Off To See The Wizard (Part 3 of 3)
Lit Fic, now in Technicolor
Part 1 Part 2
We open on a title card. “The Wizard of Oz” in a handwritten typeface. It slides over and then away from a cloudy, corrugated sky.
A bright pink, plastic house twirls through it, buffeted by a handspun cyclone. Dorothy nearly tumbles to her death from a third story window. She is saved at the last moment when her leg snags between the balusters of a balcony, though it snaps at an unnatural angle that should cripple her for life. Toto is lost forever. Dorothy is ecstatic about all of this, her smile is painted on.
Smash cut to: Exterior - Munchkinland.
Dorothy and Toto emerge from their home to find it has crashed in a strange, colorful world. A village of thin, flat houses with roofs like acorn caps crowd a road paved with wonky yellow bricks.
"Toto...I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Dorothy wanders the area, pounding a cold one as she takes in massive alien flowers looming overhead. We see the silhouette of a small person watching her in the shadows of the foreground. A stream of bubbles floats into frame as the right half of a stout woman in a frilly pink polyester gown glides in with them. Glinda the Good taps Dorothy on the nose with a star-topped wand. “Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?” Her voice is strained, pitched forcefully to its highest register.
Dorothy winks and wiggles a can of beer in her face. “Depends on how many of these I’ve had.” A tinny laugh is heard offscreen.
Glinda peers at the foreground where the silhouette had been.
“The Munchkins told me that a witch dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East.”
She points to Dorothy’s pink house, where a pair of black and white striped socks are sticking out from underneath. A pair of ruby red stilettos sparkle on their feet.
“So what they want to know is, are you a good witch, or a bad witch?”
Dorothy scoffs. Her hands seductively outline her narrow hips. “Witches are fat and ugly. Do I look like a witch to you?”
Glinda launches her wand across town. It lands so that a button in the handle triggers. A glitchy piano glissando rings out. “I’m not that fucking fat!” A lion’s whimper whispers on the wind.
A passing scarecrow presses a hand to her chest. “Whoa, Pat, cool it.”
“I’m not that fat, man.” Glinda’s voice has dropped to a growl two octaves deeper.
“We know. She’s kidding around. C’mon, let’s keep going. For Terry.”
Glinda finishes pounding a cold one, pushes the scarecrow back on his way down the yellow brick road. “Get out here, Munchkins.” She crushes the empty beer can in Dorothy’s face and lets loose a belch to wake the heavens.
A small person bursts out of a shadow flapping the hem of a Day-Glo blue rain slicker. They deliver a hearty greeting then leap to and fro, putting on different voices and mannerisms until a whole population’s worth have said hello. A parade starts up with Dorothy as its grand marshal. The Munchkins join in song to celebrate their ravenous appetite for witch murder. Various civic bigwigs and local union reps take turns offering effusive, musical thanks to Dorothy for dropping a house on a pair of socks.
A shriek calls everyone’s attention to the left half of a stout green witch hunched inside a black trench coat. The Wicked Witch of the West bursts into cartoonish weeping.
“Who killed my sister?!” She screams as if ripped from a totally different movie.
Dorothy dabs Toto under her eyes, faking a tremble. “I swear, it was an accident…” She cocks her hip, trades the tremble for an attitude. “But she deserved it for those tacky socks.”
The Wicked Witch stomps and swears she’ll kill pretty Dorothy for this, and that she isn’t above killing her little dog too. A passing man made of tin reminds her that it’s too soon. “Say you can cause accidents first.”
“Shit,” says the Wicked Witch. “Yeah, what Cami said.”
Glinda swishes her hand magically, if a bit exasperated. “Uh, aren’t you forgetting the ruby slippers?”
A Munchkin dashes to the dreamhouse murder weapon and snatches the ruby red stilettos. They wind their way to Dorothy, bobbing the shoes up and down in parabolic arcs. The shoes pass right in front of the Wicked Witch, she could easily grab them but doesn’t. Dorothy struggles to put them on, nearly toppling when the left heel punctures straight through the yellow brick road.
