Precognition

E. Wool and Water

1."Precognition" – Can you tell the future? Create a blog entry (or static item) giving us the events that would transpire on this date: December 21st, 2020. (<1000 words)

Precognition

The Dodo’s Quest

When Alice, Veldskoen and the Author arrived in Lookinglass, they found a small house that they could rent for as long as they were needed by the administrators of the town. The Author set about arranging things to their preference, while the Veldskoen and Alice went out to learn the layout of the streets, the best shops and places to relax.

Very soon after his friends had departed, the Author heard a quiet knock at the front door. On opening it, he discovered the Dodo, who burst out immediately, “Thank goodness! I’ve been trying to catch up to you for days.”

The Author swung the door wider and invited him in. While the Dodo recovered from his journey in a chair, the Author busied himself with making some tea.

“How did you manage to find me so quickly?” he called from the kitchen. “We’ve only just moved in here.”

“Oh, that was the easy part,” came the Dodo’s voice. “I just looked in my memory and found your address.”

The Author stopped what he was doing. Moving to the door to the living room, he leaned in and asked, “Your memory? But how can you remember something that even I didn’t know at the time? As I told you, we only moved in this morning.”

“I s’pose I should’ve told you before,” the Dodo answered. “Fact is, I’m living backwards, so I remember things that are still in the future.”

The Author came right into the room and sat down opposite the Dodo. “Stranger and stranger,” he said. “I wrote something about living backwards a while ago. It’s always seemed to me that I had the idea from T.H. White and his book, The Once and Future King, but lately I’ve realised that he probably found it in Lewis Carroll’s work. How odd it is that I should meet someone who is actually living it.”

“Oh, all dodos do it,” explained the Dodo. “It seems quite natural to us. Why, one of our philosophers has even suggested that it’s why we went extinct.”

At that moment, the kettle started to whistle and the Author had to hurry back to the kitchen. After a few moments, he returned, carrying a tray with a teapot, cups and saucers, a jug of milk and a sugar bowl arrayed upon it. A few biscuits were scattered upon a plate.

When they had poured the tea and settled back with their cups, the Author began, “So why have you been wanting to speak with me, Dodo?”

“Well, it’s two things really,” said the Dodo. “Firstly, you’ve been neglecting me in the story and I wanted to make sure I had at least one tale of my own. And then there’s the matter of December 21st.”

“I guess you have the first one already,” mused the Author. “At least, here you are in this chapter. But what’s this about the 21st? D’you mean last year? What happened then?”

The Dodo wagged a wing feather in the air. “Last year? No point in asking me about that. I haven’t lived there yet. No, it’s this year I’m talking about.”

“So you have a memory of that day? And it’s important that I hear it?” The author scratched his head, clearly having trouble getting the past separated from the future and the future from the present.

“Indeed I do,” said the Dodo. “That’s the day of the Great Wonderland Reunion when we all gather again to remember the good times we had in these pages..”

“Was I there?” asked the Author.

“Certainly you were. In fact, it was kinda important that you were, since we all had the same question to ask of you.”

“And what question is that?” The Author had tired of trying to sort out the past, present and future. He decided that he should refer to it all as the present, even if none of it was. Or is. Or will be.

“It’s like this,” explained the Dodo. “We all know that you’re writing this for a reason, that you’re part of the Wonderland thing and you’ve been asked to write it all down. But you’ve done nothing with us since then and we miss it. The question is this: will you ever write our story again or must we fade into the shadows of tomorrow?”

“And what do I answer?” The Author really wanted to know, not having thought about this before.

“That’s my secret,” replied the Dodo. “I’m telling you about it now so that you have plenty of time to think and will be able to give us the right answer when we ask the question.”

“Which probably means I say the wrong thing,” said the Author.

“I didn’t say that. This is purely a matter of giving you fair notice.”

The Author crossed his arms and relaxed. “Okay, I’ve had fair notice. Guess I’ll have to think about it.” A thought occurred to him then and he moved back into an attentive position. “Now what about this extinction thing? Since you know it’s coming, surely we can do something about it?”

“Ah, my friend,” said the Dodo, “there are some things that one just has to accept.”


Word Count: 868