town, flicking off villagers, as each one belittled. Hewit kept pace, bumbling along to his own tune. "Perhaps it would be best to try a different town for economic sake,” Not Alice nodded, as poor as musicians are, they are just as nomadic. Someplace more urban, more bustle less hustle would do. In her satchel, Not Alice checked their pay; Fourteen bottles of Pity, twenty Sympathy’s, ten liters of Wrath and five whole pints of Happiness. Overall, they were poor, but then again, Not Alice had stashed away thirty bottles of Bliss and eighty cups of Truth, the most popular emotions one could earn, that is, earn from a heist back in the day. When Not Alice thought crime in Wonderland wouldn’t wrong her, when she thought everyone loved the real Alice, when she got used to regular Wonderland, when she knew her stuff. But, that was gone like the apparition, and a new city awaited them, one of promise, of wealth, of... “Heart City,” Not Alice concluded, “That’s our next stop.” Hewit squawked and perhaps molted a little, “Are you mental! That’s above us, there’s no way we’d get pass the gate, and there’s no way we could pay our way through. Even if we did, we’d surely end up in the slums.” Not Alice rolled her eyes, hearing the brain washed inferiority in his voice, besides, Hewit didn’t know Not Alice as the apparition did. “Relax, I’ve been there, got some friends in good places. We’ll get in all right, we just gotta work on our music, the people there love it.” Not Alice assured, Hewit grumbled, but became passive, as was his nature. “C’mon, lets pack and rest, we’re leaving early.” Arriving at their half crooked cottage, their fifth home, probably the last cozy one they’ll ever have.
***
After a quick call to Dewey, Not Alice’s most faithful weasel when it came to stowaways, fake papers, and ten bloody bottles of Bliss, they arrived at the famous Heart Gate. On watch with fifty card guards 24/7, with solid steel gates, Dewey, the mousey haired Yankee, was, although cheap, but reliable; sneaking the pair in by crabapple cart and Dewey the merchant. His yellow teeth confirmed how risky and unhealthy the city had become since the days of old, reminding them to stay low and out of the eye of the emotion factories, and the Duchess. “Remember, if you don’t got no papers on ya, they keel ya; fake papers, they keel ya; no money, they boil ya. Just keep to the slums and middle and you be good, remember, the music, can get urself outta anyting with music. Get it, got it, great. See ya later darling, hope ya don’t get caught like last time,” He pecked her on the cheek and greedily took the Bliss bottles with him, out of the shack he said was their crossroads, quite the cliché he was. Never to be seen again, a delightful thought, Not Alice headed out, Hewit behind, feather raised.
“A story for another day perhaps,” he mused, knowing when to stay away from troubled waters. Not Alice looked over the directory, finding their place on the borderline of the slums and the middle, Dewey must’ve found new connections, she would have to update everything, style, music, bottles, everything. Sometimes, things always change, a concept Not Alice knew too well.
“Come on, we need to start, now!”
***
By the Slumslum road sat she,
Flamingo in one hand,
Body in the rest,
Passers circlith from the riches
as shadowed as Not Alice
Much like before, the city had its secrets, but had it’s normalities; the screaming pigchild, the busy rabbits, the high caterpillars, with a few minor royalties going here and there; Prince of Spades, Duke of Clubs, Earl of Diamonds and such and such. But all was the same, right with rain, just as plain, but always, always the name...
“I look at me, and see the wrinkles beruising, while my flamingo gently weeps. I look out on to your majesties bemusing, still my hands gently strum... I don’t know you people, but still my flamingo hums... You don’t see my devotion, while I gently weep...” The beats rung out from one street to the next, tweeting the Zucherbar, goosmingling the Pink Elephants, triflin’ the armadillos, if there were any left. All heard and all listened, but still, nobody came. “Look at all the people, where are they, while I gently mum, for there is no country, still you go fuahhhmmmble, while my flamingo gently weeps...” As Hewit was strummed, he listen to her words, the voice, the passion in her face clearly calmed for the passers-by. Not Alice missed everything, lost everything, and still, she tried so hard not to care. “I don’t know how I was inverted, perhaps you were the one who murdered, and still, still, my flamingo gently weeps.” The wrinkled pain lined her face, but those were wrinkles of old, long forgotten was the home Not Alice once knew. Long ago was the name she once remembered, not a negation of a name.
“Still, I am you, and you don’t know the people, yet, my flamingo gently weeps.” And Hewit did weep, silver tears from the corners he watched her yearn for the piano she once knew how to play. “While my Flamingo gently weeps.” Not Alice loosened her hold, and bowed, bowed for them, but most of all, for her. For nothing could ruin this moment of minute happiness. Nothing.
Alrighty then, you know the drill, via Pm, Literate, and, if you must, four paragraphs is the minimum.
Be whoever you like, if you want to be a character, I would suggest Hatter, since I didn't specify him, but I would encourage you to make up an alternate personality because of how Wonderland has changed.
Do anything, you could be working for the Duchess, a Tea distiller, back alley emotion salesman, Knave of Hearts, I don't care, just have something in mind.
If you don't like this one, feel free to send me one of your starters, or look through mine in my journal (my writing style as changed so I wouldn't suggest it). Whatever the case, title it, let me know, or I probably won't respond.
Cheers.
