Summertale in Victorian Land: I Still Believe in Time Travel

The names in this short account have been changed in order to not offend the living or the fictional.

Mrs. Summertale sat down to start typing her non-fiction piece concerning the Road Hill murder. Before she could get started, she needed felt her stomach growl; she needed inspiration. With hesitation, she headed out of her home into the London streets with her favorite deli shop in mind. Strolling through the damp streets, she came across a large pothole with dry ice fumes coming out of the top. The fumes formed swirls in the dense air. Curious, she loomed over the hole. Then suddenly, a gust of wind came from behind; she could hardly keep her balance and she feel into the pothole screaming while failing her arms about.
Summertale kept falling through the air. After what seemed like an hour, Summertale landed on the cold hard wood floor of a long corridor. She got up and rubbed the back of her neck. She walked down the dim lit corridor toward a larger room. The room had a round, mahogany table in the center with a long white tablecloth draped across it. The tablecloth covered the entire table. The corridor dead-ended to three doors each illuminated with a single light bulb: moral, riddle, and detective. She cautiously approached the door with the words moral thickly painted across. She opened the door and peered in.
With a deep breathe, Summertale stepped through the entrance, carefully closing the door behind her. The sun barely peaked through the tall tropical trees and the red blossoming flowers. The humid jungle air clung to the back of her neck. She started walking through the jungle, curiously taking everything in, half hoping to be dreaming and the other half craving a reality to grasp on to. She heard something rustling behind a bush. A tan mongoose appeared, body positioned vertical, eyes black. It was arguing intently with a fierce tiger. Summertale jumped back a few feet, frightened. She lay down on the jungle floor, intently watching the Mongoose and the Tiger. The Mongoose urged the Tiger to explain why he remained submissive to the Red Flower, referred to as the fire pot, when the boy held it in his face and burned him. The Tiger refused to answer the question. Instead he asked the Mongoose a question. He asked the Mongoose why he was submissive and ventured out of the jungle to live with the humans. The Mongoose did not respond to the Tiger’s question, he merely asked another.
“You let the boy call you a dog, and you bowed your head to him, you are submissive,” The Mongoose yelled, his eyes fixed on the Tiger. “At least I have model pride,” the Mongoose exclaimed.
The Tiger took a crouched glide toward the Mongoose, eyes yellow. In a low and toxic tone the Tiger responded, “Model Pride,” he snickered “you don’t live by the rules, and you try to control everyone around you. You didn’t kill the Cobra, the Man of the house shot the Cobra and would have shot you too if you had been in the way.” The Tiger chuckled, “you are a sad excuse for a prideful jungle creature.” “You’re full of Dewanee” he muttered under his breath.
The Mongoose’s eyes burned like hot coals, “ You were soft as they trampled over you, the boy and the other jungle creatures. That’s where your pride got you, an adjective associated with defeat and weakness.” “You are the one full of Dewanee.”
“Watch your back Mongoose,” the Tiger smiled showing his flawless, previously sharpened grin. “There cannot be two of us with Dewanee- the madness” He slinked off on all four paws with elegance and pride.
Summertale crawled on the jungle floor away from the Mongoose who was standing on his two hind legs, eyes still burning. She stood and walked quickly toward the door, which lead to the corridor. As she opened the door and entered the corridor, she made a mental note of the room with moral painted across it: jungle creatures have excessive pride that lead to their madness or Dewanee; all they need is a balance.
With curiosity, Summertale approached the second door. It had the word riddle glued to the surface. She pressed her hand to the letters; they were still wet from the glue. She opened the door and felt a strong ocean breeze. The tide swayed back and forth across the shore. Summertale came across a Jellyfish. The Jellyfish lay on the burnt yellow sand, baking in the sun. Summertale ventured toward the jellyfish, longing to help it and put it back in the ocean. Before Summertale moved any closer, a Sphinx appeared in a light blue mist. The Sphinx stopped her and would not let her get past unless she answered a riddle. Summertale refused to listen to the riddle and tried to push forward toward the dying jellyfish. Pushing, pulling, and tearing at the Sphinx, Summertale falls to the sand. She moved her palms over her eyes to try to block the tears from running down her face.
“You can’t save it,” the Sphinx whispered into her ear, “It’s natural selection, just let nature run its course. That’s all you can do.”
“But I can do something,” she sobbed and ran toward the door as the hot sand spilled in between her toes.
She opened the door and was back in the corridor. She moved toward the third and final door. The sign, detective, had been terrible stapled to the front and it was leaning towards the left. She reached for the intricately designed knob and the door was locked. She pulled and tussled the knob; however, it was glued shut. Then out of thin air, Edgar Allen Poe’s head appeared as a hologram in the corridor. Startled, Summertale lets out a cry of fear and excitement.
“Look under the table cloth for the key,” Poe whispered and bobbed his head toward the round table in the middle of the corridor.
Before Summertale could move toward the table, Sherlock Holmes’ head appeared as a holograph next to Poe.
“We need some more stimulation in modern day,” Holmes exclaimed as he stuck his upper forearm with a needle and rolled his eyes back with the delight of cocaine in his veins.
In a laughing fit, Poe and Holmes disappeared in a purple haze. Summertale ventured over toward the mahogany table. She lifted the plain, white tablecloth and found the intricate pattern of the table foot.
With a whip of the wind, the room started spinning. Summertale started falling and ended up in her desk in her home. Realized that she had been probably dreaming, Summertale started writing her non-fiction piece with Poe’s key, the intricate table foot, in mind.

The Review of Mr. Whicher and Summerscale

The Suspicisons of Mr. Whicher by Summerscale presents an interesting idea to tie together the fictional Victorian detective to a real person, Mr. Whitcher. Summerscale presents a well-put together introduction concerning the attributes of the voyeuristic and mysterious Victorian detective. Summerscale remains slightly sidetracked in her desire to solve the crime and impress the audience with the facts of the Road Hill murder. However, Summerscale effectively communicates and exposes the obsession with the private life in Victorian England with the continued desire of looking into the private in modern day.
In this excerpt, I played on the upside down world in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Mrs. Summertale is modeled after the author of The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale. Summertale needs inspiration for writing her book and ends up falling down a pothole. In the corridor, she enters two rooms marked moral and riddle. By venturing into the room moral, Summertale is revealed to the pride and madness of the Jungle Books by Kipling. The moral of her encounter with the Mongoose and the Tiger is inspiration for writing her non-fiction book based on the Victorian era. In the second room, Darwin’s theory of evolution becomes inspiration for Summertale. Even though there is a third room, Summertale cannot get in because it is locked. She then meets with Poe and Sherlock Holmes. These figures were crucial in investigating fiction of the Victorian Era; they made an impact on the way people viewed fiction. These two figures provide her with inspiration for writing her introduction on the goals of investigating and finding a definition of the Victorian detective; she wants to define the Victorian detective.
In conclusion, as she writes her non-fiction piece, she becomes obsessed with the Victorian Era private life and she exposes all its forced secrets. As she concludes she returns to the table in the middle of the room with the table foot being exposed. She realizes that it is not about defining the Victorian detective but exposing the Victorian private life.