Alice in Wonderland diary, 9th November 2026
Tag Archives: Alice
Tweedle Do and Tweedle Don’t at the Funfair
Tweedle Do and Tweedle Don’t at the Funfair
The funfair arrived in Wonderland on a Thursday morning without asking permission.
Nobody saw the lorries arrive.
Nobody saw anyone putting up the rides.
One moment there was an empty meadow beside the road to the Queen’s croquet ground, and the next there were striped tents, coloured flags, swinging boats, spinning teacups and a magnificent Ferris wheel turning slowly against the blue sky.
A huge sign stood at the entrance:
THE WONDERLAND GRAND FUNFAIR
RIDES! GAMES! PRIZES!
FUN GUARANTEED
REFUNDS STRICTLY IMPOSSIBLE
Tweedle Do read the sign.
“Fun guaranteed,” he said. “That sounds promising.”
Tweedle Don’t read it too.
“Refunds impossible,” he said. “That sounds suspicious.”
They bought two tickets from a rabbit wearing a green waistcoat.
“Sixpence each,” said the rabbit.
Tweedle Do handed him a shilling.
The rabbit gave him three buttons, a peppermint and a small potato.
“What’s this?” asked Tweedle Do.
“Your change.”
“But it isn’t money.”
“It changed, didn’t it?”
Tweedle Don’t nodded thoughtfully.
“He’s got you there.”
They went inside.
Their first stop was the Merry-Go-Round of Uncertain Destination.
It looked perfectly ordinary except that every wooden horse was facing a different direction.
A notice beside it said:
ALL RIDERS MUST REMAIN SEATED UNTIL THEY HAVE ARRIVED SOMEWHERE.
“Shall we?” asked Tweedle Do.
“We probably shouldn’t,” said Tweedle Don’t.
So naturally they climbed aboard.
The music began.
The horses started moving.
Tweedle Do’s horse galloped clockwise.
Tweedle Don’t’s horse went anticlockwise.
A third horse went sideways.
A fourth climbed halfway up its pole and refused to come down.
The ride spun faster and faster.
“THIS IS WONDERFUL!” shouted Tweedle Do.
“THIS IS TERRIBLE!” shouted Tweedle Don’t.
They passed one another.
“WONDERFUL!”
“TERRIBLE!”
“WONDERFUL!”
“TERRIBLE!”
When the ride finally stopped, Tweedle Do was wearing Tweedle Don’t’s cap, Tweedle Don’t was holding somebody else’s umbrella, and neither of them could remember which direction the entrance was.
“That,” said Tweedle Do, “was excellent.”
“That,” said Tweedle Don’t, “should be illegal.”
They moved on.
Next came the Hall of Mirrors.
A tall man with a moustache like two frightened caterpillars stood outside.
“Step inside!” he cried. “See yourselves as you have never seen yourselves before!”
“That sounds interesting,” said Tweedle Do.
“That sounds unnecessary,” said Tweedle Don’t.
They entered.
The first mirror made Tweedle Do enormously tall and Tweedle Don’t extremely thin.
The second made them both square.
The third gave Tweedle Do seventeen ears.
The fourth showed no reflection at all.
Tweedle Don’t stared into it.
“I’m not there.”
Tweedle Do looked.
“Neither am I.”
“Perhaps we’ve gone missing.”
“Should we report it?”
“To whom?”
Then, quite suddenly, the mirror itself spoke.
“Next!”
A small door appeared in the glass and swung open.
Tweedle Do and Tweedle Don’t ran out.
“I didn’t like that one,” said Tweedle Do.
“I did,” said Tweedle Don’t.
They both stopped.
Tweedle Do frowned.
“You liked it?”
“I appear to have done.”
“This fair is doing something to us.”
Before Tweedle Don’t could answer, there came a tremendous clang.
DING! DING! DING!
A crowd had gathered around a brightly painted stall.
Above it hung a sign:
THE GREAT WONDERLAND STRENGTH TEST
HIT THE BUTTON
RING THE BELL
WIN AN IMPOSSIBLY LARGE PRIZE
Behind the stall stood an enormous stuffed flamingo.
Tweedle Do gasped.
“I want that.”
“You have nowhere to put it.”
“I’ll find somewhere.”
“You haven’t got enough room.”
“I’ll make some.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“I shall.”
The stallholder handed Tweedle Do an enormous wooden mallet.
“One strike,” he said.
Tweedle Do lifted the mallet.
He swung.
WHUMP!
The weight shot up the tower.
It passed WEAK.
It passed AVERAGE.
It passed SURPRISINGLY STRONG.
It passed SHOWING OFF NOW.
Then it struck the bell.
DING!
The crowd cheered.
The stuffed flamingo was presented to Tweedle Do.
It was nine feet tall.
Tweedle Don’t stared at it.
“How are we going to carry that?”
“We?”
“Yes, we.”
“I thought you said I shouldn’t win it.”
“That was before you won it.”
