All Roads Lead To Oz

© Jessy Marie Roberts

Dorothy was from Kansas . Dorothy had a little dog named Toto. Dorothy defeated the Wicked Witch of the West, met up with the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, the Lion. Everybody knew everything about Dorothy Gale. He, on the other hand, was forgotten, unremembered, despite the fact that he had traveled to Oz decades before Dorothy was born.

He was born in a single-room schoolhouse south of McCook , Nebraska , near the Kansas border. His mother, Virginia Rhodes, was a heavy-set, unmarried school teacher. She had hidden her pregnancy all the way up through his birth, choosing to squat in a corner of the school room to deliver him rather than admit she had sinned with a traveling salesman. Nobody witnessed his arrival. It was summer, the children were home with their parents. No prying eyes spied his less-than-dignified entry into the world.

His mother kept out of sight for the rest of the summer. It was an easy task as she had no family left and no friends to visit her. People rarely noticed her except to tip their hat or nod in passing. When fall arrived, she bundled up her baby boy in a non-descript blanket, and left him on the steps of the schoolhouse just in time for him to be discovered by students on the first day of school.

The community went into an uproar. Who would leave a baby on the doorstep of a school? There was nothing wrong with the baby, they noticed, as each person counted his fingers and toes, examining his small shape for signs of deformity or abuse. But he was healthy, well-fell, with a hearty set of lungs prone to long-winded fits of rage.

The people were relieved when the plain school mistress offered to raise the child as her own. Times were tough, parents already had enough of a struggle providing for their own children. They happily consented to his informal adoption.

She named him Brick.

***

The weather was an uncertain thing in Southern Nebraska. The temperatures rose and plunged daily, the sky clear one minute and menacingly dark the next. Fall was unpredictable, fluctuating between humid heat and sputtering snow. Winter was long and fierce, punctuated with blizzards and wind storms. Spring brought hail and humidity and electricity storms, which festered all season until they ripened under the hot summer sun into blistering misery.

Spring and summer also brought about tornado season.

Brick had been warned all of his life about the dangers of twisters. He remembered several occasions where he had run to the safety and cover of the root cellar to escape nature's windy wrath. He had pressed himself against his mother's lumpy body, whimpering as the wind rattled the cellar door.

They always emerged from the cellar unscathed, their meager house in one piece, the school unharmed.

“We are survivors,” his mother would whisper to him after each storm, holding his lanky frame to her large bosom.

***

The sky was bright and clear the morning of his fifteenth birthday. His mother had knitted him a new sweater to mark the occasion. It stretched tight across his burgeoning shoulders and was a little too short in the arms, but he wore the knitted yellow garment with pride.

He ran out to the chicken coop to collect some eggs for the cake his mother was going to make to celebrate the day. She had saved up enough money for extra sugar and cocoa from the mercantile. His mouth watered at the thought of the rich chocolate cake and gooey frosting. They ate cake once a year. It was his favorite part of growing older.

The chickens clucked and pecked at his hands as he reached to collect the brown eggs.

“Stupid chickens,” he muttered, quickly finishing his task. When he was younger, he had often been cut and bruised by the chickens. Truth be told, he was still a little frightened of them.

After delivering the eggs to his mother, she told him to finish the rest of his chores while she got the cake ready for the oven and the house cleaned.

Brick wandered toward the small creek to collect water for his weekly bath. One day he would be able to give his mother a water pump and well so she wouldn't have to strain her back hauling gallons of water uphill to the house. She would be well provided for before he left Nebraska to seek his own fortune.

Lost in his reverie, Brick didn't notice the dark clouds blocking the sun, or the eerie, stillness. It was only when the palm-sized hailstones pummeled the earth did he realize a powerful storm was fast approaching.

The wind picked up steadily, lightning sparked the sky. He dropped the water pails and ran toward the house.

He could see his mother on the front door step, hands cupped around her mouth, calling his name.

“Brick,” she cried, the wind pushing her faded gingham dress between her legs, exposing her thick ankles.

“Mother,” he hollered back. He was soaking wet, the hail turning to pounding, stinging rain. He could barely make out his mother's shape.

A black funnel cloud formed in the distance behind the small house, picking up speed as it turned toward them.

His mother picked up the hem of her dress and ran to the root cellar. He felt relief as she shut the door to the cellar, safely ensconced within.

It was the last thing he remembered of Nebraska.

