D:L&L - Part 12 | Dot: A Taste of Oz

Over the hill, I could see the village in the distance, tucked into a little nook between two hills, like a little cul de sac. Melsha hummed a little song as we walked, and it was all I could do to keep up. She moved through the grass effortlessly, and it wasn’t like it was harder for me as a bigger person. Just...I couldn’t stop staring. Pink and gray trees, little outcroppings of yellowish-brown rock like islands in a sea of grass. There were mountains in the distance, black and foreboding, a little snow on top of the largest, and something about them made me think of Afghanistan. And just to our, well, maybe it was West -- dark clouds seemed to churn in the sky.

We pressed on, and it seemed like the moment I saw those clouds, we’d picked up our pace. Before long, the little river stretched itself to the left and plunged into a dark crevasse in the rock, and I looked up and found myself staring at a tiny little village.

“Welcome to Bright Lettins,” said Melsha, a melancholy smile crossing her face, and then she turned and walked on, her little blue shoes appearing again from the grass and clicking on hard yellow-brown cobblestones.

They should have named this place Vegas. Bright? Definition number three. Intensely coloured in a showy, flashy sort of way. Never did I need sunglasses more than I needed them here, even indoors. Melsha had taken my hand by then, careful to steer me through the crowd of suddenly very still, gaping onlookers. I towered over the lot of them, feeling like Gulliver in whatever tale that was with the tiny people. Munchkins, granny had called them, but could they be real?

The village looked real -- real fantastical, real weird, real in a scary, comical, confusing storybook kind of way. But Melsha felt real, her little fingers wrapping around mine, the pull of her hand as we wound through the slowing population and pierced the gloom of an open doorway into, well, a bar. A saloon? And what a dive, too. Okay, not fair. It may not be a dive to them, but to me, it was the sort of place jackasses back in Kansas would find pretty homey.

The bartender, like all the people I’d seen so far, was short, and for as tall as the bar was, he had to have an elevated floor back there. The man could pop a brew and make a drink at lightning speed, though. I didn’t even have to order, and I didn’t know if he’d respond if I had. I was a giant, a monster, a something maybe they hadn’t seen in fifty years?

I did my best to sit on the little stool next to Melsha. She hadn’t said a word to me otherwise, sidling up to the bar, her little feet dangling.

“What do you recommend?” I eyed the rack of bottles and didn’t recognise a thing.

“Two of your finest, Etch,” said Melsha as if a giant hadn’t just strode into their bar and was trying not to break the furniture. The barkeep wiped the counter, looked up and nodded to someone behind me, reaching into the cooler under the bar.

As he popped the top on a green bottle of something I couldn’t name, I said, “What is it?”

“The best brew in Oz, bottled in Vinkus near the original Snickity’s, just outside the infamous Kiamo Ko. Hence it’s called ‘Snickity’s Best’.” Melsha, again, her voice a little singsong while the barkeep just stared, kept wiping the same spot on the bar.

“Franchise, huh?” I cocked my head and looked at her, then at the bottle. Was it safe to drink? “Sorry, is there more than one? What is it? Snickety? There’s more than one, a chain?” Obviously, they didn’t have McDonald’s here, but who knew? We weren’t in Kansas anymore.

“Yep, this is Snickity’s in Bright Lettina. The original Snickity’s don’t have no location added, because it don’t need one. There are four in Emerald City, plus a few up and down the YBR.” Her twinkling eyes caught mine as she focused back on the conversation.

YBR. I knew that one. From somewhere in my memory, it rose up. “Yellow Brick Road?” The cobblestones -- they’d been sort of yellow, mostly dirty, but…

“Used to be. Now it’s the Yellow Brick Rail, or YBR. Scarecrow built them efficiencies, as such as they were. He made things easier for us, ‘specially for traveling. Such a thing as a train and balloons. We had such balloons, seeing as how there was no more flying monkey business to worry about. And seeing as how that’s how the Wizard got off away to his home.”

And left my great granny standing there with nothing but a pair of Ruby Slippers. No way. No way. No way.

The words had stuck on repeat in my head, even as the barkeep pressed a little bottle of something into my hand. A green bottle, like the ones he’d been handing out to gawkers with coin. Like the one Melsha was holding. I watched her tip back the bottle, and I followed suit. I swallowed and was relieved to find it was definitely not Coors Lite or any of the Dirty 30. It also wasn’t like any alcohol I’d ever tasted. It didn’t burn, but it still seemed to pack a punch. A little hoppy with a tinge of mango or pineapple. I couldn’t tell. But it was good, and as I looked around at how the place was packing them in, dozens of beady little eyes staring at me and drinking, I knew I was gonna need a few more of these.

The bartender finally stopped wiping the counter, and he leaned in, elbows on the old wood, his shirt sleeves rolled up, exposing thick muscles. He squinted through one eye and said, “I’d guess you’re not from around here, are ya, Kid?”

“You guessed right, Mister. I’m not. I sort of dropped in yesterday and thought I’d have a look around. I just met this nice girl by the river, and she asked me to tag along.”

“Not the – ” He stopped and handed off another bottle to a customer; coins jingled in his palm. Then, he picked up his bar towel and wiped furiously at a non-existent spill.

“The what?” I asked as I watched him feverishly try to rub a hole in the bar top. He looked so familiar. I couldn’t get the image of Old Mr. Hartley out of my head. Old Mr. Hartley looked like one of the Mario Brothers from this game my cousin used to play. We used to call him Uncle Luigi because of it. I wonder if this guy’s name was Luigi?

“Nothing. Nothing. Really, it’s nothing.” He shook his head so hard, I thought his brain might rattle loose.

I watched him for a few minutes as he served other customers, his hands trembling as he poured drams from various bottles. Finally, he stopped, took a breath, and leaned over the counter.

“That dog? Is it with you, too?” He whispered quietly.

I laughed and leaned over the counter toward him. My eyes held his, and within an inch or two of his nose, I whispered, “No, Mister. The dog is dead.”

He cleared his throat, regained his composure, and locked his eyes with mine again. “Barkey. Barkey’s the name they gave me. Guess what that stands for.”

“Oh, gee, I couldn’t guess,” I said and wondered -- had she come through here, this town? I couldn’t even picture it. My great-grandmother in her little cotton dress and Toto, that little rat terrier, or whatever he was. He must have terrified all these little people. Clearly made a mark, I thought, as I watched Barkey sell a few more beers, wipe up some spills, his eyes drifting back to me every few seconds.

“Are you…?” 

He couldn’t get the question out, but I knew what the rest of it was, and I’d just stared to nod my head, to think about how I was going to explain that yes, maybe yes, probably yes, somehow my great-grandmother had stumbled into this world, and somehow so had I, but before he could finish or I could reply, his eyes went wide and his voice trailed away as he looked up at the door behind me.