They carried the flamingo between them.
Or rather, they attempted to.
Its neck became tangled in the bunting.
Its feet knocked over a toffee-apple stand.
Its beak accidentally removed a man’s hat.
“Sorry!” called Tweedle Do.
“Not sorry!” shouted Tweedle Don’t.
Tweedle Do stopped.
“What?”
“I don’t know why I said that.”
Things were definitely getting peculiar.
Then they saw the biggest attraction in the entire fair.
It was surrounded by flashing lights.
Trumpets played.
Drums rolled.
A mechanical voice boomed:
“COME ONE! COME ALL! RIDE THE GREAT DO-OR-DON’T MACHINE!”
Tweedle Do froze.
Tweedle Don’t froze.
They looked at each other.
The machine consisted of two enormous chairs mounted on a circular platform.
Above one chair was the word:
DO
Above the other:
DON’T
“This seems rather specifically aimed at us,” said Tweedle Do.
“We definitely shouldn’t ride it,” said Tweedle Don’t.
Five minutes later they were strapped in.
The stuffed flamingo had been propped against the side of the machine, where it leaned crookedly with its long beak pointing towards the sky.
The operator pulled a lever.
The machine began to spin.
A mechanical voice asked:
“WOULD YOU LIKE SOME CAKE?”
“DO!” shouted Tweedle Do.
“DON’T!” shouted Tweedle Don’t.
A slice of cake landed in Tweedle Do’s lap.
The machine spun faster.
“WOULD YOU LIKE TO JUMP IN A PUDDLE?”
“DO!”
“DON’T!”
A puddle appeared beneath Tweedle Do’s chair.
“WOULD YOU LIKE TO WEAR A CHEESE HAT?”
“DO!”
“DON’T!”
A large wedge of cheddar dropped onto Tweedle Do’s head.
“This is brilliant!” he cried.
“This is ridiculous!” shouted Tweedle Don’t.
The machine rattled.
The lights flashed.
The platform spun faster and faster.
Then everything suddenly slowed.
The fairground music faded.
The mechanical voice became much deeper.
“FINAL QUESTION.”
Tweedle Do stopped smiling.
Tweedle Don’t gripped the sides of his chair.
The voice continued.
“WOULD YOU LIKE THE FUNFAIR TO CONTINUE FOREVER?”
Tweedle Do opened his mouth.
Then he hesitated.
Forever?
No going home.
No supper.
No beds.
No quiet afternoons.
No chance ever to do anything except ride rides and eat toffee apples.
For the first time all day, the answer did not seem obvious.
“Don’t,” said Tweedle Do.
At exactly the same moment, Tweedle Don’t shouted:
“DO!”
The machine stopped.
Everything stopped.
The Ferris wheel froze.
The carousel froze.
The music stopped.
Even a toffee apple falling from a stick stopped halfway to the ground.
Tweedle Do stared at Tweedle Don’t.
“You said do.”
“You said don’t.”
“I know.”
“So do I.”
A little panel opened in front of them.
Inside was a red button.
Above it were the words:
IN CASE OF CONTRADICTION, PRESS ONCE
Below that, somebody had added:
DO NOT PRESS TWICE
Tweedle Do reached for it.
Tweedle Don’t reached for it too.
Their fingers touched the button together.
CLICK.
For one terrible second, nothing happened.
Then the whole funfair sneezed.
AAAAA-CHOOOOOO!
Flags flew into the air.
Balloons shot sideways.
The Ferris wheel turned backwards.
Three coconuts rolled out of the coconut shy and escaped beneath a fence.
The Hall of Mirrors reflected the wrong tent.
The merry-go-round horses applauded.
And the enormous stuffed flamingo gave the tiniest twitch.
Nobody noticed.
Then everything became still.
The operator unfastened the brothers.
“Well done,” he said.
“What did we do?” asked Tweedle Do.
“You disagreed the wrong way round.”
“But we always disagree,” said Tweedle Don’t.
“Yes,” said the operator. “That was the problem. The machine expected you to disagree in the usual way. The moment you swapped answers, it couldn’t decide which of you was which.”
Tweedle Do smiled.
Tweedle Don’t smiled too.
Then they both stopped smiling because agreeing about smiling seemed dangerous.
They collected their enormous flamingo and made for the exit.
At the gate, the rabbit in the green waistcoat waved.
“Did you enjoy yourselves?”
“Yes,” said Tweedle Do.
“No,” said Tweedle Don’t.
They paused.
Then Tweedle Do added:
“Mostly.”
And Tweedle Don’t said:
“Possibly.”
Behind them, the funfair lights blinked on.
A new sign appeared over the entrance.
TWEEDLE DO & TWEEDLE DON’T SPECIAL OFFER
COME AGAIN TOMORROW
OR DEFINITELY DON’T
Tweedle Do looked at his brother.
“Tomorrow?”
Tweedle Don’t considered this.
“Absolutely not.”
They walked another six paces.
