Week 12 Storytelling: Lost

Image Information: Alice through the looking glass, desperate to go home. Source: Tumblr

Her tears puddled together on the hard ground. Balancing on the tip of her nose, the edge of her lips, her chin, as if clinging to her in sympathy before fate forced them from her. They fell, far far down, making a small noise as they joined the others, contributing themselves to the growing puddle.

She dragged her fingers through the salt water, getting her fingertips wet, and drew them along the concrete. She sketched little lines alongside the puddle with the moisture that beaded on her fingertips, each one fading further with every second that passed.

            She couldn’t remember how long she had been here, kneeling on the ground, watching her tears fall and become one with the Earth. She remembered running, and lots of blurred greenery, warped by her movement. And noises. So many noises. Yells and thuds. Screeches. It was dark and getting darker every second, and lying on the ground wasn’t changing that. But she was just so confused. How long had she been here even? Was she ever going to find a way out of these woods?

            “Alice.” She shivered, and whipped her head around, staring into the darkness of the woods behind her. “Oh, little Alice. Where did you go?” She looked down and saw her face in her tears—an eerie mirror image to the beginning of her trip into this opposite world. Her fingers were in the tears again, but this time there was no other world on the other side. The Alice looking back at her was the same one that was looking in. There was no world on the other side. No portal back to her real home in her real world.

            But what was real? Was she even real? Nothing about her felt real anymore. Her tears felt real though. And real tears must have been created by a real person. So she was real, wasn’t she? Nothing about this place felt real and the longer she spent here, the less connected to herself she felt. It was like she was fading away.

            She heard a crunch behind her, but resigned to her fate in this weird, dark land, she didn’t move from her crumpled position on the ground.

            Two hands landed on her shoulders—one on either side, “Oh dear Alice, don’t be sad. We’re in Wonderland. There is no sadness here.” She looked up on either side of her, the faces of the two twins staring at her, huge, ignorant smiles on their faces.

            “A poem will help, Alice. Let us tell you another poem.” The one on the right said.

            “Make it the longest one you know, brother.” The other said.

            Alice closed her eyes, and continued to cry. The sound of the brothers squabbling harsh in the background. The tears mixed with the pool already gathered on the ground. She saw her reflection in the ripples. She hung her head and continued to weep, sure that she would never see her home again.

Author’s Note:

I was really struck by the singular part of the Tweedledee and Tweedledum story where Alice starts to cry because the brothers tell her she isn’t real. It was crazy that this little part is actually just a deeper philosophical question that basically everyone has struggled with. Alice is in this crazy different world and the stress is beginning to get to her. I wanted to write about how this struggle can affect you in a deeper way. She’s hopeless and has given up. It’s illogical to think that most stories can end positively when in reality nothing works that way.

Biography:

Tweedledee and Tweedledum (continued). Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll (1871).