Ragged Clown

It's just a shadow you're seeing that he's chasing…


Jun
16
2022

Return to Wonderland

A Package Arrives

It was a quiet day at the office today
The drive home was quieter still.
“Like every day really”, she thought to herself.
“A little work, a little time to kill”.

“How would she kill her free time today?”
She wondered as she opened the door.
“A movie perhaps? Or a book? Or TV?”
“Or just wash the kitchen floor?”

Life had been kind to Alice.
She had everything a woman could want.
A wonderful man. Two beautiful children.
A house at the edge of the wood.
Marvellous health. No financial concerns.
She went jogging whenever she could.

“Who could want more than a comfortable life?”
She reflected before starting the dinner.
“If life is a contest with winners and losers,
I have clearly come out as a winner.”

A knock on the door interrupted her musings.
Startled, she got up from her chair.
“Now who could that be ?”, she silently asked.
But when she looked, there was nobody there.

Just a box. A small one. She looked at it now;
Felt the weight in the palm of her hand.
On the lid was a label, in the shape of a heart,
With just two words, “From Wonderland”.

Her heart skipped a beat, as the dreams flooded back.
Those memories from so long ago.
Try as she might to put them out of her head,
Unbidden, they started to grow.

How strange were those dreams from her previous life!
Strange, without reason nor rhyme.
Some were savage. Some heartwarming. Some hazy. Some clear.
All softened through the filter of time.

She read the label again. “From Wonderland”.
She shook her head. Could it really be so?
She closed her eyes, bit her lip as she reached her conclusion.
She decided she’d rather not know.

Alice opened the closet which was under the stairs —
The one with the mop and the broom —
She put the parcel inside and shut the door quick
And went back to sit down in her room.

I started writing this about twenty years ago. I had big ideas for an epic poem but never got around to continuing it. I doubt if I ever will now. It was gonna be about a grown-up Alice who has put Wonderland out of her mind but the memories of her past adventures come flooding back to interrupt the drudgery of middle age when she receives a package on her doorstep.

I have only ever shown it to one person before.