“Same time?” asked Tweedle Do.
“Of course,” said Tweedle Don’t.
As they walked away, with the enormous stuffed flamingo wobbling between them, it gave a small shudder.
“Did you feel that?” asked Tweedle Do.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Tweedle Don’t.
Then the flamingo began to laugh.
Neither of them looked back.
When Alice Met Nibber Snapwell
Alice had met many curious creatures in Wonderland, but none quite so official as Nibber Snapwell, Junior Assistant Mechanic of Metaphorical Vehicles, who insisted that even impossible cars must be inspected for whimsy, wobble, wonder, and excessive adventure pressure.
***
Alice bent down slightly, for Nibber Snapwell was standing on an upturned flowerpot and appeared to be taking his height very seriously.
“Are you a mechanic?” she asked.
Nibber straightened his thimble hat.
“I am a Junior Assistant Mechanic of Metaphorical Vehicles,” he replied. “There is an important difference.”
“What is a metaphorical vehicle?”
“A vehicle that may be going somewhere, meaning something, or doing both at once.”
Alice considered this carefully.
“That sounds rather difficult to repair.”
“It is,” said Nibber proudly. “Ordinary mechanics tighten bolts. I tighten possibilities.”
He held up his brass dipstick.
“This measures oil, imagination, road confidence, excessive wobble, and whether a car has begun to think too much about its own purpose.”
Alice looked around the little workshop. There were maps pinned to the walls, lanterns hanging from hooks, jars filled with spare question marks, and a sign that read:
GLOVE COMPARTMENT BETWEEN HERE AND THERE
“Have you repaired many impossible cars?” she asked.
Nibber glanced at his clipboard.
“Seven cars, two flying carts, a nervous omnibus, one wheelbarrow with ambitions, and a teapot that insisted it was a ferry.”
“And was it?”
“Only on Thursdays.”
Alice smiled.
“And what is wrong with the Crazymad Writer’s Fiat?”
Nibber lowered his voice.
“It is not broken.”
“Then why does it need a mechanic?”
“Because,” said Nibber, tapping his clipboard gravely, “it has started wondering whether being a car is enough.”
Alice looked thoughtful.
“In Wonderland,” she said, “things are often more than they first appear.”
“Exactly,” said Nibber. “But the trick is not to become so many things at once that one forgets what one was to begin with.”
Alice nodded.
“So the Fiat does not need to change into something else.”
“No,” said Nibber. “It needs to remember that a car can be magical and still be a car.”
At that moment, somewhere behind the workshop wall, a horn gave a small uncertain beep.
Nibber sighed.
“There. Do you hear that?”
Alice listened.
“It sounds worried.”
“It is,” said Nibber. “Come along. We had better reassure it before it turns the boot into a ballroom.”
Alice followed him towards the glowing doorway marked THIS WAY TO BALLYKILLDUFF, while Nibber marched ahead with his brass dipstick raised like a sword.
“And Alice,” he added over his shoulder, “whatever you do, do not compliment the glove compartment.”
“Why not?”
“Because it will open up.”
The door swung wide.
Beyond it, Alice saw the Crazymad Writer’s garden, the giant gunnera leaves, and a cream-coloured Fiat 600 sitting very quietly indeed.
Too quietly.
Alice smiled.
“I think,” she said, “this is going to be one of those days.”
Alice in Sunbury 1964, a free eBook download.
During the long summer of 1964, Alice arrives in Sunbury-on-Thames expecting nothing more exciting than warm pavements, rainy bus journeys, and afternoons beside the river.
Instead, she finds impossible lanes appearing behind garages.
Clocks begin losing seven minutes.
A white rabbit carrying a pocket watch waits upon the station platform.
And somewhere beneath the Thames, hidden between the ordinary world and another stranger one, something has been waiting many years for Alice to remember it.
As Sunbury slowly slips between decades and Wonderland begins bleeding quietly into suburban England, Alice is drawn aboard the mysterious Midnight Express and into a forgotten world of missing moments, drifting memories, silver rivers, and impossible tea parties beneath willow trees.
But Wonderland is changing.
And so is Alice.
For some things lost in childhood are not truly gone.
They are only waiting to be found again.
Alice in Sunbury 1964 is a nostalgic, dreamlike journey through memory, grief, wonder, and the strange magic hidden quietly inside ordinary places. A timeless riverside fantasy filled with glowing stations, vanished summers, and the lingering echo of paper boats upon dark water.
The Tumblewink of Ballykillduff
The Tumblewink of Ballykillduff
It began, as such things often do, with something so small that no one thought it worth mentioning.
Mrs O’Doolin’s teacups.
They had always hung in a neat and sensible row beside the dresser—handle to the right, pattern facing outward, each one minding its own business in a most respectable fashion.
Until one Tuesday morning (or what strongly insisted it was Tuesday), she found them all facing the wall.
Not broken.
Not fallen.
Simply… turned.
“Well now,” she said, after a pause long enough to consider the matter properly, “that’s not how cups behave.”