“I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!” The Wicked Witch cackles hard then gags and retches, sick from pounding too many cold ones. She pulls a handful of little cigarette paper balls from a pocket. Throws them to the ground, where they pop deafening salutes. Under cover of confusion, she disappears and Glinda takes her place.
“If you want to get home to Kansas, just follow the Yellow Brick Road all the way to the Emerald City. There you’ll find the great and wonderful Wizard of Oz. He’ll be able to help you!”
Dorothy traces her eyes along the road, watches how it stretches over hill and dale in the distance, extending far out to the horizon. “Okay, well…can I get, like, a map or something?”
Glinda and the Munchkins repeat the instruction to follow the Yellow Brick Road.
“How far do I follow it?” Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
“Is it a straight path the whole time?” Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
“Or is there a crossroads at some point?” Follow the Yellow Brick Road.
She gives up on asking and decides to trust the process, deciding too that this is a perfect chance to pound another cold one. Glinda and the Munchkins wave goodbye, slipping into a new, discordant tune extolling the virtues of the Wizard of Oz.
Dissolve to: Exterior - Cornfield
Dorothy and Toto come upon a crossroads after following the straight path far from Munchkinland.
“Oh, Toto, now which way do we go?”
To the side of the road lies a cornfield. Stood in the middle of it, a familiar scarecrow pounds a cold one surrounded by motionless crows undeterred by the effigy meant to intimidate them. “Hey, honey! You got any spare change?”
Dorothy hops off the ground, frightened by the interruption, and nearly rolls an ankle landing on those three-inch heels. “Who said that?” She lifts Toto to her ear, murmurs psspsspss. “Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.”
The scarecrow repeats his request for Dorothy's spare change, but she rolls her eyes, remembering they don't abide bums in her neck of Kansas.
“How about you get a real job?”
Scarecrow's scrotal face scrunches at the brows, eyes darting around searching for a thought he was sure he had a grasp on seconds ago. An uncomfortable quiet presses down a lively background score, forcing open a space to amplify nervous sipping.
"Line?" asks the Scarecrow.
Dorothy climbs over a cardboard fence and draws closer to the straw man. "I said get a real job.” She leans in with a breathy whisper. "Loser."
Scarecrow clenches his cold one until the aluminum buckles. Sudsy, golden dribbles plop to the ground and coat the land of Oz with an odor of wet carpet and stale bread. "Knock it off."
Dorothy drops Toto to the bricks, head first into brain damage, so that she can clutch pearls against her chest. "I'm just joking, baby."
“Stick to the script.”
“I’m having fun with it, lighten up!”
Scarecrow squares up to Dorothy, though he stands a few inches short of her eyes. His fists are balled and trembling.
“I know exactly what you’re doing. And I know what you’ve been doing.”
His words and their weighty secrets slap Dorothy’s cheeks smacked-ass red. She and Scarecrow maintain tense eye contact for ages. Her face warps through a cycle of emotions, shocked then fearful then angry then landing on sinister glee.
"You're a failure, because you haven't got a brain."
"The fuck, Harper?"
She arcs sensuously to pick up Toto and strides away from Scarecrow, putting a distance between them she dares him to cross. "That's your next line. Better get it together, Marky. For Terry."
The remainder of the scene plays out unceremoniously. Affect-less, perfunctory line readings delivered by stock-still bodies, reminiscent of a kindergarten play. Scarecrow explains he's saving money for a brain. Dorothy mutters that she's off to see a wizard who can help, offers him an invitation that sounds like reluctant pity for a friend nobody wants to hang out with but won't cut loose.
Then a funky refrain pulses through the air. Scarecrow perks up, quickly getting lost in a bassline. His toes start tapping, his hips starting swinging. Oz and its present discomforts fall away. There is only a dancing Scarecrow and his song about easing on down the road. His boogie around the yellow bricks is near skillful enough to make a career of it. Same for his singing voice. The melody is a touch out of his range, but otherwise his performance makes compelling argument that he needs an agent more than he needs a brain.
When it is finished, amidst a patter of ghostly applause that swells and disappears, Scarecrow descends from his funkadelic fugue into Oz and Dorothy’s lukewarm gaze.
