Alice and Dirt

Scraps written during 'Alice in Wonderland' (wierd 60s version) that might form a short story eventually.

The mirror arches like a church window, encasing the child in a tomb. She neatly clasps her hands round hat, a moon over her womb. A maid combs her hair before ushering her forward through the white lace curtains that hide the glass door.

Tapping on the paving outside, her ankle boots firmly hold her pale, sweet toes. Her limbs move as the clothes allow - a graceful form imposed. Behind her fly the trails of an asphyxiating bow. Tasteless lips gasping, long hair bewitching, flies tickling - she daydreams. Her hair flies back like rags in the wind. It's thick like old brushes worn soft or like the coarse tails of fretting animals.

 

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She has been in this world for twenty-four years but is still a child. She stamps her feet in protest at her own flesh. Why must I be at all mechanical? And there's this spot on my arm. I wish it would go away. It might mean I'm ill, or rather that my body is ill. No, it's my mind that has cancer.

 

 

As she lay on her bed, there seemed to be something slowly protruding from the ceiling, like the forming of a death mask. It became an indecipherable shadow that moved towards her like water about to drip. And then came features, as it gathered into black vapour, and began to resemble a human form. However, the eyes seemed to leak away like fluid the moment they were visible. Then it dispersed suddenly, leaving Alice raw and pulsing beneath the weight of such a vision.

 

A strange kind of clarity then dawned on her, exactly like morning light that chases away the threat of obscurities. And she turned to see herself in the mirror, familiar as a damp flag stone. She stared intently at her face; her familiar face. Her skin was bubbling, her womb was brewing. All within a brief flash of time – quick as a blink – she witnessed claws push through her as if breaking through a seam. Out burst an array of howling demons, blind and struggling like worms burrowing out of the earth. They screamed once in to the reflection before being sucked back in to her warm shell.

 

She had a premonition then, of cities - grey and ridiculous monstrosities - against the fire consuming the globe. They'll wilt like flowers trodden on by running children. They'll give way to new virtues.

 

Go ahead and spread your empire. My mum's tears are on my face. My empire is in my belly.

*          *          *

 

A white veil danced down the spiralling currents of air, falling like a feather. It was untouchable and light yet it still continued to be pulled downwards.

            When it touched the muddy ground, like a wet smear of paint, there was writing etched in to the fabric with a black thread. She managed to read it, before it sank in to the dirt.

 

Oh the horror. The horror of the world. Death and sex – eternally entwined. Hairs growing from your tongue. Eggs broken and dripping from beaks. All the lashing and dying that we cannot envisage. There is bleak moor – it has a grating jaw bone that only opens at night – and that is where I am headed. The isolated weeping fog, foaming  hysterical over the mouth of the moors,  swarming like bees, drowning us. Faces sucker in, clinging to their bones like flailing cloth. The degenerating shell such an insult to our incorporeal ray of self. There is horror everywhere and to ignore it is the gift of our ancestors. We have descended down in to a hazy grid, a maze, with treasures and we scurry , like blind rats. Over tatters, building blocks and cellotape. Flock to the walls and cower there and read the scrawl of chalk left behind, ticking off the years, before death. Death greets us at birth. It is then the timer is set. And life is a race away from it, yet we are all running toward it my dear. Oh don’t read this. I am just a stray piece of wedding silk, captured by a breeze.