Alice and the Catastrophe of Sensible Behaviour
Alice had only just sat down beneath a perfectly unreasonable tree (which insisted it was a hatstand on alternate Tuesdays) when something most alarming occurred.
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
For nearly three seconds.
Alice leapt to her feet at once.
“This will never do,” she said. “If things begin making sense, Wonderland may collapse into a pamphlet.”
At this, the tree-hatstand shuddered and dropped three teaspoons, a cucumber, and a mildly offended pigeon.
“Too late,” said the pigeon. “I’ve been logical all morning.”
Alice gasped. “How dreadful! We must find the source of it before everything becomes tidy.”
She had not gone ten steps before encountering the White Rabbit, who was standing very still and consulting a watch that ticked in complete agreement with itself.
“No contradictions,” he murmured happily. “No paradoxes. Everything precisely where it ought to be!”
Alice seized him by the ears (politely).
“This is an emergency,” she said. “Your watch is behaving.”
The Rabbit blinked. “Well yes, that is generally the point of—”
“Exactly!” cried Alice. “Utter disaster!”
They hurried along a path that refused to twist (which Alice found extremely suspicious) until they reached the Mad Hatter, who was sitting at a table drinking tea in a perfectly ordinary manner.
He lifted his cup.
He sipped.
He put it down again.
Alice staggered backward.
“Hatter,” she whispered, “have you lost your mind?”
“No,” said the Hatter calmly. “I tidied it.”
“You tidied it?”
“Yes. Alphabetised my thoughts. Removed all unnecessary nonsense. Very freeing.”
At this, a teacup fainted.
Alice turned to the March Hare, who was sitting beside him reading a book titled Reasonable Behaviour and Its Consequences.
“Do something absurd at once!” Alice demanded.
The Hare adjusted his spectacles. “I would prefer not to.”
Alice clutched her head. “We are doomed.”
Just then, the sky folded itself into thirds (as skies do when they are worried) and the Cheshire Cat appeared, though only his eyebrows had arrived on time.
“Well,” said the eyebrows, “this looks serious.”
“The nonsense is disappearing!” Alice cried. “Everything is becoming sensible!”
The rest of the Cat slowly assembled itself, piece by deliberate piece.
“How unfortunate,” he said. “Without nonsense, I shall have to make points.”
Everyone shuddered.
They made their way to the Queen of Hearts, who was sitting upon her throne conducting a very calm and well-reasoned discussion about garden maintenance.
“No executions today,” she was saying. “Let us consider everyone’s perspective.”
Alice burst into tears.
“Your Majesty!” she cried. “You must do something unreasonable at once!”
The Queen frowned. “Why?”
“Because if you don’t, Wonderland will become… normal!”
A silence fell.
Even the cards stopped shuffling themselves.
Normal.
The word echoed about like a well-behaved echo.
At last, a small voice spoke.
It was the Dormouse, who had been asleep for so long that he had forgotten how to wake up properly.
“Perhaps,” he said, “we have simply run out of nonsense.”
“Impossible!” cried Alice.
“Not at all,” said the Cheshire Cat. “Nonsense must be replenished. It does not grow on trees—”
The tree-hatstand coughed politely.
“—well, not reliably.”
Alice thought very hard.
Then, quite suddenly, she stood upon the Queen’s throne, balanced a teapot upon her head, declared herself to be “The Duchess of Unfinished Sandwiches,” and began reciting the multiplication table backwards in rhymes involving bananas.
The effect was immediate.
The sky unfolded itself with a snap.
The Hatter dropped his teacup and began arguing with it.
The Rabbit’s watch started running sideways.
The Queen leapt to her feet.
“OFF WITH—no, wait—ON WITH—no—OH JUST DO SOMETHING CONFUSING!”
The cards burst into delighted chaos.
The March Hare threw his book into a passing metaphor.
And the pigeon applauded so enthusiastically it became a small orchestra.
The Cheshire Cat grinned.
“Ah,” he said. “Balance restored.”
Alice climbed down, slightly out of breath.
“That was close,” she said.
“Yes,” said the Cat. “Another minute of sense and we might all have become useful.”
Alice shuddered.
“I should hate that.”
And so, with nonsense safely reinstated, Wonderland returned to its usual state of cheerful confusion.
Which, as Alice later remarked, was exactly as it ought not to be—and therefore, perfectly correct.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 