***

His head pounded. His eyes tried to adjust to the crimson light as he pushed himself up to his feet. Everything around him was a reddish hue, as if the sun was shining through a ret-tinted bottle. He rubbed his fingers over his pale blue eyes and opened them again, hoping the world would be set aright.

One thing was certain. He was not in Nebraska anymore. He was standing in the middle of an apple orchard. The trees looked sinister in the red light, their branches writhing in the breeze.

He leaned over and picked up an apple and rubbed it on his yellow birthday sweater before took a large bite out of it. He savored the sweet fruit, its juices running from his mouth and covering his hands.

“You're eating my apple,” said a high-pitched, child-like voice from behind him. Startled, he dropped the apple and spun around.

The orchard turned a deeper shade of red. Two little girls walked toward him, identical except for their shoes. One wore plain, black shoes. The other brilliant ruby slippers.

The black-shoed one stooped and picked up the apple he had been eating. It shriveled and spoiled in her hand.

“Who are you?” he asked, feeling silly for being so frightened by girls half his age and size.

“I'm Westleigh,” said the girl with the black shoes, taking a small bite of the rotted apple. “And this is my sister, Eastleigh.”

Bile burned his throat. He watched as she fished out a large, green worm from the apple and dangled it over her sister's mouth. Her sister opened her mouth wide, slurped up the worm, and chewed it with a groan of delight.

“Where am I?” he asked, his voice cracking with fear and revulsion. The girls had long, crooked noses that reminded him of chicken beaks.

“You're stuck in a rainbow,” Eastleigh confided, leaning toward him. Her breath was foul, her pointy teeth yellow and stained.

“A rainbow?” he asked, backing up as the girls crept toward him.

“You're stuck in a rainbow between your home and our home.”

He backed into a large tree trunk. The girls closed in around him.

“Where is your home?” he asked, eyes wide as they traced their razor-like fingernails down his face.

“Oz,” they answered simultaneously.

He reached up and pulled a branch loose from the tree. Swinging the branch with all of his might, he smacked the girls across their matching faces. They fell backward, leaving him room to escape.

He sprinted north, zigging and zagging behind trees, hoping to outrun the sinister twins.

The light changed from reddish rays to orange.

Pumpkins littered the ground, in various states of decay. He tripped over one, nearly falling to the ground. He saw the vines slither across the orange-hued earth, giving chase. He sprinted faster, gaining speed and momentum each time a stalk would rub against his ankles.

The color spectrum was changing again, from orange to brilliant gold.

He heard a whizzing noise above his head just as he reached the orange-yellow border. The twins were straddling the tree branch he had struck them with, flying through the colorful air with ease. They spotted him and pointed the wooden conveyance at him, leaning forward on the stick to maintain balance.

The branch butted him in the back, tipping him forward into the yellow region.

Monkeys jumped down from lush banana trees and dragged him further into the yellow area.

“Hold him down, my pretties,” Westleigh crooned to the animals. They followed her command, holding his legs and arms until he was immobile.

“What do you want with me,” he yelled, panicked.

“We want to return home,” said Eastleigh. “We were forced out of Oz and into this cursed rainbow by a great and powerful Wizard. We have been trapped here all alone for over a century.”

“What does that have to do with me?” he asked, cringing as the girls crouched over his body.

“You're going to take us back home,” Eastleigh whispered, running her slender and crooked fingers over his birthday sweater. “Are you ready to begin, sister?”

The black-shoed witch smiled, exposing her cracked teeth. He struggled against the monkeys, urine trickling down his thigh. They were too strong. He could not break free.

“There's no place like home,” chanted Eastleigh , clicking the heels of her ruby red slippers together. “There's no place like home.”

Westleigh joined her sister, softly repeating the phrase. The monkeys grew aroused, rubbing their small, pink erections against his face, arms and legs.

Their chanting grew louder. The black-shoed twin grabbed his left arm and pulled it, stretching and twisting it for miles. She returned and did the same to his other arm, and both of his legs. She pulled his head and stretched his neck in a different direction, pulling his jaw apart until he could no longer scream or make any sounds.

Finally, she grabbed his penis and yanked straight down creating another veering path.

The chanting stopped. The witches held hands and pointed at his stretched and mangled form. His rubbery, boneless flesh hardened into small, even rectangles of brick dyed the color of his sweater.

“Come, my little pets,” hissed Westleigh, beckoning the monkeys to her side. She tapped them on the shoulders and wings sprouted from their backs. “We shall take the yellow brick road to Oz.”

Eastleigh clicked her ruby red slippers together one more time, and they all fell from the rainbow to the Land of Oz.