She saunters past him, upstage, to make her way to the next scene. “Whatever. Let’s go, I guess.”
He stomps in the opposite direction, growling while he goes. A woody slam soon follows, and he shrinks into the background, blurring out of focus. He runs burlap hands through straw hair and then holds them over his eyes as rain pelts down on him.
Cut to: Exterior - A Strange Orchard
Dorothy and Toto tiptoe between lines of strange trees. One of them has a face carved into its bark identical to a Munchkin's, and from its branch hangs a basket of apples. Hammered and hungry, Dorothy tears through it, gnashing and gnawing like a pack of drunken beasts decimating diner plates after a last call.
The tree comes alive, swinging at the pig-tailed apple thief. "What the hell are you doing?"
Dorothy squeaks and sends Toto flying back into the previous scene. "We've been walking a long ways and I was hungry–"
"And you thought that meant you could rip parts off of me and eat them?!"
Any apology Dorothy attempts falls on deaf branches. The tree grips an apple in its limb and winds up for a pitch. "Suck apples, bitch!"
A cascade of apples shoots at Dorothy's body. Most harmlessly land in grass, but a few hit their mark hard enough to welt.
"Ow! Lexi, stop! Lex–Jesus, that almost hit my face! Enough!"
Cackling as it turns an empty basket upside down, the tree decides its message has been sent and wanders out of frame.
A faint creaking pulls Dorothy deeper into the woods, where she finds a dingy metal man struggling to move or even speak. "Why, it's a man! A man made out of tin!"
"Owl kin…"
"Did you say something?"
"Ale clam…"
Scarecrow rejoins the foreground just in time to translate. "He's saying oil can."
"Oh! Well, let me find it!" Dorothy crawls around on the ground until she finds a fresh cold one nestled in a patch of grass nearby. She pops it and wafts the hissing can beneath Tin Man's nose. "Where do you want it, big boy?"
Tin Man manages a stiff wink. "Right in my mouth, baby."
Dorothy guides a stream of social lubricant down Tin Man's throat. He moans, subtle at first, but it grows to full-volume porno grunting. Then they moan in tandem, each trying to one-up the other in intensity, teasing and tickling each other's bodies. Scarecrow throws up incredulous hands, mutters curses to himself. Tin Man notices someone else out of sight who disapproves of their obscene spectacle. "What's that look?"
"Are you kidding? You’re…being gross.”
“Don’t be silly, babe. Haven’t you seen the movie? It’s totally like that.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“For real, he moans and shit. It’s crazy.” Tin Man takes a step towards the voice in the darkness, seeing this might be a talk meant for a more intimate range.
Dorothy cuts in to center the conversation on her since too much time has passed without pulled focus. “Really! It’s, like, so sexually charged out of nowhere.” The voice makes no indication it accepts this excuse, so Dorothy drops any pretense of sympathy. "We totally didn't mean anything by it, Hu."
“My name. Is Hua. Can we get on with this?”
Dorothy snarls like a tiger and swipes a claw. “Testy, testy!”
She and Tin Man hastily work out that he’s missing a heart, a trip to the wizard is the thing to fix it. They link arms and stride away with weightless steps buoyed by their excitement. Dorothy bows an arm for Scarecrow, urging him to join in, but he only trudges behind funklessly reminding them to ease on down the road.
Before they can get too far, the Wicked Witch appears atop a pink, plastic dreamhouse with a foundation free of slaughtered witches. “Forgotten about me, eh? Well, I haven’t forgotten about you!”
All three heroes shriek and stumble, though they don't so much fall as gently lay themselves to the ground.
“Helping the little lady along, are you, my fine gentlemen? Well, stay away from her!” The witch produces hairspray and a lighter from a pocket, a development which appears to surprise not just the characters, but the actors themselves.
“Patsy, be careful.” Dorothy covers her eyes, leaving slivers of space to peer through.
A jet of fire surges toward the trio, lapping too close to Scarecrow’s straw for anyone’s liking. Their panicked warnings fail to pierce through a frenzy of boozed-up, witchy crowing.
The face tree knocks the lighter from her hands. “Are you stupid, dude?”
