Not Alice

Not Alice
By
Toby Wendtland
I followed the fox down his fox hole for he had stolen my good Sunday shoes, not the white ones that my brother had thrown up on after eating his entire basket of Easter eggs, but the black patent leather shoes that I had scuffed the first time I wore them, the first time I had fallen for a boy, a boy who had long shoulder length hair, green eyes and a slingshot in his back pocket, the kind of boy my mother warned me about and I agreed until Tommy Finklestein had turned his attention on me. The hole was very dirty. My white socks got dirty and I took them off as well, crouching to fit underneath the ceiling of the fox hole which was also quite dark. Naked roots tickled my face as I swept by them. At the end of the foxhole was a small fox door, shaped in a very foxly manner and having all the earmarks of a fox. Fortunately the door was ajar and I did not need my fox key, which I had left in my room, hiding beneath the pitcher plant so Uncle wouldn’t know I had found it among his cabbages and the carrots resistance had been futile and short lived.
I pushed open the fox door and rolled through, for that is what foxes do when they exit their fox holes and I have observed the manners of foxes for all of my eleven years. The landscape around me was familiar, yet new in a wonderful way. The yard was my yard, but it wasn’t. The trees were my trees, but these trees were not my maples, no not at all. See here! See how I walk up to this maple tree and the bark it smooth, posh! Where are the holes from Uncle tapping the spring nectar that he boils down and drowns my pancakes? Where is the heart and the cross, Tommy Finklestein’s name and my own, short, abbreviated, but together for all time? Gone I say, this is my yard and it definitely is not my yard. Look, there is my house, but Uncle’s house is not that shade of red. Look at the sky, that is my sky, but it was never that shade of blue. And here, this sandbox, this is not my sandbox for the fox has stolen all of my sand toys. See, there is the fox now, walking about on two legs, a fox borough tie around his neck. See how he lingers about my sandbox waving to me. That is not my sandbox.
Yet I must know where I am, for I am home, but the colors are all wrong. Even I, do you not remember my color in the fox hole? I seem lighter now in a dark way. I walk over to the fox and he grins. The fox pulls at his fox borough tie and points into the sandbox. This is not my sand. I reach in and cup my hand full of this counterfeit sand and see that it is not sand at all, rather, tiny crystalline consonants, vibrius vowels and plenilune punctuation marks. I say that I do not see any quotation marks and the fox says that of course there are no quotation marks, the McCabe has stolen them all away. What is a sandbox full of punctuation marks without quotation marks I say and the fox shrugs and says nothing.
I look around the yard and see my bike, but it is not my bike, the light reflects off of my streamers differently. What is this place I ask the fox and the fox replies that this place my dear is the poet’s rear, a place to draw forth from the muck when the poet is stuck. The fox then walked over to my oak tree wherein is my tree house, but this is not my tree house, the windows are oddly square. He returns with a large green chalkboard, but it is not my chalkboard, for I have none. Grab a handful of sand, says the fox, and throw it at the board, but let me warn you that the poems are binding. I heed little his words and grab a handful of sharp pointy language and chuck them against the green chalkboard. With a whiz and flash and a spark and a bang the small letters run wild and light up into arrangements. I walk close to the board and see.
The pink elephant walked into her room and
Immediately thought, I need more pillows.
But wherefore to me, John, comes all of this sand?
Could you tune down your voice, it sounds of the bellows,
For I have ears to hear better than most man,
And have not the stuff in my ears made yellow,
For I am John Merrick, the elephant man.
I’ll fetch you your pillow what else can I bring?
Come truffles or chocolate, beluga in cans?
Or perhaps a flock of small birds tittering?
I can’t take this life anymore, no I can’t.
It’s my dream to be on broadway and to sing.
I step back from the chalkboard, what a vulgar verse. The fox just smiles and turns and he runs. I told you, he said and he’s gone to the garden. I follow but get lost in the trees of broccoli and the treacherous seas of iceberg lettuce. The next thing I know I’m falling, falling and the fox has gotten away. When I hit the bottom I look around me and see that the yard is my yard, the house of my house and the tree house above is as high as I left it.