The Submission

Last call for submissions for our Fairy Tales Unhinged Contest tonight at 11:59 p.m.!

The email blared in Marissa’s throbbing mind. She had been planning for this contest for weeks. Why had she waited until the last minute to write the stupid story? And now this migraine—no matter what she took, she couldn’t get the stabbing pain behind her eyes to go away, and surely the nausea would soon begin.

Marissa looked at the blurring numbers on her digital clock. 7:01 p.m.

Damn.

She had worked so hard on this entry, outlined every detail, played with characters’ motives and backgrounds for hours…she couldn’t let the opportunity slip through her fingers now.

Reluctantly, Marissa rolled out of bed and crawled over to her desk, where her laptop lay open, waiting for her. She pulled herself up into her chair and brought the laptop to life. A nearly blank Word document stared back at her, with only the words “Follow the White Rabbit” glaring brightly in her sensitive vision.

Next to Marissa’s desk, her own white dwarf rabbit, Buster, climbed to the top of his cage, begging to be let free and be loved. She smiled down at him, though the corners of her lips trembled from the nausea that she knew would be coming on.

“All right, baby, hold on.”

Marissa unlatched the front of the cage and set the little white furball free to roam the studio apartment. For a moment, she watched him hop around the tile floor and sniff everything as though he hadn’t sniffed it all a million times before. She hoped that he would give her the strength to write this; after all, he had been her inspiration for the story in the first place. Then, with a sigh, she turned back to her laptop and her notes.

Marissa lowered the brightness on her laptop as far as she could while still being able to see the letters on her screen, thinking that it might alleviate the pain in her poor eyes, but to no avail. The pain continued to beat at the back of her eyes and climbed solely into her skull, and her stomach threatened to evict everything she had eaten that day if she didn’t turn off all the lights and just lay down with a cold compress for the rest of the night.

But she was on a mission.

This contest had practically been made for her. Retell a classic fairy tale with a dark twist. As soon as her eyes laid on Buster, Marissa had immediately thought of Alice in Wonderland and telling the story through the White Rabbit’s eyes…and why he really led Alice into Wonderland that day. It was a story that could win the $500 prize for sure, she knew it, she just had to write it.

But as soon as she typed her first sentence, Marissa felt the tell-tale tingling in her cheeks, followed quickly by the heaving in her chest and stomach.

She launched herself out of her chair, nearly tripping over Buster, and ran to the bathroom. She barely made it to the toilet in time to throw up into the bowl.

“God,” Marissa groaned as she fell to the floor of her bathroom. “I’m never going to get this done.”

Some of the pressure had been alleviated from behind her eyes, but a new throbbing had emerged in the back of her skull. She reached over and grabbed some toilet paper to wipe her mouth with and then threw it into the toilet.

“All my hard work, down the toilet.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. Her head pounded harder.

“You’re late,” a squeaky voice said, interrupting her pity party. 

Marissa, startled, looked around for the source of the voice. She only found Buster sitting in front of her, staring at her expectantly.

“You didn’t say that, did you, baby?” she asked with a half-laugh.

“You’re late,” the squeaky voice said again. Undeniably, it came from Buster, but only his nose twitched.

Marissa blinked, then shook her head, despite the throbbing.

“I’m losing my mind,” she muttered.

“You’re late, you’re late, for a very important date,” Buster said.

“Well, yes, I know that,” Marissa grumbled.

“No time to say, ‘Hello, goodbye!’ You’re late, you’re late, you’re late!”

Marissa glanced at Buster again. This time, he was wearing a vest, a top hat, and a pocket watch.

“I really have lost it.” She ran her hand across her face. “You haven’t the time by any chance, do you? I want to know how late I am.”

The pocket watch snapped open. The time read 9:11 p.m.

Marissa laughed dryly.

“Great. Two hours wasted on puking and hallucinations. Maybe I can still get a half-assed story turned in.”

Suddenly, the tingling in her cheeks returned. Marissa turned back to the toilet. Before she could start heaving, the water in the toilet began to swirl. She felt herself fall into the whirlpool. Like Alice in Alice in Wonderland, she tumbled head-over-heels through the water, clocks flying by her and ticking the time—9:30, 9:45, 9:55, 10:00, 10:30—until she found herself falling through the roof of her apartment building and toward her body, slumped over her laptop at her desk with Buster pawing at her leg.

With a jolt, Marissa reentered her body. Her migraine had gone, but her entire body ached as though she had been hit by semitruck. Groaning, she looked at the clock on her laptop. 11:50 p.m.

“Well, I guess it’s too late to eek anything out now,” she muttered.

Then she looked at the latest email blaring in her inbox.

Thank you for your submission to the Fairy Tales Unhinged Contest!

Marissa blinked in confusion. She opened up the file dedicated to that story, and sure enough, an entire story-length file was there. But how…?

“What the hell did I write?”