PHOTO PROMPT © G.L. MacMillan
WHITE RABBIT
As a little girl, Alice had enjoyed visiting her grandparents. She often spent time in the old storage shed behind their house. Her path to the back was blocked by the swivel frame of a mirror-stand.
When she was 13, she realized she could access the rear simply by stepping through the empty oval. She found a set of shelves with colored bottles and vials. A sign on one said, “Eat me”. Another was labeled, “Drink me.” Others said, “Snort me,” and “Smoke me.” She obeyed them all.
“And that,” she told the rehab psychiatrist, “is how I got addicted.”
***
Go to Rochelle’s Addicted to Purple site and use her Wednesday photo as a prompt to write a complete 100 word story.
#487
Archon's Den 
Wow, edgy! I like it.
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It’s nice to see my writing through someone else’s eyes. I didn’t think of it as ‘edgy’ as I wrote it. Just a little anti-drugs PSA. 🙂
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Good one … and I didn’t expect that ending.
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Even when I go for a surprise ending, I sometimes give a hint/clue in the title – Billy Idol for ‘White Wedding’, White Rabbit for ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass.’ It’s difficult to build suspense with only a hundred words. At least the butler didn’t do it. 😆
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Regarding the butler … that could be a future ending.
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Didn’t expect the turn this was going to take! Or maybe she’s just winding up her rehab psychiatrist?
I’m just addicted to fiction – read me, read me! Takes you on a journey it’s easier to come back from than chemical journeys.
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It seems obvious that it didn’t happen just the way she relates. Besides your theory, I envisioned 4 or 5 others. Is she hallucinating? Is she still stoned at an intake interview? Is she rationalizing? Were Grandma and Grandpa pill-poppers? It’s another write-your-own ending.
I once worked with a woman who was buzzed all the time at work. I don’t know why she didn’t hurt herself or someone else. At break time she’d climb up on the roof and smoke up. “Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs.”
I’m with you about the reading. Each January I publish a list and comments about the books I’ve read the previous year, recently between 30 and 40. 🙂
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We can add your tale to the endlessly wonderful renditions of this age old story! Nice job.
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Thank you, Dawn. You also did well (again). I remained silent among the multitude of your fans when I visited.
I have finally realized that your second name is not (Dan) Quayle!? Is it pronounced ‘Kyle’ as my grandson’s second name is? 😕
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Never remain silent AD; I love your feedback!
My 2nd name is pronounced the same as your grandson’s only with the QU at the start (Qu-yle)
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great job…gave me a laugh actually
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Not at drug addiction, surely. 😯 Probably at me trying to rewrite real literature.
Did you read this week’s offering from ‘The Greenwalled Tower’? He wrote a story about Eau de Newfoundland. I haven’t looked up where he currently resides (somewhere in the States, I believe), but he was born up near L’Anse aux Meadows. 😕
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Just like that. Someone should have warned Alice to think for herself. Very good story with an interesting twist.
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I am amazed and saddened by the proportion of the population who cannot, or will not, think for themselves.
I think I like your appreciation and comment. 🙂
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I always wondered, when reading that particular book, if those “Eat me” and “Drink me” signs didn’t mean something else. Now I know.
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Oh yes. Like Gulliver’s Travels, this book was presented as an innocent children’s’ book, by an author hiding behind a fake name, and was a scathing denunciation of Victorian, upper-crust, drug-raddled society.
Ladies were given laudanum (opium) for everything. Eat Me – Hash brownies, magic mushrooms. Drink Me – included absinthe, a liquor infused with wormwood, which caused LSD-like hallucinations. Disappearing cats, and a caterpillar smoking a hookah? That wasn’t Turkish tobacco. The drug-culture’s slang for taking downers is ‘getting small’. 😯
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Hmmm, I think I see what I need to do to become a famous classic writer. 🙂
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I laughed out loud. You led us there with great skill. The name, the mirror, the bottles. The ending is priceless (and sad for poor Alice, but she found help).
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I’m glad to know the ending came as a revelation. Poor Alice may have had help thrust upon her. 😦
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“Go ask Alice ….when she’s ten feet tall”
was that Jefferson Starship?
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Wiki says that one was released when they were still Jefferson Airplane. While not as thrilled with the actual song, I love the radio announcer’s voice in the background of ‘We Built This City’. From the Golden Era of AM radio, when DJs like Wolfman Jack, and Chicago’s Cousin Brucey were entertaining celebrities.
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I knew that but I couldn’t think of Airplane when I wrote my message. Thank you for clarifying. I was in kindergarten when that song was released.
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A poignant ending for Alice. Her innocence at age 13 never spelled out the consequences of her curiosity. A well thought out story. I enjoyed it tremendously. GREAT write …!!! 😎
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Like Babe Ruth, I have as many strikeouts as home runs. It’s nice to know I knocked this one out of the park. 🙂
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Ha ha! Love it… Maybe we’ll keep this version for the older crowd… (Not like the original isn’t weird enough!)
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For the older crowd, we have Jeff Foxworthy’s depiction of a music concert. ‘What’s in the air? What do I smell? That’s Ben-Gay! Here, it’s Metamucil. Take a hit and pass it down.’ 😆
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Ha ha ha…you kill me!
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😎 Any time.
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Ah, you’ve brought Alice up-to-date. This “trip” didn’t turn out as well thought. Well, done, Archon. 🙂 — Suzanne
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It’s just a little cautionary tale, because, sadly, poor Alice has never gone out-of-style. We could beat ISIS in a week, if we could get all the stoners straight. 😯
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Dear Archon,
A likely story. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Thanx, Mom. 😉
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Alice as a druggie. They’ll tell you anything that takes the responsibity off of them. You made me laugh. 🙂
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I’m glad you got a chuckle out of it. The sad thing is, many of them believe their own stories. It’s no wonder police, fire and ambulance workers quickly become inured. They’ve heard all these lies hundreds of times. Someone telling the truth is an oddity. 😯
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Yep. That was exactly how it happened.
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I forgot to mention that she tripped over a Bible, and fell into the drug cabinet. 😉
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ha ha ha! Great ending. At first I thought you were just re-telling old Alice, but then brought it all the way home in the end. Very Nice
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Ahh, to bask in the adulation of other writers. 😎
Many of my publications run to a twist at the end – without drugs. 😉
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