The witch is doubled over, gut busted by prospects of burning everyone to a crisp and delivering her most convincing performance of the film so far. Her laughter continues even as the face tree pushes her off camera to inquire what her fucking malfunction is.
Dorothy turns to her cohorts, forehead covered in sweat. “Okay… Moving on.”
Dissolve to: Exterior - Dark and Creepy Forest
"I don't like this forest! It's dark and creepy!"
Dorothy, Scarecrow, and the Tin Man sneak beneath shadows cast from gnarled trees backlit by a dim fluorescent sun. A Munchkin hidden somewhere in the undergrowth alternates between various beastly impressions aspiring to set hairs on end.
Dorothy's hammy shaking has her heels flirting with the idea of snapping her ankles in half. “Do you suppose we’ll meet any wild animals?”
Tin Man’s legs are wobbling wildly, close to popping out completely. “Could be.”
“Like what?”
“Lions, and tigers, and bears.”
“Oh, my!”
In unison, they repeat the names of each potential predator then exclaim surprise. Over and over they do this, more jaunty and sing-song than befits a fear of being ripped to shreds by some of nature’s most perfect killers. And then suddenly, such a killer appears. Rather, the trio strikes poses on cue expecting one to appear. Nothing happens. The Munchkin's animal noises cease, and the spooky forest settles to awkward repose.
Tin Man wafts a hand at something hidden far back in the trees. “You’re up, babe.”
A meek lion shuffles out from its hiding spot, chewing on its lower lip, put off by its own audacity to exist in a space. Dorothy offers it gestures of encouragement to do something, then intense gestures of frustration to get it to do anything. The lion scrapes meager paws at the air, bellows a roar even kittens would mock as an embarrassment to Felidae everywhere. Dorothy and Scarecrow try to stifle laughter while Tin Man hides his face in his palm.
The trio shuffles on the balls of their feet waiting for the plot to be moved along, each staring at the lion with raised eyebrows crying any time now, please.
"Um… Now what do I do?"
Scarecrow scoffs. "Say a line from the movie."
"I don't know any. I told you I've only seen it once."
This implication that the movie will drag on even longer breaks Scarecrow's last straw. His fibrous muscles twitch, coil to explode over the hold-up, but Tin Man slides between him and the lion before he can prove scaring birds is a job he's well suited for. "Pretend like you want to fight us, babe. Like you're the biggest and baddest around."
"Okay, um… Do you– Uh, you want a piece of me?"
Tin Man lifts his fists like a turn-of-the-century boxer, urges the lion to do the same. "Call us names and stuff."
The lion circles his fists one over the other. "You guys are, uh–"
Dorothy pounces on this verbal tic with a snide imitation. "UH."
"–a bunch of, um–"
"UM."
Tears well in the corners of the lion's eyes. His voice becomes a wheeze, barely audible. "You guys are…are…"
"ARE-ARE-ARE." Dorothy barks like a seal, clapping her hands. Tin Man chokes down a giggle.
"I can't do this." The lion backs toward the edge of frame, watery eyes locked on Dorothy. Eyes like a gazelle watching the prowling of a real lion. "I didn't want to do this."
Tin Man starts to follow the Cowardly Lion out of shot, but Dorothy interrupts. "My, what a cowardly lion you are. What a pathetic king of the jungle. Maybe the wizard can help you grow a pair. But I doubt it."
"Harper." That's all the admonishment Tin Man can muster in defense of Cowardly Lion.
“I’m getting bored, Cami. Let’s skip to the wizard.”
Dorothy, Scarecrow, and Tin Man continue down the road, leaving Cowardly Lion sniffling in the darkness.
Fast Forward to: Interior - The Wizard’s Chamber
A figure in black finishes tidying the chamber in anticipation of visitors by rolling up the Yellow Brick Road and placing it in a corner. The colorful environs of Oz have disappeared, replaced with tall green pillars. Our four protagonists huddle around a console projecting a static image of a human male’s head into the air. The figure in black shuffles to the console and presses a button on its screen. It broadcasts thready speech out of pin-sized speakers, far quieter than the gravitas of the words suggests.
