🌸 Alice and the Sun-Dappled Clearing 🐇
Alice stood quite still in the sun-dappled clearing, the light filtering through the canopy in warm, impressionistic blobs of gold and lemon. She was surrounded by a riot of oversized, pastel flowers—irises the size of her head, and roses that seemed to blush with a painter’s deepest pink. The air felt thick and sweet, like crystallized honey.
“Oh dear,” she murmured, adjusting the bow in her auburn hair. “Everything looks rather splashed here.”
From above, a lazy, white form materialized, hanging suspended between two sun-kissed trees. It was the Cheshire Cat, looking more like a puff of painted smoke than a proper feline, his famous grin a translucent arc.
“Splashed, my dear?” the Cat purred, his voice like silk sliding off a palette knife. “But the world is much more interesting when it’s spilled, wouldn’t you say?”
Alice smoothed down her blue dress. “I suppose. But everything seems to be hurrying, even when it stands still. Look at those blossoms—they look like they’re dancing!”
As if on cue, a sudden blur of white flashed past the rose bushes on the right. It was the White Rabbit, his pink eyes wide with that familiar panic, though he carried no waistcoat, no watch, only a sense of frantic urgency.
“Late, late, late!” chirped the Rabbit’s distant voice, sounding rather like a squeezed tube of paint. “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is beginning! And I haven’t time to dry!”
Alice sighed, a small smile touching her lips. She recognized this place—this beautiful, illogical field. It was her moment of calm before the chaos, the brief, quiet breath before tumbling back into the whirlwind of Wonderland. The light felt like a warm invitation, and the flowers nodded their permission.
“Well,” Alice decided, stepping forward into the swirling pink and green. “If I’m to be late for a very important date, I might as well enjoy the view first.”
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 