This word I like... We architect our life...
A song, a sigh... developing words that linger...
Through fields of green, through open eyes... It's for us to see.
Interanimate: To animate or inspire mutually

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The Dais - Part 4 of 7

Dedicated to William Henry Anderson 1920-2012
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After an unmeasurable length of time, Dorothy opened her eyes and noticed a nest of reddish hair covering her shoes. Raising her vision slightly she watched as Toto was lifting a hind leg on one of two thick glistening silver-golden posts. After rubbing her eyes, her cleared vision revealed that each post was not part of the structure of the dais upon which she was standing. The bottom of each post ended in a shoe made of the some metallic material. At the other end of the posts were bulbous metallic joints that exhibited the color of common tin. Both joints were slightly shaking and attached to a common torso that supported shaking tin arms and the oddly shaped head of Dorothy's third man-friend. He was, in fact, entirely made of tin except for his tin colored fleshy face. Tin Man, as she had nicknamed him shortly after meeting him three days past, held his ever-present axe high in one hand and was making half-hearted chopping motions downward in the general direction of Toto. It was obvious Tin was only trying to scare Toto away from his current activity, not trying to hurt him. Tin was also sobbing. Tears trickled down his tin chest. To say that Tin was an odd duck would be like saying Miss Gulch was beautiful in her own way. Miss Gulch, she remembered, was a very mean spirited lady from her dream. Tin was a very emotional and intelligent person, so to speak. When she first met him he told her how it was that he became made of tin. The story bordered on gruesome. Apparently he was once made of normal flesh and blood and he very much in love with a Munchin girl who promised to marry him if only he could build her a nice house. Well, in his furious wood chopping to do just that, he accidentally cut off his left leg. He had a tinsmith make him a new tin leg. After a spell, he resumed his chopping wood for the house only to accidentally chop off his right leg, again to be replaced by the tinsmith. This went on involving both his arms and his torso. Each time the tinsmith was able to provide new parts, except for a heart. Tin liked to say now that, "No one can love who has not a heart". That's why he was here now, to get a new heart so he could resume his love for his fiancee and finish her new house.

Dorothy had real doubts about both the story and Tin Man’s plans but did not dare ask more questions. The sight of his axe always kept her away from sensitive subjects. She also realized that Tin Man's face bore a striking resemblance to Hick, one of the men in her haunting dream. She quickly focused her attention on getting Toto to stop what he was doing in order to prevent the axe from becoming intimately involved in yet another horrible story. At the top of her lungs she barked, "Toto! Stop!". She realized that this was a familiar scene and reaction from her in the past three days. It was one of the few times she ever yelled at Toto, her best friend and companion. And she always felt terrible as soon as the words left her mouth. Some justification for her harsh words always arrived in that her command always had the intended result. Toto, in sudden shock at the verbal outburst from his master, whimpered and jumped off the dais onto the courtyard below. A crisis had been averted. Tin Man immediately calmed, put down his axe and cast her a big shiny faced smile of appreciation.

Off to Dorothy's left side, Scarecrow suddenly quipped, "All the same, I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one." Dorothy remembered that his words were a continuation of a conversation Scarecrow and Tin Man had been having since they met each other. Tin Man quickly replied, "I shall take the heart; for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world." Those two argue way too much, Dorothy thought, but they are both good friends. Dorothy's mind became engulfed in another thought that started her careening into the darkness. She thought, "Toto has left the dais and jumped into the courtyard below, which I cannot fully see. I've lost him." But this time was different, Dorothy did not swoon. She felt compelled to focus on the courtyard below to look for Toto.

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