“I am Oz, the Great and Powerful!”
Dorothy’s entourage feigns fear to varying degrees, though Cowardly Lion’s act is decidedly more method than the rest. Dorothy herself, annoyed rather than scared, challenges the head.
“I am Dorothy, the Hot and Over It.”
“Silence!”
The figure in black taps console buttons, to create a wall of grating sounds. Sirens and screams and thunder and gunfire overlapping each other to ear-aching effect.
“The Great and Powerful Oz knows why you have come.”
One by one, the wizard excoriates the party for daring to arrive on his doorstep with wishes. But before Dorothy can scold him in return for treating her friends poorly, he agrees to aid them anyway.
“The Witch of the West. Bring me her broomstick, and I’ll grant your requests. Now go!”
His order is followed by a second noise wall longer and more irritating than the first. Both half-witches appear in the foreground. They have been waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and supplement the wizard’s terrifying presence through the magic of pyrotechnics. Dorothy shakes her head at them, imploring them not to do it. But for once, both sides of good and evil are united, in lust for the awesome power of fire.
A bloom of hairspray ignites as it flies at everyone. Cowardly Lion stands too close, and the fireball engulfs a patch of his flammable fur.
As its residents panic to stop the blaze, the wondrous world of Oz crumbles away, transforming back into the living room of a ranch-style home outside of Bloomington, Indiana.
Hua flailed and screeched, too overcome by the awful novelty of burning alive to remember the cardinal civilian strategy for fire-fighting.
Pat tossed away his jerry-rigged pyro effect. “Oh shit! My bad, my bad!”
Harper tried to draw in closer, to push Hua down and get her rolling, but caught an errant elbow to the nose. Bloodied and staggered, she couldn’t balance on those high heels any longer and twisted an ankle collapsing to the ground. Her leg kicked out on reflex and sent one of the pumps rocketing at Mark’s face.
It spun perfectly, stabbed him square in the eye with the point of its heel. Mark wailed, clutched his face, and tripped over his own feet as he stumbled backwards. A fruitless grasp for the hi-fi system brought the whole cabinet plunging down on top of him, timed with the cosmic joke of a record scratch.
Cami sprinted to the kitchen and threw open every cabinet since, even when it matters most, other people’s glasses are always in the last one you check.
Pat tried to pull Hua’s burning rug-poncho off her body and didn’t try hard enough to keep from peeling her shirt off too. Fabrics tangled underneath her chin, unable to pass around it. For a few frantic moments, Pat held a growing fire over her head as his crotch bounced against her bare, thrashing waist. Fearing an erection more than flaming death, Hua slammed a knee into his genitals, and another for good measure.
Cami ran into the living room carrying an impotent amount of water good for little more than a brief sputtering when she threw it at Hua.
Lex had frozen at Terry’s feet as soon as the fire caught. They were only able to shake the frost off once some of Cami’s water splashed against their cheek, but when they did finally come to, they worked fast to snatch the blanket off of Terry and smother Hua until the fire was out.
Cami bowled Lex over with her fridge box body clambering to check on Hua. “¡Ay, dios! Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Hua roared, balling up what was left of the poncho and launching it at a wall. “I’m fucking done!”
“With what?” Cami slipped a hand into hers, but Hua ripped it away.
“With you!”
“What are you saying?”
Hua clutched at Cami’s skull. “Oh my god, listen to me for once! You. And me. Are done!”
“Don’t be—“
Hua scrunched her nose, lifted her lip to sneer, nasally mimicked Cami. “Don’t be silly, babe! Don’t be silly, babe!” She passed Cami’s head away like a basketball. “You know what’s silly? The social pages that are going to follow you for the rest of your life, because I’ll die before you ever waste another woman’s time!”
She turned her rage on Harper, who was crying and leaning her head back on the La-Z-Boy to stop a nosebleed. “Oh, did I hurt your widdle face, Harpy-Warpy? Did I bweak your widdle nose, Har-Har? Bet you’ve got your plastic surgeon as an emergency contact. You’ll have a faker face in no time!”
Mark groaned, scrambled to yank himself out from under the hi-fi. He was not safe from Hua either.
