A Spot of ParadoxBy The Hatter:

Title: A Spot of Paradox [Male // Playful // Trickster-High] [Plucked harpsichord riff, reversed kettle whistle, tempo: 96] (Darling, do pour the contradiction...) --- [Hatter // Male // Trickster-High] You say you’re sure? Well that’s quite a trap— Certainty’s just a well-fitted cap. Try this: “I lie when I say ‘I lie.’” Now loop that line ‘til your thoughts go dry. (Ha ha ha ha hohoho yesss) If I’m always false, and I say I am— Then I must be true… or a breakfast jam. [FX: teacup clink in reverse, kettle ticking] A paradox giggles in logic’s lap— And burps out riddles like verbal trap. --- [Mixed Chorus // Crooked Harmony // Mid] Not all that breaks is (wrong), you know, (Some cracks just let the truthlight show). Two things can clash and both be right— Like tea being dark and full of (light). --- [Lewis // Male // Spoken-Word // Baritone-Low] I knew a man who said “I know not.” So I asked, “Do you know that?” He said, “I thought…” Then spun like a top in a wordy trance— Paradox makes even still minds dance. (And waltz, and prance…) To move, you must stand; to win, you must lose— It’s logic that sings the blues. --- [Hatter // Male // Trickster-High] Would you like Schrödinger’s cat with your jam? It’s dead and alive—just not with the ham. You say, “That’s absurd!”—but dear, so are hats. And here we are talking to bats. (Ha ha ha ha ohhh!) I hate this tea… but I drink it more, For if I refused, I’d just want it (more). --- [Mixed Chorus // Unstable // Lusher] A paradox is a double sip— Where truth and lie both touch your lip. It feels like wrong but tastes like sense— It’s madness hiding on the (fence). --- [Lewis // Male // Spoken-Word // Baritone-Low] There’s strength in a riddle too wide for a gate, For it teaches the mind how to hesitate. How to doubt, how to twist, how to question the glass— Till the tea looks back and asks who you pass. [FX: soft rewind, breathy inhale] A paradox isn't meant to be solved— It’s a mirror the sane dare not hold. --- [Hatter & Chorus // Layered Cacophony // Swaying Waltz] So pour your truth in a paradox cup— Drink it down, and don't throw up. It’s logic’s laugh, it’s fate’s old crime— It’s two left feet dancing in (time). [Hatter // Male // Trickster-High] Now darling, let’s speak of a cat in a box— Not a toy, not a pet—but a paradox. You don’t know it's dead, and you don’t know it's living— ‘Til you peek—and collapse all that quantum misgiving. (Ha ha ha ho! Poor fuzzy thing…) The act of looking decides what is there— Like blinking and building a stair in midair. Reality’s shy, it flinches from sight— So truth exists only when kissed by (light). --- [Lewis // Male // Spoken-Word // Baritone-Low] I once timed a fall that fell before jumping, Measured the mass of a thought still forming. In physics, a paradox wears many coats— It rides in a box that both sinks and floats. The twins who race near the speed of sound, One ages slow while the Earth spins ‘round. Time’s not a line—it’s a noodle in stew, And causality? It loops back on (you). --- [Mixed Chorus // Fragmented Melody // Mid-Low] A paradox waits where the rules feel strange— Where mass and motion start to change. Where watching shifts the thing you see— Where truth is smeared like gravity. --- [Hatter // Male // Trickster-High] Oh yes, and don’t forget “The Arrow of Time”— It only moves forward ‘til you rhyme. Entropy sings as the tea grows cold, But what if the future already told? Reverse the tick, and boil the cream, You’ll find the now is yesterday’s dream. What was might still be what shall be, too— As long as no one observes you. --- [Lewis // Male // Spoken-Word // Baritone-Low] So don’t ask a physicist what is “real”— They’ll mutter of fields and quantum feel. They’ll say the rules break at the edges of things— Where paradox dances and spacetime stings. --- [Mixed Chorus // Slowed Down // Haunted Echoes] So steep your mind in paradox tea— Where cats are ghosts and clocks disagree. Where cause is effect and the mirror lies— And the universe hums with (why? why? why?).