a whole new wonderland

Alice in wonderland

The candle lights flickered in my eyes. Soft wind blew from the open window on the other side of the kitchen. It was warm out, highest at 93 degrees fahrenheit and 72 at the lowest. Summer was one of my favorite times of the year until I dropped out of college. Now, it's just always hot and always sunny for no reason. I sat in my only seat at my kitchen table, my ribs pressed against the wooden rim. My birthday cake sat, staring up at me, glowing with antagonizing guilt.
'Damn, 25 already? I haven't even gotten a job yet.' The beautiful cake meant all the more than just Happy Birthday as the dramatic white letters intended. Alice Golry, 25, college dropout, unemployed. The basic NEET of 2025. I didn't care about the trends or the revolutions. All I knew is that politicians were raving about something new everyday and that the coffee from the cafe down the street was the only thing I looked forward to. Raised by a crappy Aunt (deceased) and abandoned by biological mom and dad.
The cake's perfection bothered me so I allowed the candles to melt onto the white frosting. I got a whiff of burnt sugar and quickly heaved the fire away. I was left sitting in the dark, my apartment lit by the pale moonlight shining through the open window.
"Shit, my wish." I sighed. Whatever. I clasped my hands around each other and made a drop onto the G-man's radar.
"Hey God, just letting you know that I am 25 now (yay!) and have not catched a miracle since I was accepted into the University. I know I haven't made the best decisions in my life (you know it) but, I still have faith in you. Please, for the love of all that's holy, give me a new life, a new life, something! It's so dull and boring I don't even know what day it is today. Please, dear God. Please." My hands broke apart in a melancholy way and I whispered 'Amen' under my breath.
I took the fork and dug into the cake wrathfully. I remember, as a child, I had always dreamed of having a whole cake to myself, but now that it was happening, it was kind of depressing. The cake was sweet, vanilla and plain. The strawberries on top were the sweetest though. I was already sick of it. I took another bite and dry heaved.
"No more of that." I grimaced as I pushed the abomination away from me.
My clothes I had worn that day were the same one I would wear the next, so I just kicked off my stockings and slipped under the covers. The thin sheets felt cold and nice against my bare legs. I loved summer so much. Even in a two room apartment on the 4th floor of an apartment complex in North Idaho that always seemed to smell of perfume and mango candles, everything was almost perfect. My bedroom had no walls and was only on a platform raised a few inches higher than the living room floor. I lifted my head and let it rest on my palm as I stared at the kitchen. The cake looked like a ghost, illuminated perfectly by the moon. My dark wood floors shine blue light softly. Another warm summer wind rushed through my window causing the white, mesh drapes to become quite distressed. I left my head in the care of my pillow and continued admiring the beauty of the moon. A tear raced down my cheek, followed by another, and another. I began weeping silently.
'How perfect this would be if I had no responsibilities. If I was financially stable. If I wasn't so alone. If I wasn't so unhappy.' I let sleep take my thoughts away.
"Take me away from this life. Please.

I awoke just like any other day. The cars, I could hear beeping and reeving from outside the window I had left open. Slowly I got up, my eyes still closed. Swollen shut. Great. I grabbed what I had worn yesterday and pulled it on. Unfortunately, I had mistakenly forgotten to take off my shirt from yesterday, so I slipped it off and went to rummage for another one in my dresser, slowly opening my eyes. My room was bright, so bright, too bright. My head suddenly went through a window. My body heaved over as vertigo grasped me by the hair and ripped me to the floor. I choked on an empty stomach as my body purged what should have been in my body.
Slowly, with one hand on the wall, I stood.
"Holy shit, what was that? I haven't been drinking or anything." I thought of the cake suspiciously.
"Jesus Christ." I gaped. My eyes had opened to find that my room had changed slightly in ways that were noticeable in every sense. No more oak table, instead a shiny porcelain table, the cake gone. My window had been closed and the rim had been repainted to a perfect white. My walls were not peeling and my doors weren't scratched. Both looked brand new and glossy. I looked down at my dressers open drawer.