By the time the village had gathered its thoughts (which took longer than usual, as several of them had gone slightly missing), other things had begun to occur.
Mr Hanrahan at the signal box discovered that the 9:15 had arrived at 9:15… but from tomorrow.
Jimmy McGroggan insisted his ladder now had one extra rung, though no one could agree where it had come from.
And the sheep—always a reliable measure of reality in Ballykillduff—had arranged themselves in a neat row that appeared, upon closer inspection, to be alphabetical.
No one knew quite how sheep managed such a thing.
Least of all the sheep.
It was Alice who noticed it first.
Not the changes.
Those were everywhere.
No—she noticed the feeling.
That quiet, delicate sense that something had just passed by… not loudly, not boldly, but sideways, as though it had slipped between one moment and the next without troubling either.
She was standing by the hedgerow when she saw it.
At first, it looked like nothing at all.
Then like a scrap of ribbon.
Then like a small, glowing tangle of things that did not entirely agree on what they were.
It drifted—not forward, not back—but slightly aside.
And as it passed a fallen leaf, the leaf stood up straight.
The twig beside it, however, forgot what it was for.
“You must be a Tumblewink,” said Alice, quite calmly.
The creature did not answer.
But something about it… smiled.
Not with a mouth, exactly.
More with the idea of a smile.
Alice stepped closer.
“You’ve been tidying,” she said.
The Tumblewink shimmered.
A button appeared where there had been none before, then vanished again as though it had remembered it belonged elsewhere.
“Yes,” Alice continued, “but not quite properly.”
At this, the Tumblewink gave a small, pleased sort of flicker.
They walked together then—if walked is the correct word for something that moved by gently disagreeing with where it had just been.
Everywhere it passed, things improved… and did not.
A crooked fence straightened itself, while the ground beneath it shifted just enough to make it unnecessary.
A lost glove reappeared—on the wrong hand, worn by someone who did not remember owning it.
A sentence begun by Mrs Fitzgerald—
“I always thought that perhaps—”
—finished itself somewhere else entirely, inside Mr Hanrahan’s head, who responded aloud with,
“—it was the teapot all along.”
No one questioned this.
“Why do you do it?” Alice asked at last.
The Tumblewink paused.
For a moment, it became very still—so still that it almost became nothing.
Then, quite gently, it rearranged the air.
Alice felt it rather than heard it:
Because finished things cannot wander.
They stood in silence.
In the distance, a sheep tried to remember whether it was before or after another sheep and decided it rather preferred not to choose.
Alice looked about her.
Nothing was quite right.
But nothing was quite wrong either.
And somehow… the world felt wider for it.
“Will you stay?” she asked.
The Tumblewink flickered.
For just a moment, it gathered itself into something almost clear—a small, warm shape, like a memory that had not yet decided to fade.
Then it drifted.
Not away.
Not toward.
But between.
The next morning, the teacups were facing outward again.
The clock told the correct time.
The sheep had returned to their usual and entirely disorganised ways.
Everything, it seemed, had been put back as it ought.
And yet…
Mrs O’Doolin would later insist that her favourite cup felt warmer than the others, though she could not say why.
Mr Hanrahan occasionally answered questions no one had asked.
And Alice—
Alice sometimes found herself pausing mid-step, certain—quite certain—that she had just missed something important.
Something small.
Something warm.
Something that had been there…
just before it wasn’t.
And if, on certain quiet evenings in Ballykillduff, a thought goes slightly astray, or a moment feels just a touch unfinished—
no one worries overmuch.
They simply smile,
and leave things… almost as they are.
Because somewhere nearby,
a Tumblewink is still at work.
Tea is a serious business
“Tea, my dear sir, is a serious business!” Tarrant Hightopp, the Mad Hatter, bellowed, his voice echoing over the brass and steam. He was a whirl of tweed and copper gears, balanced on a massive clock face that marked the heart of the great Steampunk London. His goggles were pushed up into his perpetually patched top hat, but his eyes, a glinting, unpredictable green, were narrowed with focused madness.
Facing him, claws out and his waistcoat already shredded, was the March Hare, also known as Thackery Earwicket. He was a creature of kinetic energy, his fur matted with coal dust, holding a broken porcelain cup like a jagged weapon.
Their disagreement, as it so often was, was existential. Thackery had just suggested that a proper five-second steeping time for the Earl Grey-9000 was sufficient. To Tarrant, who had spent the last hour meticulously fine-tuning his custom-built, dual-spout ‘Goliath’ teapot, this was nothing short of blasphemy.
“You speak of SACRILEGE!” Tarrant roared, swinging the Goliath. The massive, brass teapot, a wonder of miniature clockwork, hummed with internal energy, its pressure gauges twitching. “This is not merely tea, Thackery! This is ‘Chrono-Brew’! Every drop must be synchronized with the precise oscillation of the central chronometer!”
