Wonderland – scribbles and stories

What if Saturday (Err, Wednesday): Back to Reality

July 24, 2013September 18, 2013 mari anjeliLeave a comment

And it’s here! The conclusion to the Wonderland tale! You should check out the other stories from the 10 What Ifs if you have missed it. So… Enjoy! It’s good to come back to reality. :D

***

I had almost caught up with the elusive child when a tabby wearing an intense smile appeared out of nowhere and pranced around in circles in front of me. “Cat!” I yelped.

It grinned at me as it continued to do its little dance. The creature wove its way around my heels and, in a matter of seconds, I found myself stumbling to the ground, straight into another hole.

Oh no. Not another hole.

Yet, instead of falling down, I found myself curiously falling up. I left the ginger imp in the abyss beneath me and, as I shot up into the darkness, I left a number of strange sights underneath me as well.

The first was a woman clutching a small portable TV in her hand. The second was a lady in a deli wearing a confused and frazzled look. The third was a nurse carrying a rainbow-coloured umbrella and the fourth was the doctor, the nurse’s boss, apparently, judging by the way he gave her orders and authoritative commands.

I zoomed past a woman crying into a coffee cup next. Then past a gentleman with a large lipstick-stain across his forehead and then past a woman talking to a fly hovering over her shoulder. I zoomed by an eight person — he was strangely familiar — and realized he was the owner of the cat which had sent me whirling into this upside down hole.

After what seemed like days and at the same time a mere matter of milliseconds, I finally made it to the surface (as “surface” is what I would call any familiar surroundings), sprawled in an undignified manner as I had landed in the pavement bottomside first.

I was back in my office’s half-empty parking lot. My daisy purse and snapped stilettos lay scattered a few inches away from me. The sweets I kept inside my bag had popped out of it and were also there, contributing to the haphazard mess.

But as I struggled to my knees and looked closer, I noticed a very curious thing.

The two lollipop wrappers which had held the sweets I had saved for the kid rabbit and his sister were empty. Very empty.

via https://mariscribbles.com/2013/01/25/new-project-10-what-ifs/

What if Saturday: Waking Up

February 9, 2013March 3, 2013 mari anjeli2 Comments

My back hurts. I don’t know why, but it does. Great. What a way to start a Saturday.

I have to go to work even though it’s a weekend. Yeah, yeah. Bully for me. Which is why I must —

Get.

Up.

Even though my back seems to be experiencing hell. Better hurry, Joe. Better get up and smell yesterday morning’s coffee.

Ugh. I hate leftover coffee. I should brew up a new batch. That might somehow save me from this Saturday morning misery.

I raise my arms above my head, extending them gingerly, feeling the strain in my back once more. This is going to be tough. I try to push myself out of my mess of a bed.

My hands graze across something soft and warm. Huh? Muning, my five-year-old ginger tabby, usually curls up beside me at night, but the strange object — or is it a being? — lacks the familiar matted fur.

“Mrrrrmmm.” It grunts. What the — ?!

I fall out of my bed, landing with a loud thud, causing the grunter’s head to shoot up in panic.

“What? Where — where am I?” Her voice is a bit warbled and her sleepy eyes begin scanning the room in confusion. She’s a strange sight. She is sprawled on top of my tangled comforter, looking as if she had just fallen there. Wearing a wrinkled navy dress suit, a silk pearl blouse, and bright red stilettos; I observe. Odd pajama choice. I sometimes sleep with my street clothes on, but at least I remember to take my shoes off.

“You’re in Wonderland,” I answer wryly. “What on earth are you doing in my bed?”

She arches a pencil-thin eyebrow. “Who are you?”

“That’s a very good question. One that I would like to ask you, too.”

She makes an attempt to get up. “I have to get out of here. Inay will kill me if she finds out I spent the night at some stranger’s house.”

“Hold up, hold up. Nothing happened between us, Missy. I woke up and you were there beside me, like you fell out of a hole in the sky or something. No, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that you came out of nowhere.”

“Are you absolutely certain?”

“By the tail of my pet tabby. Where’s that girl, anyway?”

The orange cat comes bounding in. “Right on cue,” the strange girl remarks.

“Listen, Miss. I really don’t have time to solve this mystery. Right now, I have to get to work.”

“And I have to get home.”

She starts asking directions to some subdivision I’ve never heard of. “Huh? I don’t even know where that is.”

“Nevermind, I’ll find it myself. It was nice meeting you, uh…”

“Joe. Go on. Door’s straight ahead.”

She scrambles out, taking a daisy patterned purse with her. Muning jumps onto my chest, and I realize I’m still lying on the floor. I start feeling the darts of pain shoot up and down my back muscles again. Oh yeah. My back hurts. And I’m in dire need of coffee.

Funny how that stranger made me forget those for a second or two.

via https://mariscribbles.com/2013/01/25/new-project-10-what-ifs/

What if Saturday: Wonderland

February 2, 2013March 3, 2013 mari anjeliLeave a comment

I should have known that I’d be the person most likely to fall down a rabbit hole. As a kid I would give lollipops out to strangers. I would give some out to Aling Nida, the frazzled lady who sold kikiam and fishball a skip and a leap past my elementary school. I would tuck strawberry flavoured ones into the back pockets of Kuya Ernesto, the jovial guard who stood watch over our subdivision’s wide iron gates. And I would carefully place chocolate and grape flavoured ones into the rusty tin cans the grubby street urchins held out to our car windows whenever our vehicle passed by the busy Bonifacio Street.

Inay would always scold me. She would raise her voice to ask me why on earth I would waste such precious candy. I would smile at her, saying that it just seemed like the nice thing to do. Ate Ella, who was ten years older than me, would usually come to my defence, asking Inay to forgive me because I was simply born naive and unsuspecting.

I don’t really think of myself as naive and unsuspecting. But I figure that’s what I must be, being under the predicament that I’m in now.

You see, I have never lost my lollipop-giving habit. A mere four hours ago — well, I think it was four hours, I can never be really sure — I saw an eight-or-nine-year-old boy wearing freshly pressed maroon waistcoat and fluffy white bunny ears zipping across my office’s half-empty parking lot. I had two extra sweets packed inside my daisy-patterned purse so I decided to chase him, thinking that he might have a younger sister donning similar ears, assuming that he and she might want the pieces of candy, too.

He was an energetic kid. I’d say he was quick as a rabbit, but that might be redundant because it was as if he was already a rabbit anyway.

I lost track of him, though I did try my hardest to run in my wobbly stilettos. But as I was about to give up and head back to the parking lot, I spotted a blur of white and maroon from a distance. I broke back into a run.

The next thing I knew, one of my heels snapped and I found myself whirling down a dark, humid, seemingly endless hole.

via https://mariscribbles.com/2013/01/25/new-project-10-what-ifs/