"What the hell?" All my clothes were gone. Instead they were all replaced with the same light blue button up shirt and white polyester slacks. Every single one was the same as the other. Horrid. If there is one thing that I despise more than anything it's uniforms and every corrupted ideal they convey. The only clothes that weren't horridly the same were the clothes I was wearing. My black stockings were bunched up in my hand.
I slipped them on my legs and grabbed my shirt from the floor. The sleeves were slightly wrinkled at the ends but that was better than a uniform. I pulled it over my shoulders and folded the buttons together. My sleeves slipped down to the beginning of my fingers. I tucked it into my thin skirt. The line across my mid hip ended in a thin unnoticeable bow tie. I liked to wear it during summer to feel the breeze on my legs. The skirt ended just below mid thigh. It was wrinkled slightly in the back, but I ignored it and looked in the mirror.
Everything was the same. No surprise there. My light brown hair still wavy down to the base of my neck. My dark, satin eyes still stared back at me with a foggy look of bewilderment. I sighed with relief. At least I am still the same.
"I need to see what is going on." I announced.
I then realized I didn't have any shoes. Carefully, I opened the bottom dresser drawer. There were men's dress shoes and a womens black pumps. I grabbed the pumps and threw them on hastily. Nothing I had was there. The refrigerator was filled with medicine and foreign containers. My phone was nowhere to be found. The only thing that I could recognize was the apartment itself. Nothing was the same. I stopped checking for one thing that I might recognize when I came across a tiny electronic calendar. It was boring and standard. There was a schedule for June 19th, 3019. What?
"WHAT?!" It's got to be a typo. There are many impossible things in our world and this was definitely one of them. How many years ago was 2020? Who won the election? What happened to the guy in the show I was watching? I checked the schedule.
7:00 am: Wake up.
8:00 am: Leave for work.
9:00 am: Go to the fertilization plant.
12:00 pm: Meet Stephen for lunch.
12:40 pm: Back to work.
4:00 pm: Leave work.
5:00 pm: Get home.
6:00 pm: Go to dinner with Robert.
7: 30 pm: Leave dinner.
8:00 pm: Get ready for bed.
9:00 pm: Lights out.

"Times New Roman? Really? This person must not have any joy in their life." I grew bored merely by reading the schedule of this person. Slowly it came to me that this wasn't my home anymore this was:
-Edith Smith
"Edith Smith? What kind of name is that?"
I looked at the room one last time with a longing look.
"I am going to figure out why I am here somehow. One way or another." Then I shut the door.
The elevator was somehow still "under repair". I took the stairs down. Each step seemed to be more and more steep until I was jumping to each platform. Maybe my anxiety was stretching out the time, but it felt like forever that I was descending those stairs. I landed on the 1st floor with a click from the heels. A receptionist with a flapper black bob sat at a giant half moon shaped desk. A light blue phone perched itself on top, perfectly shining against the light. She was wearing the same blue uniform and white slacks that had filled the upper stairs dresser. She smiled blankly into nothingness, her brown eyes seemingly void of life.
"Excuse me?" I timidly walked towards her, feeling like a sheep wandering into the slaughter somehow. She didn't look at me or even move. I stepped closer and pressed a golden bell on the desk. Her head snapped in my direction.
"Hello missus um..." Her enthusiasm drained out as she saw me. A concerning look spread across her face.
"Is something the matter?" I asked.
"Well, yes. You should be wearing the uniform given to you by the Producer. I have never seen you before. How did you get in here?"
I looked down at my clothes. What story would make sense in this situation?
"Walk of shame, haha. Snuck into my boyfriend's window last night, that's probably why you don't recognize me." It sounded believable and most human, for sure, but she just got even more concerned. She mouthed the words 'boyfriend' and 'walk of shame' as if she didn't know what that meant.
