Cinderella in Wonderland!
Genre – Fiction
Sub-genre – Dream Sequence
Length of blog – 1700 words
She had found the seed near her office. It sprouted on her office-desk in a makeshift-vase and was now a week old. As it grew a leaf or two, Cinderella decided to take it to her garden at home. The sapling got forgotten in the taxi home and the taxi company had to call Cinderella to pay for the tree ride home.
“I found it under an Ashoka tree, guessing it grows to be an Ashoka tree”, she said as she entered her flat which was on the topmost floor.
Her husband nodded. He enjoyed gardening too. They had succeeded in growing a mini-garden in their seventh-floor apartment building flowerbed area. Some were waist-height now, esp., the Chinese Spinach was growing well. Cinderella had recently burnt holes into a PVC pipe and transferred her potful of Primrose onto it – one stem per hole.
“Your Primroses are doing well”, he continued, “I have heard that having a Primrose patch in one’s garden means that they are doing well in life, and now we have a Primrose Tower.”
Both laughed. Not too loud though; to not awaken their one-year-old daughter who was asleep in the adjoining room.
“I am stepping out for a bit”, Joshvic said.
Cinderella looked at her garden and realised the Ashoka tree was not to be seen. It was now a handful of inches tall. She looked over her veranda railing and saw the tree on her sixth-floor neighbour’s asbestos parapet. A couple of pesky pigeons had pushed it over. It dangled there in the breeze. She began to lean over and her hand touched the top leaf in her arm. She had misjudged the frailty of the Ashoka sapling. It was tougher than she thought, and it got pushed farther. It started to swirl off the edge. For a moment Cinderella felt the plant come into her hands and then she felt her legs leave the ground. She did not take her eyes off the Ashoka.
It missed her grasp and she was in the air hurtling towards the falling plant. The speed at which they fell was constant. Her gaze not lifting from the Ashoka
gave her an eerie calm in perspective to her peripheral vision – which was the eerie part – the building façade flying past.
Then she felt the leaves of the Ashoka tree on her face followed by the rest of her body onto more leaves. She rolled and rolled onto leaves for what seemed like a long time – leaves on all sides of her. She could not feel any branches though. Another minute of rolling brought down her speed, until she was spat out of her motion onto the ground below. She looked up and saw herself fallen in between a thicket of Ashoka trees. The thicket so dense that she could not see day-light between the tree trunks, yet on top the sky was bright. In the light from above, she looked at the debris rain behind her. She followed it to investigate her soft landing. The thicket of Ashoka trees had broken her fall, yet she did not remember such a thicket outside her balcony. She came back to the clearing and tried to catch sight of her apartment building and there in the direction of where the debris was now settling, she saw a huge skyscraper. This was not her apartment building.
“Are you okay dear”, she heard a voice from one of the trees.
Or had the voice come from behind the tree. She walked around the tree and saw no one.
“It is us, the sapling you saved”, the voice from inside the tree continued, “Do not be afraid we have saved you from your fall.”
“That is not my apartment building”, Cinderella said not taking her eyes off the tree. One hand rubbed the bark of the tree, her other hand on her head.
She pressed her skull with her left palm to check for injuries.
“Oh! We are not in your timeline dear,” the tree continued to speak without anything movement on the bark. The sound seemed to emanate from all
through it, yet it was a soothing voice, not a rumbling-through-the-wood-hoarse sound one would’ve expected, “Look at how we’ve grown into a thicket.”
Cinderella let out a low laugh, she couldn’t understand why. Maybe cause of fright, or maybe she could hear trees speak.
“Let us take you home”, the tree said.
The entire clearing started to rise, or it seemed like the skyscraper collapsed. They could see into a window where a lady seemed to be sitting in
front of a grand-piano. Cinderella recognised the lady who had a likeness to herself. The duplicate-Cinderella pressed a few buttons on what seemed like
three computer keyboards kept next to each other. These controlled three tabs arranged eclectically. She seemed to press enter and sit back.
“Aryan”, she said.
A boy of five or so emerged, he stared at duplicate-Cinderella and started to nod his head. He looked on as the wall on one side slid open and a
chair rolled out.
“Alexa, no school today”, Aryan said.
“I have disabled voice commands”, duplicate-Cinderella said.