“Gah! More of your clockwork claptrap!” Thackery spat, his long ears twitching in fury. He feinted left, then lunged right, the jagged edge of his teacup narrowly missing the Hatter’s coat. “I say five seconds! If you can’t feel the brew, you don’t deserve the brew!”
“Feel it? I designed it to operate at exactly five-hundred and twelve milliseconds past the optimal temperature coefficient for maximum flavor-to-gear ratio!” Tarrant parried Thackery’s strike with the snout of the Goliath, sending a small spray of water into the air.
Below them, the city pulsed. Massive airships, looking like barnacled metal whales, slipped through the smoky sky. Steam-driven factories, a forest of chimneys, chugged out black plumes. Towering clock towers, including a familiar, but far more complex, Big Ben, loomed in the haze. The entire landscape was a symphony of brass, copper, and iron.
Thackery threw a broken, steaming saucer, which Tarrant dodged with a flourish that was half ballet, half clumsy panic. “It’s about the spirit, Tarrant! The untamed, wild essence of the leaf!”
“Untamed! Hah!” The Hatter used his boots, outfitted with specialized gear-traction pads, to secure his footing on the clockwork floor. He pulled a small lever on the side of the teapot. “Your ‘untamed’ approach produces a chaotic swill! Witness the power of true, calculated, controlled flavor!”
The Goliath’s gears whirred with new intensity. A tiny puff of steam, precise and controlled, burst from the main spout, creating a small, smoky cloud that briefly obscured the battle.
The March Hare didn’t wait. He crashed through the steam, a blur of fur and rage. “CALCULATED? It tastes like industrial lubricant!”
Their fight wasn’t a duel of death, but of conviction. A thousand tiny pieces of metal, a million gears, and an endless stream of hot water were their weapons and their shield. In the heart of a city built on order and power, two masters of the absurd were locked in a perfect, chaotic dance, proving that even in a world of gears and steel, the most important battle was always over the perfect cup of tea. Their shouts were swallowed by the deep, rhythmic groan of the city’s machinery, but their madness was the only thing truly alive.
The rabbit hole didn’t lead to a tea party this time
The rabbit hole didn’t lead to a tea party this time.
As Alice tumbled through the dark, she didn’t pass rocking chairs or bookshelves. Instead, she brushed past hanging bundles of dried hemlock and jars of preserved nightmares. When she finally landed, the grass wasn’t green; it was a bruised purple, and the air smelled of ozone and singed sugar.
The Shadow Over Wonderland
Wonderland had changed. The Queen of Hearts was gone, replaced by something much more calculated. High atop the mushroom forest sat a castle made of jagged obsidian. There lived The Witch of the Withered Rose.
She didn’t want heads; she wanted stories. She fed on the whimsy of others until they were nothing but hollow shells. The Mad Hatter sat in a corner, staring at a blank teacup, his madness replaced by a terrifying, quiet sanity.
The Encounter
Alice wandered into the clearing of the Great Oak, where the Witch stood waiting. She wasn’t green or warty; she was tall, draped in silk the color of an oil slick, with eyes that looked like solar eclipses.
“You’re late, Alice,” the Witch purred, stirring a cauldron that simmered with silver smoke. “I’ve already bottled the Cheshire Cat’s grin. It makes a lovely nightlight.”
“I don’t think I like your decorating taste,” Alice said, her voice trembling only slightly. “And I’d like my friends back, if it’s all the same to you.”
The Witch laughed, a sound like glass breaking. “In this world, Alice, ‘curiouser and curiouser’ is a death sentence. Give me your imagination, and I’ll let you go back to your boring parlor in London.”
The Twist of Logic
Alice looked at the cauldron. She remembered that in Wonderland, things were only as powerful as you believed them to be.
“You’re not a witch,” Alice said boldly, stepping forward. “You’re just a bad habit. You’re the feeling of growing up and forgetting how to play.”
The Witch shrieked, her obsidian form flickering. “I am the end of dreams!”
“No,” Alice countered, “You’re just a very tall, very grumpy woman in a dress that needs a good wash. And since this is my dream, I think it’s time for a change in the weather.”
Alice didn’t use a sword or magic. She simply imagined the sun. Not just a normal sun, but a sun made of lemon drops and laughter.
The Result:
* The obsidian castle melted into a giant puddle of blackberry jam.
* The Witch shrank until she was no bigger than a thimble, scurrying away into the roots of a tree.
* The Cheshire Cat’s grin popped out of its jar and reattached itself to the air with a satisfied pop.
Alice sat up in the meadow back home, the smell of damp grass filling her lungs. She looked down and noticed a single, withered black rose petal tucked into her apron. She smiled and tossed it into the wind.
Alice and the Jellyfish That Preferred Dice.
****************************************
Chapter One
It began, as many things in Ballykillduff do, with something that ought not to have been in the square.
Alice noticed it first.
She had been sitting on the familiar stone bench—just beneath the trees that whispered opinions when the wind was in the mood—when something softly plopped onto the cobbles.