"Aren't you a little young to be on your own? You're in your prime fertile state, aren't you? How about I just call the Plant and have them recover you." She grabbed the perfect phone and slammed a bunch of numbers into the dialer.
'This lady had some kind of crack this morning because she was acting psycho.'
"What do you mean, fertilization?" I asked, the thought of what a fertilization factory might be made my heart skip a couple paces. She turned away from the phone, the smile plastered on again.
"After the nuclear war of 2067 the human population became endangered, but with the marvelous thinking of our Producer, he created the fertilization process which has helped our species thrive since then." She mouthed every word off as if she were reading a textbook in class.
"What are the fertilization processes?"
"There is Alpha sperm chosen from a man and then that Alpha is grown into a superior, educated child. Once that child is old enough they will be able to use their sperm to create thousands of more babies. The best babies are Omegas or Alphas. Our Producer creates babies through individual sperm and eggs using all sorts of machinery that I, a simple Beta, am unable to understand. Nobody has to go through the pain of pregnancy or relationships. Alphas and Omegas are free to choose what they do with their time, without the worry of doing the choosing! That's the beauty of this Utopia!"
I stared at her in horror.
"What about the other babies?" I said in disgust. What the hell happened in the world?
"Those babies are turned into working force, like me. We all support our Omegas and our Alphas. I am so happy!" She reeked of lies as she smiled through each word.
I watched as a gray van screeched to a halt outside of the big glass round about. Men in those same uniforms rushed out of the back. I watched you slip a syringe in his pocket. Every single one of them looked the same. Blonde hair slicked back and the same wide, over used, blank smile, as they all marched toward the door.
"Who are those people?!"
"They have come to pick you up. You obviously have some sort of brain defect. Don't worry, they'll take care of you." She made the 'take care of you' not sound like I'd be getting out of this safe.
I whipped around and realized that I was completely trapped. The men were flooding through the door, smiles on their faces, eyes fixed on me.
"Don't be scared, we won't hurt you. We're here to help." They all said in unison.
I twisted around and broke into a sprint. Straight up the stairs I went. I slammed into the walls as I went up each flight. I could hear them marching after me.
"Don't be scared, we won't hurt you. We're here to help." They said again, echoing through the hallways. I hauled ass up those stairs as fast as possible. I saw the fire exit sign and broke through the door with all my might. I stumbled down the stairs, hitting the ground running, my body pulsating with blood.
Then my heel got stuck in a grate and I came down hard and fast. I flew about two feet before slamming into the cement, my breath leaving my body. My shoe was stuck in the grate and so was I.
'Stupid strap ons!' I cursed as I tugged at my foot.
"Pop" I was free. I got to my feet and a sharp pain went up my leg. My ankle limply hung off my leg.
"Shit, that's just great, a twisted ankle." I spit. Turning around, I watched as the light blue shirts came tearing through the streets of people. I could have blended in perfectly if I had just wore the damn uniform, but it was too late for regrets now. Bystanders looked at me as the receptionist had. Like a psycho. Everyone but me was wearing those awful uniforms. I limped my way quickly down the alley beside me and crouched behind a small, compact trash can. Why didn't dumpsters exist when I needed them the most?!
"I think she went down that alleyway sir." I overhead a bystander rat me out.
"Thank you, dear citizen."
I hugged my knees as close to my body and tried to channel my inner chameleon. If I made it through highschool, surely I can make it through this. I closed my eyes and counted the seconds.
"Don't be scared, we won't hurt you. We're here to help." I heard, too close to me. I opened my eyes. Every one of the soldiers were looking at me with wide smiles on their faces, their eyes glinting in the dark. My blood ran deathly cold.
One of the men grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me to my feet. I winced as my twisted ankle landed on the ground. He pulled out the syringe and shot me in the neck. I gasped as the substance seeped into my blood.
'Stay awake Alice.' I thought to myself, but my eyes just kept closing all the way shut,
"Don't be scared, we won't hurt you. We're here to help."