Prompt:
[not visible to Bill's siblings or parents]
I do believe I recollect this Muggle story. Alice in Wonderland? Then there was another, was there not? Through the Looking Glass? A fine example of the Muggle imagination, though one that with careful analysis can suggest certain members of the Wizarding world might have been lax with keeping secret their abilities.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps the author was merely a dreamer. Or perhaps he breathed too deeply some incense. Some smoke. Tasted something. Drank something.
As a child, something in the story struck me as odd.
Somewhere in her adventure, Alice finds something, a cake I believe, labeled "Eat me" and eat it Alice does. She grows quite large. So large in fact that everything is quite tiny in comparison! Including a tiny, tiny bottle labeled "Drink me" that Alice does in fact drink and instantly becomes tiny.
The world is huge.
In Wonderland, I would reach out and taste. I would drink. I would gaze at the colors and sounds and dance and laugh and take and touch and-- I can't bloody well imagine it would be any different than the world here.
As a child, to eat and drink something unknown struck me as odd. To take anything not my Mum's? Let alone something sitting out. With a note? With the War. With, as things were? It seemed such folly.
But then I grew up, grew into a variation of a tale, and for six years I slid down the rabbit hole in the back streets of Cairo. Or Paris. Vienna. Madrid. Even London on a few rare occasions. But more often than not Wonderland looked like Amsterdam.
The White Rabbit didn't keep time but he had a wicked beat. The pulse. The music. No time piece but the disco ball.
He was always late. Late. Late. Late for a very important date. Men. Women. Both. Booths. Back rooms. Front rooms. No one cared.
There weren't neatly engraved signs but there were whispers as things were passed.
A bottle, Drink me.
A powder, Sniff me.
A needle, Inject me.
Everything said, Need me.
That was perhaps the greatest folly of all.
I do believe I recollect this Muggle story. Alice in Wonderland? Then there was another, was there not? Through the Looking Glass? A fine example of the Muggle imagination, though one that with careful analysis can suggest certain members of the Wizarding world might have been lax with keeping secret their abilities.
Or perhaps not. Perhaps the author was merely a dreamer. Or perhaps he breathed too deeply some incense. Some smoke. Tasted something. Drank something.
As a child, something in the story struck me as odd.
Somewhere in her adventure, Alice finds something, a cake I believe, labeled "Eat me" and eat it Alice does. She grows quite large. So large in fact that everything is quite tiny in comparison! Including a tiny, tiny bottle labeled "Drink me" that Alice does in fact drink and instantly becomes tiny.
The world is huge.
In Wonderland, I would reach out and taste. I would drink. I would gaze at the colors and sounds and dance and laugh and take and touch and-- I can't bloody well imagine it would be any different than the world here.
As a child, to eat and drink something unknown struck me as odd. To take anything not my Mum's? Let alone something sitting out. With a note? With the War. With, as things were? It seemed such folly.
But then I grew up, grew into a variation of a tale, and for six years I slid down the rabbit hole in the back streets of Cairo. Or Paris. Vienna. Madrid. Even London on a few rare occasions. But more often than not Wonderland looked like Amsterdam.
The White Rabbit didn't keep time but he had a wicked beat. The pulse. The music. No time piece but the disco ball.
He was always late. Late. Late. Late for a very important date. Men. Women. Both. Booths. Back rooms. Front rooms. No one cared.
There weren't neatly engraved signs but there were whispers as things were passed.
A bottle, Drink me.
A powder, Sniff me.
A needle, Inject me.
Everything said, Need me.
That was perhaps the greatest folly of all.