Not a loud plop.
Not even a particularly confident one.
More of a polite uncertainty of a plop.
Alice turned.
There, beside the green post box (which was behaving itself for once), lay a jellyfish.
Now, this would have been surprising enough.
But what made it considerably worse was that the jellyfish was:
-
Nowhere near the sea
-
Glowing faintly like a lantern that had forgotten its purpose
-
Holding a pair of dice
Not near dice.
Not next to dice.
Holding them.
With a sort of thoughtful wobble.
“Good morning,” said Alice, because it seemed the sort of thing one ought to say to a landlocked philosophical jellyfish.
The jellyfish pulsed gently.
“Statistically unlikely,” it replied.
Alice blinked.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your greeting,” said the jellyfish, rotating slightly as though considering her from several emotional angles. “Given the conditions, it is improbable that this is a good morning.”
Alice considered this.
“Yes,” she said. “But it’s the sort of thing one says anyway.”
“Ah,” said the jellyfish. “A customary inaccuracy. I approve.”
By now, Ballykillduff had begun to notice.
Seamus appeared first, carrying a cup of tea that he had no intention of spilling, despite the circumstances.
Behind him came Mrs Kavanagh, who believed firmly that anything unusual could be improved with a shawl.
Jimmy McGroggan arrived shortly after, already building something with springs.
“What have we got?” said Seamus.
“A jellyfish,” said Alice.
“Inland,” said Seamus.
“With dice,” added Alice.
Seamus nodded.
“Right so.”
The jellyfish raised its dice.
“These,” it said, “are unsatisfactory.”
“Why?” asked Alice.
“They behave too predictably.”
Alice stared.
“I thought dice were supposed to be unpredictable.”
The jellyfish gave a soft, luminous sigh.
“They are random, not interesting.”
This caused Jimmy McGroggan to drop three springs and pick them up again in a different order.
“That,” he said, “is a very important distinction.”
The jellyfish rolled the dice.
They landed on the cobbles.
Six and two.
“Observe,” said the jellyfish. “An outcome. Entirely reasonable. Entirely dull.”
It rolled again.
Three and four.
“Still dull.”
Again.
Five and one.
“Endlessly obedient to expectation.”
Alice crouched beside it.
“What would you prefer them to do?”
The jellyfish paused.
Then, quite carefully, it said:
“I would like them to refuse.”
This caused a silence.
Even Ballykillduff, which had seen rivers forget their destinations and weather pause for reflection, took a moment.
“Refuse what?” asked Alice.
“To be numbers,” said the jellyfish simply.
Jimmy McGroggan’s eyes lit up in a way that suggested future complications.
“I might have something for that,” he said.
From a pocket that was definitely not large enough, he produced a small contraption consisting of:
-
A clock face with no hands
-
A teaspoon that pointed accusingly
-
A tiny bell that rang when ignored
He attached it—very gently—to one of the dice.
“Now,” said Jimmy, stepping back, “roll it.”
The jellyfish rolled the altered die.
It landed.
Paused.
Then… instead of showing a number…
It displayed:
“Perhaps.”
The entire square leaned closer.
The jellyfish trembled with delight.
“Yes,” it whispered. “Yes, that is better.”
They rolled again.
The second die—untouched—showed a five.
The altered one now read:
“Ask Again Later.”
Mrs Kavanagh sat down.
“I don’t like it,” she said, though she clearly did.
Seamus sipped his tea.
“I do,” he said. “It’s honest.”
Alice smiled.
“But what happens when both dice refuse?” she asked.
The jellyfish considered this very seriously.
Then it rolled them both.
They landed together.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then—
The first die read:
“Why Not?”
The second read:
“Go On So.”
At this, something quite extraordinary occurred.
The air in Ballykillduff shifted.
Not dramatically.
Not loudly.
But decisively.
Somewhere, a decision that had been waiting for years quietly made itself.
A door that had never opened… did.
A letter that had never been sent… found its way.
And Jimmy McGroggan’s unfinished invention… finished itself, just to see how it felt.
The jellyfish glowed brighter.
“This,” it said softly, “is a much more interesting universe.”
Alice nodded.
“Yes,” she said. “It does seem to have improved slightly.”
“Will you stay?” she asked.
The jellyfish floated a little higher, its edges shimmering like thought itself.
“No,” it said. “I drift.”
“Where to?”
The jellyfish rolled its dice one final time.
They landed.
Together.
Gently.
They read:
“Somewhere Else.”
And with that—
It lifted into the air.
Not quickly.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
And then, like a thought one almost remembers…
It was gone.
Alice looked down at the cobbles.
The dice remained.
She picked them up.
Turned them in her hands.
Rolled them once.
They landed at her feet.
They read:
“Continue.”
Alice smiled.
And in Ballykillduff—
that was quite enough to begin another story.
Reflections of Alice: A Tale of Two Selves.
