Dorothy Finds the Emerald City

image borrowed from bing

Dorothy Finds the Emerald City

The Tin Man ditched Dorothy at the corner of Grafton Street. He discovered his dream of being a street theatre act was not just a dream.

He pulled in a hundred euro a day, not bad for a tin man with rusty hinges and a slightly effeminate voice. He hung around with other street acts and spent evenings in old Dublin literary pubs, planning an act that would make it to mainstream theatres where people turn up in real fur coats.

Dorothy jumped in a cab and when the cab driver asked her:

"Where to, sweetheart?", she snarled her lips in a savage way she had practiced in Aunt Em's Victorian hand mirror and said:


"Less of the sweetheart, take me to the Emerald City".

The cab driver smirked and nodded his head. He had seen this tough little country girl act before and knew where it was going to end.

"Everyone wants to go to the Emerald City, it's getting out of it that's the problem", he said but not out loud.
So Dorothy and the Cab driver drove in silence and watched the cityscape appear in the mirrors.
Dorothy's phone rang continuously.

'You have 35 missed messages' it said.
When it rang for the 36th time, Dorothy held it to her heart once and threw it out the open window.

'Bye, Aunt Em', she whispered.

The cab stopped in a backstreet where a procession of bizarrely dressed people paraded.

Dorothy exited the cab, clutched her suitcase protectively to her and said:

"Why is everyone dressed for Halloween?"

The street people laughed and pointed at her ruby shoes.

'Welcome to the Emerald City', the cab driver shouted and shouted until Dorothy was just a dot in the mirror.

And all the time, a voice swirled around Dorothy's head until it became so loud that she could no longer ignore it and she yelled it out loud.

"There's no place like home".

She clicked her heels together.

But the ruby slippers had lost their power, they were powered purely by innocence.

Brigid O'Connor

Posted over on her site Sort of Writing
Listed as #20 over on Magpie Tales 88