Automated Alice by Jeff Noon

Author:Jeff Noon [Noon, Jeff]
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Published: 2010-03-07T17:35:25.078000+00:00

MENT!

Alice screamed out Celia's name as they fell into the yawning gulf of an ellipsis in the marble. . .

"Ce . . .

li. . .

a. . .

!

!

!

* * * *

* * *

* * * *

Alice landed (with a soft plump!) upon a gigantic bed of mattresses. "This is quite the softest thing I've ever landed upon in all of my adventures!" Alice observed to herself, as she bounced up and down. She was so comfortable with her new world, until she realized exactly where she was. . . Snakes alive!

Alice was in the cellar of the Town Hall, and her soft bed of mattresses was really a vast seething ocean of Serpents, who were continuously unknotting and reknotting themselves into new configurations. Alice hopped from one foot to the other, trying to keep her balance!

The cellar stretched out for miles and miles and miles, and the serpents filled every single inch of every single mile. Alice had heard of sea-serpents before, but never had she heard of a sea of Serpents: and now here she was actually afloat upon such a thing! Far above her Alice could see the tiny jigsaw-shaped hole in the ceiling through which she and Celia had fallen. Celia was nowhere at all to be seen, but Alice didn't even have time to call out her Automated Sister's name, because just then, the snaking floor beneath her started to move!

Suddenly Alice was riding along on top of the twisting mass of Civil Serpents! Alice was a serpent-surfer!

Eventually, she was carried towards the very centre of the cellar, where the gigantic head of a hideously malformed snake thrust its way upwards from the wriggling maelstrom. This monstrous reptile had glistening black slits for eyes; its long snout ended in a pair of jaw-like doors which slowly hinged open to let slip a dangling rope of thick saliva; two spears it had for fangs, sharp and to the point.

"Good afternoon. My name is Alice," said Alice, curtseying, and crossing her fingers. "Are you the Supreme Serpent?"

The snake flickered out an unrolling red carpet of a forked tongue. This bifurcated implement changed Alice into an Alish, in a splash of sibilant hissingnesses. "Alish, we meet at lasht!" the Serpent sprayed, and then spittled and spattled out this rain of rhymes:

"Alish, can you enwonda

About thish Anaconda?

Alish, can you ennoblra

Thish hoodifided Cobra?

And can thish girl enshcriptor

This corsheting Conshtrictor?

And can thish girl enladder

The shumming of thish Adder?"

"Well I'm trying to enladder your meaning, Mrs Big Snake," Alice answered, "but you seem to be rather unsure of which kind of snake you are!" To which the bloated Serpent replied with one final hissing verse:

"My Alish, can you engrashp

The venom of thish Ashp?

Or even the thirdly Boa

Shmuggled aboard with Noah?"

"According to my lessons," stated Alice, "there were only a pair of boas allowed aboard the Ark. Are you saying that a third boa snake crept into Noah's cargo?"

"That extra Sherpent eshcaped from the Garden of Eden," answered the Supreme Snake, "and from there he shlithered aboard the Ark.

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