An original tale inspired by Lewis Carroll’s
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
The mirror did not hang on a wall, nor did it rest upon a stand. It floated in the middle of the Tulgey Wood, suspended in the air like a bubble made of silver glass. Alice stopped, adjusting the skirt of her dress. She had been chasing the White Rabbit—or perhaps he had been chasing her; directions were notoriously unreliable in these parts—when she stumbled upon it.
She approached cautiously. She knew better than to touch strange objects without checking for labels reading DRINK ME or DO NOT TOUCH, but the mirror seemed harmless enough. It reflected the wood behind her: the twisted trees, the oversized mushrooms, the path that wound like a confused snake.
And it reflected Alice.
But the Alice in the mirror did not stop when Alice stopped.
The reflection stepped forward. There was a sound like a sharp intake of breath, a pop of pressure, and the girl in the glass stepped out of the frame. She landed on the moss with a soft thud, dusting off her hands.
Alice blinked. She rubbed her eyes and blinked again.
The newcomer stood before her. She wore the same blue dress with the same white apron. She had the same golden hair tied with the same black ribbon. But where Alice’s hair was parted on the left, this girl’s was parted on the right. Where Alice’s apron pocket was on her left hip, this girl’s was on the right.
“Good afternoon,” said the double. Her voice was Alice’s, but the cadence was slightly off, like a song played on a piano that had been tuned a fraction too high.
“Good afternoon,” Alice replied, instinctively curtsying. “Or perhaps it is morning. Time is difficult to keep track of here.”
“It is exactly half-past nonsense,” the double said. She did not curtsy. Instead, she tilted her head, examining Alice with a critical eye. “You look terribly confused. It suits you.”
“I am not confused,” Alice said, drawing herself up to her full height (which was currently three feet and two inches). “I am merely… observing. Who are you?”
“I am Alice,” the double said simply.
“No,” Alice countered, feeling a surge of frustration. “I am Alice. You cannot be Alice. There is only one of me. I am quite sure of it.”
“Are you?” The double walked around her, inspecting her from behind. “How do you know? Have you checked your labels? Have you tested your memory? For all you know, you are the reflection, and I am the original.”
Alice felt a cold shiver run down her spine, unrelated to the temperature of the wood. “I remember falling down the rabbit hole. I remember the tea party. I remember the Queen’s croquet ground.”
“I remember those too,” the double said, plucking a flower from a nearby bush. She smelled it and sneezed. “But I remember them differently. In my memory, the Hatter was polite. In my memory, the Queen was kind. In my memory, I never cried in the Pool of Tears.”
Alice stiffened. “I did not cry. Well, only a little. It was a very large pool.”
“You cry when you are frightened,” the double said. “I do not. I find that makes things much easier.”
The Cheshire Cat appeared then, fading in branch by branch upon a bough above them. He grinned his wide, impossible grin.
“Two Alices?” the Cat purred, his tail flicking. “How curious. Usually, one is quite enough to cause trouble. Two might cause a paradox.”
“Which one is real, Cat?” asked the double, looking up.
“Real?” The Cat chuckled. “In this wood, reality is a matter of opinion. You are both real enough to be lost. You are both real enough to be found. It depends on which way you’re walking.”
“I walk forward,” said Alice.
“I walk backward,” said the double. “It saves time on the return journey.”
Alice frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense in the Looking-Glass,” the double said. “I come from the other side of the glass. Where everything is opposite. You are polite; I am blunt. You ask permission; I take ownership. You wonder what the world is; I tell the world what I am.”
Alice looked at her double. She saw the set of her jaw, the confidence in her stance. It was terrifying, but also… intriguing. How nice it would be, Alice thought, to not be afraid of the Queen. To not worry about saying the wrong thing. To simply *be*.
“If you are the opposite,” Alice said slowly, “then you must be everything I am not.”
“Precisely,” said the double. “Which means if we touch, we might cancel each other out. Like adding a number to its negative. Zero.”
“Or,” said the Cat, “you might multiply. Infinity is rather messier than zero.”
A trumpet blast sounded in the distance. The ground trembled slightly.
“The Queen!” Alice gasped, her heart leaping into her throat. “We must hide.”
“Why?” asked the double. “I have done nothing wrong.”
“She cuts off heads!”
“Let her try,” said the double. She smoothed her apron and stood squarely in the path.
The Queen of Hearts stormed into the clearing, a procession of playing cards trailing behind her. She held a flamingo under her arm and glared at the pair.
“What is this?” the Queen bellowed. “Two of them? Is this a trick? A conspiracy? Why are there two Alices?”
“She is an impostor!” Alice cried, pointing at her double.
“She is a copy!” the double cried, pointing at Alice.
“Silence!” The Queen marched up to them, peering closely at their faces. She grabbed Alice’s chin, then the double’s chin. “Same nose. Same eyes. Same annoying habit of talking back.”
“I do not talk back,” Alice said.
“I talk back,” the double said. “And I enjoy it.”
