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Thursday, October 11, 2012

Today's #Scifi #fantasy short story #TheOtherAliceAndTheOtherWhiteRabbit

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”
Colonel Harland Sanders*


Went to my writer's club today. It was very fun and we critiqued another writers work. You learn a lot by analyzing others work. Learning from other people's mistakes is good, but also what is even better is learning from what other people are doing right. I critiqued two stories today with the rest of the club.
Anyway onto the flash fiction!

The Other Alice and The Other White Rabbit


       Once a long time ago a girl went after a white rabbit into Wonderland. This story isn't about that Alice or that rabbit. This is about a different pair of individuals. Still an Alice and still a living, breathing, talking white rabbit. But a whole different kind of Wonderland that didn't come from her following it down a rabbit hole.
      And the rabbit wasn't late. It was brought to the girl as a pet as a birthday present. And it was on the birthday she got it that she learned it could talk. When she learned it could freeze time with a spell and shrink her down to its size in her bedroom and that's where she entered this rabbits Wonderland. The rabbit could cast spells with a few flicks of its little fluffy wrists and a few words here and there. It would change the room to whatever it wanted it to be.
       On the first night with the rabbit it gave her its name, “Clock”. It then taught her a quick little spell to make a single little snowflake come from out of your palm. It didn't matter if you had a human hand or a furry one like the rabbit.
      The rabbit made the girl promise she would never tell anyone about it because it didn't want to be in danger by being discovered. He told her also not cast magic outside of the room. She didn't because not only was Alice raised to be an honest girl, she was a smart girl. She didn't need to be told what would happen if people knew there was such a thing as a magical rabbit to fight over.
       Each night the white rabbit would freeze time, change her room, give her a few magic lessons and when the girl got tired unfroze time and sent her off to bed. She learned more and more magic each day as she grew older and older.
      “Some of these days I think you're just a dream Clock,” Alice said to the white rabbit in the middle of a summer day while her parents were away. At this time she was a teenager. Not ten like when she got the rabbit. “I only speak to you at night. Sometimes I think I just already went to bed.”
        “I assure you I am no dream.” Clock flicked his whiskers. Alice was shocked. This was the first time the rabbit spoke outside of nighttime. “And now I think you are practiced and responsible enough to cast magic outside of the room. I have sensed you do it on your own. Usually apprentices I take on try to do it on their own despite my asking but you have kept your promise.”
       “You've had other students?” Alice knelt to look into the rabbits eyes. Normally the rabbit would shrink her to make them able to maintain eye contact as it stood on its hind legs. “But my parents bought you when you were only one year old according to the pet shop owner.”
         “Oh that pet shop owner has been selling me to children to kids as pets for a very long time, when I was 'only one year old'. I have been teaching children magic for a hundreds of years in hundreds of times... even in the future and multiple points in the present. You've already seen I've got the power to manipulate time.”
        Alice then asked the rabbit, “Why did you teach me magic? For so long I thought it was just to spend time with me.”
       The rabbit laughed a squeaky laugh. “I do care about the children I teach. But my true goal is to make it so that you can go out into the world and use magic yourself and help the world. Most of those odd coincidences in the world that make it a better place and those blessings that come at the best of times are my students. Now I think your ready to start practicing it with me in the real world. In a few more years I'm going to have to run off. Your family and friends won't believe me living forever and eventually I need to move on to other students. Even my time manipulation magic has its magic has its limits and I can only spread myself so far. And eventually you need to go on your own and help the world just like my other students.”
      “But I'll miss you.” Alice started crying with a few tiny tears.
      “Yes, but I'm confident you'll be one of my best students. Besides there are still a few more years of lessons for me to teach. Even then I will send you letters. They will come to you in envelopes as white as my fur and with my name written as W. R. Clock.”

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