Simply Impassable!

Alice bent down and stared through the brass keyhole in the ornate door handle. Everything was so dark and mysterious; all she could make out were some strangely circular clouds of smoke, and then everything went black!

“Do you mind?” said a grating voice close by. Alice stood up straight and looked around her for the stranger, but she was still awfully alone and completely alone in the circular room. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she slowly walked around in a circle, checking from floor to ceiling for any odd ghosts or animals (such as that rabbit with the timepiece - how rude he was, telling her she was late? She was always perfectly on schedule, thank you very much), but still found nothing.

Shrugging it off as something in her wild imagination, Alice bent down again, kneeling on the dusty ground and dirtying the bottom of her skirts. Oh, how mother would complain so if she could see the state Alice had gotten herself into! Good thing mother was still at home, probably also complaining about Alice not showing up to her lesson on time - though falling down a rabbit hole and reaching the middle of the earth is a perfectly acceptable reason for being late, in her opinion at least.

She leaned in so closely to the keyhole, Alice could feel her eyelashes batting against the doorknob. Now all she could see were two bright yellow circles, almost like eyes…

And it all went dark again! Something moved against Alice’s face, so she leaned backwards away from the door, and landed uncomfortably on her bottom. The floor underneath was stranger still - the black-and-white pattern appeared to change before her eyes, and the longer she watched it, the dizzier she became.

“I do hope you’ll stop poking your face into my face! It is rather rude, you know.”

Alice turned her attention back to the door. It appeared just like any door, with a handle and a lock and a way through. The keyhole, which she’d just been able to squint through a moment ago, was now at least twice the size, and moving all by itself!

“Curiouser and curiouser!” She said, and crawled back towards the door. She kept her distance, but reached out a small hand to touch the doorknob. A pair of eyes were staring at her, and the keyhole moved like a mouth, talking…

“A talking doorknob? How wonderful!” Alice sat on her heels and traced the handle with her dainty fingers. It was warm, much warmer than the others that she’d tried to open earlier. Perhaps this was the only one that was, in a way, alive? “How do you do?” She asked in the most polite voice she could, practising how her mother taught her to.

The doorknob regarded her with a confused gaze. “How do I do what?” it responded, that same grating voice that sent a chill shooting down her spine.

Alice giggled at it. “I’m not sure, I’ve never really understood that phrase. Where I’m from, we use it to greet people. Perhaps down here it isn’t common practice.”

The doorknob didn’t respond. It simply glared at her and then closed its eyes, returning to the position she first found it in.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry to bother you,” Alice began, scooting closer to the door and trying to catch another glimpse of what was behind it, “But is there any way you could possibly allow me to pass through? I’m after a white rabbit, you see, as I need to have a word with him about his behaviour towards me earlier. I think he came through this way.”

Letting out a big, wide yawn, Alice could see through the doorknob to the world beyond. This time, it was bright and sunny, and she could see a field of flowers sprouting up. They seemed to be as tall as the trees in her part of the world!

“No. Impassable. Much too big. I cannot help.”

Alice felt rather affronted. “Whatever do you mean, ‘much too big?’” She let out an annoyed huff, stood up, and placed her hands on her hips in annoyance. "And 'impassible' isn't a word, you know."

The doorknob repeated himself. "Simply impassable. Too big."

Alice glared at the knob. “Everyone, and everything, that I’ve met so far since falling down here has been so incredibly rude! I am not too big, I am perfectly normal sized, thank you very much, and I do not appreciate the way I am being treated.” She stomped her small black shoes on the ground, and the doorknob opened his eyes a smidge. “You shall let me pass through, right now thank you very much. I am rather busy at this moment, and do not have time for all of this nonsense.”