The Queen grinned, a terrifying expression. “I like this one better. She has spirit. Off with the quiet one’s head!”
The Card soldiers raised their axes. Alice squeezed her eyes shut.
“Wait!” shouted the double.
The Queen paused. “Well? Do you wish to take her place?”
“No,” said the double. “But if you cut off her head, you cut off mine. We are reflections. You cannot have one without the other. If she disappears, I disappear. If I disappear, she disappears. Do you want no Alice at all, Your Majesty?”
The Queen frowned. She tapped her foot. The flamingo squawked. “A riddle. I hate riddles. They ruin the execution schedule.”
“It is not a riddle,” said the double. “It is logic. Even you must follow logic, or the game falls apart.”
The Queen huffed. “Fine. Keep your heads. Both of them. It’s too much trouble to sort out. Move along! All of you!”
The procession marched on, leaving the three of them in the clearing.
Alice opened her eyes. She was still whole. She looked at her double.
“You saved me,” Alice said.
“You saved yourself,” the double corrected. “I am you. My courage is your courage. You just left it behind in the glass.”
The double walked back toward the floating mirror. The surface rippled like water.
“Where are you going?” Alice asked.
“Back,” said the double. “I belong on the other side. But you… you should visit sometime. Bring your courage with you. It fits better here.”
She stepped into the mirror. For a moment, she stood on the other side, waving. Then the silver surface hardened, becoming just a glass pane again. Alice looked into it. She saw only herself.
But when she looked closer, she noticed something. Her hair was still parted on the left. Her pocket was still on the left. But her eyes… her eyes held a new steadiness. The fear was still there, but it was smaller.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Alice whispered.
The Cheshire Cat faded away, leaving only his grin hanging in the air. “Infinity,” he murmured from nowhere. “Much better than zero.”
Alice turned and walked down the path. She did not check for labels. She did not wonder if she was dreaming. She simply walked forward, knowing that somewhere, in the glass, another Alice was walking backward, and that was perfectly alright.
The Day the Frost Blinked
February 25th, 2026 — The Day the Frost Blinked
The frost arrived late.
It did not settle in the night as frost properly should, but wandered into Ballykillduff sometime after breakfast, looking faintly apologetic and extremely decorative.
Alice noticed it first on the gate.
At precisely eleven minutes past ten, the iron latch glittered.
At twelve minutes past ten, it stopped.
At thirteen minutes past ten, it glittered again.
“It’s blinking,” Alice said calmly, which is the sort of thing one must say calmly if one wishes to be believed.
The frost had begun appearing and disappearing in polite intervals — hedge, path, rooftop, sheep — as though winter were reconsidering its position.
Alice stepped into the square. Each time the frost shimmered into existence, the air grew crisp and silver; each time it vanished, the village returned to its damp February self.
“Make up your mind,” she advised the sky.
The sky, which had been undecided all month, hesitated once more — and then, with a soft sigh, allowed the frost to remain.
Not thick.
Not harsh.
Just enough to turn the puddles into mirrors.
Alice looked down and saw not her reflection, but a faint suggestion of spring standing just behind her shoulder.
“Ah,” she said.
The frost did not blink again.
And somewhere beneath the quiet silver crust of February 25th, something green made up its mind to begin.
February 25th, 2026 — The Hat That Refused to Thaw
The frost had only just decided to behave itself in Ballykillduff when the sky coughed politely and produced a hat.
Not a rabbit.
Not a teacup.
Just a hat.
It fell with dignity, landed upright in the square, and waited.
Alice, who had already negotiated with blinking frost that morning, approached it cautiously.
The hat cleared its throat.
A moment later, the Mad Hatter unfolded himself out of it as though he had merely been stored there for convenience.
“Good morning!” he cried. “I’ve come for the Thawing!”
“We are not thawing,” Alice said firmly. “We are gently transitioning.”
“Ah,” said the Hatter, peering at the frost. “A hesitant season. Very dangerous. They tend to wobble.”
He removed a small silver teaspoon from his sleeve and began tapping the frost on the cobbles.
Ping.
A patch melted.
Ping.
A daisy appeared.
Ping.
A sheep sneezed and turned very briefly pink.
Alice caught his wrist before he could strike again.
“We’ve only just persuaded February to sit still,” she said. “If you start stirring it, we shall have daffodils arguing with snowflakes.”
The Hatter considered this gravely.
“Yes,” he agreed. “They never agree on colours.”
He placed the spoon back into his sleeve, stamped his hat once (which caused three crocuses to pop up apologetically), and looked at Alice with unusual sincerity.
“Very well. No mischief. Only observation.”
They stood together in the soft silver light, watching the frost hold its breath and spring wait its turn.
After several whole minutes of remarkable good behaviour, the Hatter leaned closer.
“Between ourselves,” he whispered, “March is terribly impatient.”
Then he folded neatly back into his hat.
The hat tipped itself.
And vanished.
The frost did not blink.
But somewhere beneath the cobbles, something giggled.