The boy sat down into the chair. The chair with its contents then headed towards the opposite wall where an image of triangles and squares was projected from near the headrest of the chair. The lighting changed. The curtains on the window closed, to darken the room, to accommodate the lighted images. Yet the entire camaraderie – the clearing, a set of trees behind her and Cinderella herself – were still able to view what was going on. The curtain an apparition through her. She tried to touch the curtain to move it, but it moved oh so slightly.
“Seems a little windy today”, duplicate-Cinderella said. She looked straight at Cinderella.
Cinderella looked at the trees behind her.
“Aryan is your great-great-great-granddaughter’s child”, the tree continued, “Maybe this is not what you want to know”
The entire thicket seemed to fly into the sky and then just like Google Maps in satellite mode started to move towards Europe. Except they were not moving – it seemed as if the world was moved towards them. It felt like flying except there were no physics related pushes and pulls, no drafts of winds, no gravity – it was as if, they were stationary. It felt like a giant 360-degree screen all around them. They seemed to zoom-in into an arid place. Cinderella thought she recognised the Indian subcontinent on the far left horizon. She could not be sure, as there were no names unlike Google Maps. They stopped to a view of a wide crossroad which had a tall pillar in the centre.
“That is the 13th edict recently raised by Ashoka”, a tree said.
Cinderella was not sure whether the setting of the trees around had changed. This felt real; she was back on the ground, these Ashokas had their roots in the ground. She could feel the heat of the sun. She stepped out to closely examine the Ashoka edict.
“Oh, you mean, this is one of the Ashoka Pillars”, Cinderella continued, “And why have you brought me to this time and place?”
“Maybe you had a doubt whether we Ashokas have some matching etymology with Ashoka the Great”, one tree said.
“So, we brought you to the time where the Greeks met the Aryans, at Old Kandahar, in today’s Afghanistan”, another bark said.
“No, I have no questions”, Cinderella continued, “All this time-travel is making me feel woozy.”
“We are named Saraca asoca by the Greeks who ruled this place before Chandragupta Maurya who took over this region. Now Ashoka reigns south of the Hindu Kush range. And he had us planted along roads because of our sleek posture”, another tree continued, “That is the only similarity between us and Emperor Ashoka. He raised such edicts to promote his point of view and to promote peace between multi-ethnic tribes under his rule.”
“I really do not have any doubts regarding your nomenclature”, Cinderella continued, “Please take me home.”
“It is you who have mingled your subconscious with ours”, one tree said.
“We are just trying to help you solve your predicament”, another bark said.
“I do not have any problems that I cannot solve on my own”, Cinderella said.
“Perhaps your query is about God and which ethnic culture has it correct”, another tree continued, “We can take you through history to Ayodhya during Lord Rama’s reign or to Calvary to see Christ getting crucified or maybe to Mecca to hear Mohammed’s prophesizing.”
“No, I do not believe I have a problem about God”, Cinderella continued, “Travelling through all the peaks in history will not change my belief.”
“And to experience all of it, would consume you”, the trees said.
“I am my own God”, Cinderella said, “We would not be here, if I would not save that seed in the office garden, or let the taxi driver dispose the sapling or ….”
Cinderella trailed off, she remembered her daughter asleep in the next room.
“My young daughter needs me. And my husband and me have been called to work next week. We have to give up our work-from-home”, Cinderella said.
Cinderella picked up a palm sized stone from the ground and started to walk towards the Ashoka edict.
“Maybe I should inscribe ‘Work-from-home is allowed’ on the pillar”, she said.
“That will affect the future slightly, and there may be a delay, but time will take its destined course”, the trees continued, “Just like the curtains you tried to touch earlier, it would only cause a ripple in time.”
“We have been functioning pretty well without the need to go to the office premises”, Cinderella continued, “My boss says, its for security reasons.”
“The solution is three alphabets, that you need to tell your boss”, the trees continued, “V-P-N; Virtual-Private-Network, the safest thing around. Unless your boss sees you as a crook who would sell the company secrets out”
Cinderella turned towards the trees.
“And how can you possibly know anything about technology?” she said.
Cinderella knew she had spoken too soon and waited for a thick lecture from the trees.
“We are beings of eternal knowledge. Our roots form a neural network…”, the trees said.
“Badagboodoogbadagboodoogbadagboodoogbadagboodoogbadagboodoogbadagboodoog”, Cinderella’s handphone rang.
She picked it up before it rang again. Cinderella looked around. She was back in her apartment.
“Hello, open the door”, her husband’s said.
She smiled as she opened the door. Her daughter still lay fast asleep.
— THE END —