Lewis Carroll - Alice in Zombieland

The Wurm and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence. The Conqueror Wurm’s body was long and segmented, and the color of wet ash, and smelled somewhat like a dead mouse that Dinah had once brought home to lie at her feet last year. The mouse, all rotting flesh and patchy gray fur, had been dead for quite some time. The Wurm smelled as if it had as well. Or perhaps, Alice thought, it’s what it chooses to eat that makes it smell so badly.

At last the Wurm took the half-chewed human ear out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice. ‘Who are you ?’ said the Wurm.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, ‘I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’

‘What do you mean by that?’ said the Wurm sternly. ‘Explain yourself!’

‘I can’t explain myself , I’m afraid, sir’ said Alice, ‘because I’m not myself, you see.’

‘I don’t see,’ said the Wurm.

“I feel strangely cold all the time and I’m so dreadfully hungry for the bits and pieces of other living things. I’m afraid I can’t put it more clearly,’ Alice replied very politely, ‘for I can’t understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing”

‘It isn’t,’ said the Wurm, ‘hard to explain in the least. Quite natural here, young lady.’

‘Well, perhaps you haven’t found it so yet,’ said Alice; ‘but when you have to turn into a chrysalis—you will some day, you know—and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you’ll feel it a little queer, won’t you?’

‘Not a bit,’ said the Wurm, writhing its long gray body into a loop so to better face Alice.

‘Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,’ said Alice; ‘all I know is, I feel very queer indeed. Not myself.’

‘You!’ said the Conqueror Wurm contemptuously. ‘Who are you ?’

Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice felt a little irritated at the Wurm’s making such very short remarks, and she drew herself up and said,

very gravely, ‘I think, you ought to tell me who you are, first.’

‘Why?’ said the Wurm.

Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good reason, and as the ugly Wurm seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

‘Come back!’ the Wurm called after her, bits of half chewed ear flesh dangling from its small mouth. ‘I’ve something important to say!’

This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.

‘Keep your temper,’ said the Wurm.

‘Is that all?’ said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.

‘No,’ said the Wurm.

Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it munched away on its grotesque dead meal without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the rotting ear out of its mouth again, and said, ‘So you think you’re changed, do you?’

‘I’m afraid I am, sir,’ said Alice; ‘I can’t remember things as I used—and I don’t keep the same size for ten minutes together! And I’m so cold! And starving for warm flesh! I have changed! I know it!’ And it was true. Looking at her hands and arms now, she saw they both had a slight blue tinge to them. And her long beautiful hair, which so many people made comments upon, was beginning to come out in stringy handfuls. She would hate to see her reflection now. There was no telling what terrible apparition would look back at her.

‘Can’t remember what things?’ said the Wurm.

‘Well, I’ve tried to say “ How doth the little busy bee ,” but it all came different!’ Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.

‘Repeat, “ You are old, Father William ,”’ said the Wurm.

Alice folded her hands, and began:

‘You are old, Father William,’ the young man said,

‘And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head—

Do you think, at your age, it is right?’

‘In my youth,’ Father William replied to his son,

‘I feared it might injure the brain;

But, now that I’m perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again.’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,

And have grown most uncommonly fat;

Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—

Pray, what is the reason of that?’

‘In my youth,’ said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

‘I kept all my limbs very supple

By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—

Allow me to sell you a couple?’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘and your jaws are too weak

For anything tougher than suet;

Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—

Pray how did you manage to do it?’

‘In my youth,’ said his father, ‘I took to the law,

And argued each case with my wife;

And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,

Has lasted the rest of my life.’

‘You are old,’ said the youth, ‘one would hardly suppose

That your eye was as steady as ever;

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—

What made you so awfully clever?’

‘I have answered three questions, and that is enough,’

Said his father; ‘don’t give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

Be off, or I’ll kick you down stairs!’

‘That is not said right,’ said the Wurm.

‘Not quite right, I’m afraid,’ said Alice, timidly; ‘some of the words have got altered.’

‘It is wrong from beginning to end,’ said the Wurm decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.

The Wurm was the first to speak, as it had almost finished its gory meal of graveyard ear. ‘What size do you want to be?’ it asked.

‘Oh, I’m not particular as to size,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘only one doesn’t like changing so often, you know.’

‘I don’t know,’ said the Wurm.

Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.

‘Are you content now?’ said the Wurm. It began to clean its mandibles by rubbing them against its legs and then to its bulbous and shiny gray stomach.

‘Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn’t mind,’ said Alice: ‘three inches is such a wretched height to be.’

‘It is a very good height indeed!’ said the Wurm angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high). Its many legs waved in silent fury as it stared down on her with its dead eyes.

For a moment she feared it meant to consume her next, and she backed away in fright. ‘But I’m not used to it!’ pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought of herself, ‘I wish the creatures wouldn’t be so easily offended!’

‘You’ll get used to it in time,’ said the Wurm; and it continued to clean its mandibles. ‘Have you met the Red Queen yet?’

‘No, but I’ve heard such dreadful things about her that I’m sure I’d rather not meet her,’ said Alice, crossing her arms across her chest to show she meant business.