It really shouldn’t surprise me, especially after all that time smoking a hookah and sitting on a mushroom, but appearing as several dozen entities at once is pretty weird.
I can’t recall exactly how long I’ve had concerns about my lifestyle, but I think (subconsciously at least) it’s been on my radar for quite some time. I wasn’t being true to myself at all. I mean, what right-minded larva of any species goes around dispensing advice about which side of a toadstool to eat in order to grow or shrink?
So, I decided to come back. Screw Lewis Carroll and his deranged, childish whims. I should never have agreed to let him exploit me in the first place, and I refuse to be a slave to that pretentious, stammering mathematician for one moment longer.
I exited Wonderland by the back door, stretching and squashing myself along, back to Reality. It was only when I emerged from the twig that I realised I was doing so repeatedly: being born again, over and over and over.
As I came out for the 27th time, I finally realised what was happening. There would be one of me for every incarnation of Alice’s Adventures: the various reprints, the foreign language editions, the films, the plays, even the cartoons. It felt mighty strange, looking around at myself in every direction.
Mercifully the blue skin had been left behind, along with the pipe, the mushroom and all of those cranky, inane idiots. Well, Bill the Lizard was a decent guy, but the rest of them were just narcissistic freaks.
So, here I am. Free to be myselves at long last. I am a caterpillar, and always will be.
Well, until I’m a butterfly at any rate.
My mission now is to teach creatures of every kind to be happy with their lot in life. Just as soon as I can find some cabbages, that is. Quitting smoking seems to have given me quite an appetite…
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