D:L&L - Part 11 | Tin Man: Color & Blur & Whirling Lull

Inside the pavilion is color and blur and whirling lull, the shouting and cajoling of Munchkin glee. I walk in with Jumbly, who moves to a table as if prescribed, sits and taps the table twice, motioning for a Munchkin who swifts to his chair, eyebrows up.

“Sir?”

I stare at the little man, all broad face and wide eyes.

“Desdmon juice,” I say, not knowing why.

Jumbly nods and waves his stubby fingers.

I lower myself into the chair, look around. This place is outside what I know, bright light and movement, laughter and love. A tiny Munchkin woman touches the face of the soldier beside her, her skirt hitching up her thighs. Behind the bar, a mirror reflects the dark expanse of mountains leading toward Kiamo Ko beyond, and I turn to Jumbly, who has tossed back a tiny glass of something and is considering another.

All around us, red bands on arms, shushed secrets, lowered voices as my presence is spread. “Jumbly,” I say, watching the eyes of the Munchkins at the bar.

“A moment, sir,” Jumbly smiles, tossing back another shot.

“Jumbly,” I say again, as a tall man crosses the dance floor toward us. Someone from Emerald City? And then I recognize him. Even after all these years, who wouldn’t?

The dancing Munchkins part, allowing his massive form space. He’s my size. Bigger, Broader. A full, curling mustache and bright eyes, ruddy cheeks, and a blinding grin. Snickity pulls the third chair from our table, sits, raises a hand. He looks just like his twins, triplets they are, maybe more; same name, same face -- odd people. The tiny elf who brought our drinks appears with three tiny tumblers of liquid clear and sparkling as rain falling from clouds.

“Snickity,” Jumbly grins, taking a deep draught and wiping his mouth. The beer glistens on his whiskers.

“Aye,” says the man, his eyes full of me.

Two Munchkin whores approach the table, all red rouged and high. Their eyes, wide yellow-lit, fall on my shining thighs, my gleaming neck. “Your highness,” they giggle, tittering into each other, all sighs. Their fingertips trail lightly across the tin barrel that is my chest, but I feel nothing. They weigh nothing. It’s as if they didn’t exist, just phantoms reeking of cheap perfume and sex. Snickity snaps fingers, and they disappear. I watch the flexing muscles of his wrist, the flashing shine of his smile.

“I won’t waste your time,” I say. Unlike the rest, I cannot be distracted by booze or light or whores. I’m beyond the pleasures that Snickity has so aptly tapped into, his role in OZ ringing to a new truth. “Jumbly said you know something.”

Snickity tosses back a tumbler of clear liquor and wipes his mouth with his hand. The sneer that smears his face would make my heart, if it beat, stutter to a stop. “My dear Emperor,” he leans forward, elbows on knees, “I know nothing but what I’ve heard.”

Jumbly belches lightly, snaps his fingers. A Munchkin woman approaches, fills his glass with the clear clean liquor and kisses his mouth. When she’s gone, he lifts a small red purse from his jacket. It jingles as it hits the table in front of the big man we’ve come to meet. A transaction aptly met. Nothing my axe couldn’t have handled back in the day.

“What you’ve heard,” I repeat, and inside it starts to beat, to beat, to beat like wheat inside of me, wheat bowed beat down by wind, by beat by beat by beat by beat

“She’s here, sir,” Snickity says, winking at Jumbly and together they tap the tiny clear glasses against the table, wink and sip and snick at one another, glancing about. “The storm. A house. It’s on the wire everywhere. A house from the sky. They’ve seen it.”

“She’s here,” I repeat.

It beats it beats it beats it beats it beats it beats

Snickity swipes his mouth again, his words slurring. He eyes the purse, weighing it in his mind. I nod to Jumbly, and he produced a second red purse, twin to the first. It thuds on the thick wood next to its twin.

Snickity’s sneer slithers away, hidden under mustaches and teeth. “Yeah, she’s here. Someone saw a house. Do you remember her? Dorothy?” He grins and slides the purses from the table. “Remember what happened to She Who Must Not Be Named? A someone from long ago came and ended her kind. A memory. A legend. Perhaps a lie.” A Munchikin whore settles into Snickity’s lap, laying kisses on his neck. He licks her lips, then settles his eyes back on me. “A lie or a truth. A legend. A fable. The tall tales a mother tells her littles to scare them back to bed — the Wicked Witch will come for you, my darlings. She eats you up iffn you’re not back in bed this instant!” He laughs and pushes the whore from his lap. She lands in a blushing puddle at his feet and crawls away.

“How do you know?” I whisper.

Snickty leans back, full of knowledge, holding court to the once King of the Vinkus. He downs the Desdmon juice and sets his cup on the table. “More than a rumor. Rumblings on the wire. Bright Lettins aglow with news lately. A storm brewing, strange clouds. Monkeys on the wind. A thing falling from the sky. A house.”

beat beat beat stop

Jumbly sputters, his eyes to my face. “Sir, can we believe it?”

“I can’t imagine.” I stare past and through him as bright colors swirl before my eyes. Days of…I won’t look at them. Days past. Days that were days ago, gone forever. My eyes linger on the window, the purple Vinkus mountains against the black sky, shielding the hidden fortress of Kiamo Ko, where so many memories lay huddled like shivering sheep against a fence, shuddering in the face of such gleaming white wolf teeth. She was there. We were there. And we murdered her. Murder most foul.

My first. Twas so long ago.

“Can she be back? Is she even real? How many years ago, so long ago, so far away that no one can remember.” Snickety’s eyes trail across the room, taking in the sight or looking into past. Certainly he wasn’t alive then.

But I remember.

“What does it mean?” Jumbly asks. His hands are busy beneath the table. When I lean over I see he is stroking the cheek of the whore dumped from Snickity’s lap.

“Who can say? A lie, says I. Another tale floating the wires, like the return of the monkeys. Leave me be all these fool tales. And yet…”

A very drunk Munchkin approaches the table, a mug of green something sloshing in his hand. “Delsory,” he says, peering under our table. “Delsory, get up here.” Jumbly glares at the Munchkin, who has a name stitched on the pocket of his work uniform: Larry. “Move along, there, Larry. She’s busy.” Larry slams his mug onto the table, splashing Snickity with the green, frothy beer. Snickity jumps up, swiping at his shirt with both hands. “Fuck, man! This shirt is hand-sewn!”

I scoot my chair back and stand. We’re done.

Snickity, temporarily distracted from his Munchkin prey, glances at me. His eyes flash and clear, for a heartbeat, as he takes in my full form, towering and bright as a skyscraper in his former world. “And will you go, Majesty?” he says, and his voice thickens. “Will you go see for yourself? They wonder. Where have you been? What does this mean? Bad omen. Or good?” He motions about, and for the first time, I see the eyes, the glances. The little people scurry to and fro, their furtive glances never lingering. Am I ghost to them? A memory? A folktale? How long did I sit in my steel trap?

“Many strange things lately, Majesty.” Jumbly stands next to me, the girl nowhere to be found.

beat beat beat… stop

Because I cannot stop I chop. I chop I chop I chop my steps back, back against the canvas wall that gives behind me and opens into the black night, purple mountains blazing afire against the sky. The screaming din inside Snickity’s pavilion spirals to a frenzied pitch, and I hear wild laughter.

Turning, I creak into a run, eyes on the sky, tripping my way toward the shadow that is the Great Kells, the black divide that hides that horrible place from so long ago.