I have a great deal of sympathy for Alice

At first everything starts OK for her. She stands windswept on Dunstable Downs. Here she is, simply abused by flowers who are spoiling for a fight.


I know that feeling. I now have a natural wariness of flowers. Once I walked all around this town pursued by a two-foot flower. It was smashed on Tixylix, yelling curses at passing traffic, and punching me in the kidneys.

In fact, I have distinct memories of being beaten up by an assortment of mice, rabbits, cats, and a truck. In public, this is not very dignified.

But I have found that after entering the other side of the looking glass, anything can happen, truly. I have just been fortunate not to have been stabbed.

Here is Alice under assault by people who look identical. At this point, while she tries to make sense of incomprehensible languages and expressions of mind-altering grudges, she is probably wondering helplessly what happened to her life.

Alice, I understand. Confusingly, these identical mutants are simultaneously the best of friends and the worst of enemies. And wars can be indeed started over bent rattles.


Soon all Alice's understanding of a normal life among normal people will have been replaced by a warped and twisted world. One where you keep soil in the freezer because it is nice to look at.

But there is more. So much more. Next, the guilt will kick in. The rejections. The miseries. The night terrors, the deprivation, isolation, and the overwhelming problem of how to go to the shops and buy food.

It would not be unreasonable if Alice's entire psychological defence system broke down at that point and she went slightly bonkers.

Then even this will be normal.


On that day, I calmly confiscated the lances. Then I told the horses not to pour oil down the toilet. It is a mistaken horse belief that one litre of vegetable oil equates to a bucket of horse wee.

Alice, at least you were able to come out from behind the looking glass, and return to your normal life.


You were lucky. Some of us are still in here.