Illustrated Short Story: Dorothy & the Tin Man
The magazines sink the trunk into the carpet. For years I’ve said I’ll go through them all and throw out most, but I’ve kept them as much as a hoarder keeps cereal boxes, and I have not gone through any of them ’til now. ’Til now, compulsively I flip every page, lingering over advertisements to make sure there’s not something I might use, something that might strike the match of my imagination. I’m like a detective in that way, browsing evidence of what was in the name of what might be. On Dorothy, I stare the longest. The scene is this: Keira Knightly falls for the apple, her knees deep in grass. She is both Dorothy and Eve, opening the door between worlds, paradise and earth, earth and Oz. With one hand stretched, her eyes rise to the Tin Man, to the ax raised above her head. Have her joints stiffened? Or, is she merely imitating him? Perhaps, empathy is a demonstration. Perhaps, the proof is in the pain. I understand your sadness because I’m sad too. See how I can’t move.
An actress, a man who feels heartless but isn’t, an oil can unused, and those iconic slippers which — here — don’t even glitter. They look like velvet, soft as a Christmas stocking. Maybe as magical, but certainly not as glittery as Glinda’s smile. Would the renovated slippers still take Dorothy home? It seems so much gets lost in the whirlwind between there and here. The adaptation from book…
