It is too dark down there; you can't see anything.
[look around]
Gotcha!
You manage to grab a jar labeled 'ORANGE MARMALADE' from a shelf. Unfortunately, it appears to be empty.
[Drop the jar] [Put it on a shelf]
Was that a good idea?
You let go of the jar. It disappears in the blackness below.
[Keep falling]
A jarring experience
With an effort, you manage to stash the jar on a shelf while falling past. 'Well!' you think to yourself, 'after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely true.)
[Keep falling]
Down, down, down
Would the fall NEVER come to an end! 'I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' you say aloud. 'I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for, you see, you have learned several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this is not a VERY good opportunity for showing off your knowledge, as there is no one to listen to you, still it was good practice to say it over) '--yes, that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (You have no idea what Latitude is, or Longitude either, but you think they are nice grand words to say.)
[Keep falling]
Down, down, down
'I wonder if I shall fall right THROUGH the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--' (you are rather glad there IS no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) '--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and you try to curtsey as you speak - fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) 'And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.
[Keep falling]
Down, down, down
Would the fall NEVER come to an end! 'I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' you say aloud. 'I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for, you see, you have learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this is not a VERY good opportunity for showing off your knowledge, as there is no one to listen to you, still it was good practice to say it over) '--yes, that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (You have no idea what Latitude is, or Longitude either, but you think they are nice grand words to say.)
[Keep falling]
Down, down, down
'I wonder if I shall fall right THROUGH the earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--' (you are rather glad there IS no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) '--but I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and you try to curtsey as you speak - fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could manage it?) 'And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
[Keep falling]
you're going down
Down, down, down. You feel yourself starting to doze off, when suddenly, thump! thump! down you come upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over. As you look around, you spot the corpse of a white rabbit who has been hit rather hard in the head by the jar labeled 'ORANGE MARMELADE' which is not longer empty but contains a pink spongy mass. As the cops put handcuffs on you and lead you away, you hear someone scream in the distance: 'OFF WITH HER HEAD!'.THE END
[Try, try again!]
Of bats and cats and landings
Down, down, down. There is nothing else to do, so you decide to talk to yourself some more. 'Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!' (Dinah is your cat.) 'I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?' And here you begin to get rather sleepy, and go on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as you couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way you put it. You feel yourself dozing off, and have just begun to dream that you are walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, 'Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down you come upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
[Look around]
The White Rabbit!
You are not a bit hurt, and jump up on to your feet in a moment: you look up, but it was all dark overhead; before you is another long passage, and the White Rabbit is still in sight, hurrying down it. As it turns a corner, you hear it say 'Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!'
[After it!][Look around]
A hall with many doors
When you turn the corner, you find herself in a long, low hall, which is lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There are doors all round the hall. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Try the doors][Examine the hall][Go back]
Bottom of the well
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
A big heap of nothing
You search the heap of sticks and leaves, and find heaps of sticks and leaves.
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
Seriously, there's nothing there
You search the heap of sticks and leaves AGAIN, and find heaps of sticks and leaves.
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
Doors, doors all around
You try the doors all round the hall, but they are all locked.
You find herself in a long, low hall, which is lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There are doors all round the hall. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Examine the hall][Go back]
A closer look at the hall
Going over the hall again, you come upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass (which is why you didn't see it earlier); there is nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and your first thought is that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it will not open any of them. You leave the key on the table.
You find herself in a long, low hall, which is lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There are doors all round the hall. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Try the doors][Examine the hall][Go back]
Now why didn't I see that before?
You come upon a low curtain you had not noticed before, and behind it is a little door about fifteen inches high: you try the little golden key in the lock, and to your great delight it fits!
[Open the door!][Go back]
The unreachable garden
You open the door and find that it leads into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: you kneel down and look along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How you long to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but you can not even get your head though the doorway; ‘and even if my head would go through,’ you think, ‘it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I could, if I only know how to begin.’ For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that you have begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
[Go back]
A hall with many doors
You go back to the table, half hoping you might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time you find a little bottle on it, ('which certainly was not here before,' you think,) and round the neck of the bottle is a paper label, with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters.
[Drink me!][Examine the bottle][Go back]
Bottom of the well
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
A big heap of nothing
You search the heap of sticks and leaves, and find heaps of sticks and leaves.
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
Seriously, there's nothing there
You search the heap of sticks and leaves AGAIN, and find heaps of sticks and leaves.
You are at the bottom of the well. The walls are steep and offer no purchase for climbing. There is a heap of sticks and leaves here. A long passage leads away from here, and there is a dim light shining from the end of the passage. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
[Search the heap][Go down the passage]
A hall with many doors
You find herself in a long, low hall, which is lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof. There are doors all round the hall. The White Rabbit is nowhere to be seen.
There is a glass table here with a little bottle on it, and round the neck of the bottle is a paper label with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters.
[Drink me!][Examine the bottle][Go back]
Curiosity killed the cat
It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but you not going to do THAT in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' you say, 'and see whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for you have read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and you have never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. However, this bottle is NOT marked 'poison'. So drink it already.
[Drink the damn bottle!]
Drink me
You venture to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) you very soon finish it off. 'What a curious feeling!' you say; 'I must be shutting up like a telescope.' And so it was indeed: you are now only ten inches high, and your face brightens up at the thought that you are now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
First, however, you wait for a few minutes to see if you are going to shrink any further: you feel a little nervous about this; 'for it might end, you know,' you say to yourself, 'in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And you try to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for you can not remember ever having seen such a thing.
[Go to the garden!]
Did you forget something?
Alas for poor you! when you get to the door, you find you have forgotten the little golden key, and when you go back to the table for it, you find you could not possibly reach it: you can see it quite plainly through the glass, and you try your best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery; eventually you tire yourself out with trying.
[Sit down and cry a little] [Look around]
Boo-hoo, poor you!
You cry for a while. 'Come, there's no use in crying like that!' you say to yourself, rather sharply; 'I advise you to leave off this minute!' You generally give yourself very good advice, (though you very seldom follow it), and sometimes you scold yourself so severely as to bring tears into your eyes; and once you remember trying to box your own ears for having cheated yourself in a game of croquet your were playing against yourself (you are very fond of pretending to be two people). 'But it's no use now,' you think, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!'
[Look around]
What's this?
As you examine the surroundings in your diminished state, soon your eye falls on a little glass box that was lying under the table: you open it, and find in it a very small cake, on which the words 'EAT ME' are beautifully marked in currants.
'Well, I'll eat it,' you say, 'and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!'
[Eat the Cake][Eat the Cake]
Hmmm, cake!
You eat a little bit, and say anxiously to herself, 'Which way? Which way?', holding your hand on the top of your head to feel which way it was growing, and you are quite surprised to find that you remain the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but you have gotten so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So you set to work, and very soon finish off the cake, and incidentally, Chapter 1.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * *
[On to Chapter 2!]
Chapter 2: The Pool of Tears
COMING SOON!
[Return to Start]
Licensing information
Wandering in Alice land by
Acid Zebra is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
In a nutshell, you are free to take it, remix it, play with it, and otherwise have fun with it. Just mention my name somewhere and don't sell it.
CC images used:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myfear/267743616/
[Let's go!]
