Unlike most literary magazines, we don’t hate Chat-GPT. Like a hammer, or a knife, or a splitting atom, it’s a tool, used by others for both good and evil. While we don’t accept AI written submissions, we do find it fun to ask it to do silly things like “Write Alice in Wonderland in the style of Charles Bukowski.” And so we did, and this is what it wrote.

Alice in Wonderland by Charles Bukowski (According to AI)

In the dimly lit back alleys of a city that never seemed to sleep, there lived a woman named Alice. She was no stranger to the madness that echoed through the narrow streets, a chaos that mirrored the disarray within her own mind. Alice, with her disheveled hair and weary eyes, stumbled into a world not of rabbit holes and whimsical tea parties, but of late-night bars and smoky dens.

One night, after drowning her sorrows in the bitter liquid courage of a bottle, Alice found herself chasing a white rabbit through the labyrinth of shadowy alleyways. The rabbit, more like a ghostly apparition, led her into a maze of neon lights and dilapidated buildings, each one concealing its own peculiar inhabitants.

As Alice meandered through this distorted reality, she encountered a hookah-smoking caterpillar perched on a garbage can, puffing clouds of despair into the night air. The Cheshire Cat, a spectral feline with a cynical grin, lounged on a crumbling brick wall, its eyes reflecting the disillusionment of the city.

A mad hatter, fueled by the intoxication of a different kind, invited Alice to a raucous tea party in a dimly lit bar, where eccentric characters swayed to the jazz rhythms that permeated the air. The March Hare, with a cigarette dangling from his lips, spoke in riddles that seemed to mock the absurdity of existence.

In this urban Wonderland, Alice encountered a flamboyant Queen of Hearts who ruled over a decrepit nightclub, her subjects dancing to the beat of their own delusions. Off with their heads, she decreed, as the patrons lost themselves in a frenzied dance of desperation.

Amidst the chaos, Alice found herself in a courtroom, where a tired White Rabbit accused her of crimes against conformity. The verdict? Guilty, for daring to question the monotony of life in the city.

In the end, as dawn approached, Alice stumbled out of the warped Wonderland and into the harsh reality of the city streets. The remnants of her bizarre journey lingered like a hangover, a surreal haze in the early morning light.

And so, with a heavy heart and a head full of distorted memories, Alice retreated into the shadows, forever haunted by the ghostly echoes of a Wonderland that existed only in the fractured reflections of the city's gritty mirrors.

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