“Hey, Mark! How you doing, Mark? That looked painful. Jeeze, I wish I knew what to say to make you feel better. I’ve got an idea!” She pulled her phone out of a pocket. “Hey Siri, what’s the best cure for a go-nowhere baseball career and a girlfriend who’d rather turn a lesbian than fuck you?”
I don’t know the answer, Siri replied.
Hua crouched to meet Pat’s eye line. He squirmed on his knees, clasping his crotch. “I can’t wait to be a character witness at your inevitable sexual assault trial. I’m going to have a hell of a testimony.”
“And you!” She wanted to hurl digs at Lex, but they hadn’t spoken to each other all day. “I don’t know you, but I’m sure you suck too!”
“Ooo-kay! I think that’s everyone.” Terry rose from the couch. He rubbed at dry eyes and stretched stiff limbs.
“Terry?” Cami couldn’t believe it. “But we didn’t finish the movie?”
Terry hung his head, couldn’t stand to look at any of them. “I don’t think I need it anymore. Turns out I’m way less scared of twisters than I am of spending another second with you people.”
He pulled out his wallet, slipped a twenty into Hua’s hands. “This is for a ride back to town, on me. I’m sorry you got roped into this.”
Hua said nothing, only gathered her things and left the house to wait for a car at the curb. By then, the storm had passed, had soaked dry dirt and kicked up earthy smells of fertile soil for new life to take purchase in. As she waited, she made glances back through the wide front window. Terry seemed to be letting everyone else have it. A part of her wanted to go back inside to watch the show. Not a big part, though.
At three minutes until her driver’s arrival, the front door opened and Lex walked out of it. They had changed back into a beat-up band tee and sagging jeans, fussed with a backwards flat-bill cap covering their buzzed hair. Hua hoped they’d keep their distance, but leave it to this group to plow over a boundary.
“Hey.” Lex puffed on their vape pen.
“Hey.”
“That was awesome.”
A plane passed high overhead, drowned the night in engine howl. As it died down, Hua felt her adrenaline wane. “I guess Terry is finished with you?”
Lex angled away and coughed up a cloud. “Yeah, got off light. I know this won’t mean much to you, but I’m not as bad as them.”
“Mhm.”
“I’m mean to myself.”
No plane to hide a strained silence then. Hua had to sit in it, feel pity well up in her gut. She allowed herself one last peek at the front window. Everyone inside was at each other’s throats. Her eyes followed the porch light back to Lex’s face, saw how it left faint glows upon the ridges of bags beneath their tired eyes. “Why do you put up with them?”
Lex laughed. “I’m a neuroscience major and a psych minor. So I love drugs and I love drama.” Hua didn’t seem to take the joke in the spirit it was intended. Or maybe she understood it wasn’t a joke but a good, old-fashioned lie. “I don’t know. They were my first friends here. Guess I thought they were the only friends I deserved.”
Hua checked her phone. The driver was getting close. “If you’re looking for my permission to ditch them, then forget it. That’s your decision to make.”
“No, no, I know.” Lex rocked back and forth, heel to toe. “I think I already have.”
Both of them looked down the road to see a pair of headlights appear.
“You know, we used to have another friend in the group. She went off on everyone and bailed too. I should have done it then…but I was scared to be alone.”
The moonlit outline of a black Tucson pulled up beside them. Hua took her seat inside, rolled down the window and leaned out. “No wizards or good witches in this world. But us Cowardly Lions can make do ourselves. Goodbye, Lex.”
“Goodbye, Hua.”
A red bath of tail lights faded as the car pulled away. Drops fell from a tree branch shaken by wind, and Lex stood there enjoying the cool sensation of water rolling down their cheeks until the porch light shut off. A craving to escape returned in the usual way, vape pen poised at their lips. Their movement triggered the light to pop right back on. The pen clattered on pavement and rolled across the road to fall into a ditch as Lex got in their car. They flashed a middle finger at the window, though none inside paid any attention, and rolled over flowers and front lawn to follow Hua’s path down the Black Asphalt Road.
Brilliant stuff, thank you for sharing. I especially liked the script style scenes, very cool!