rayaso | REVIVAL

rayaso

Idol Mini-Season 2024
Prompt 6: The path is made by walking
August 17, 2024

REVIVAL

“One more step,” Ray Hamilton, professional searcher, thought, “just one more step. One more goddamn step.”

How do you keep walking when every step hurts so much? He was too tired to think about it.

“Just one more #*%!ing step.”

He was ratcheting up the profanity, so at least that felt good. But he was getting closer - he could feel it.

“Why would anyone pay all that money just to find the Yellow Brick Road?” Ray thought, “And why was I stupid enough to take the assignment?”

It had all started when Lyman Baum, the great-grandson of Frank L. Baum, the author of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” had walked in to his office.

“You find lost things?” Lyman had asked.

“That’s what it says on the door.”

“Anything?” Lyman had asked.

“If the price is right and it’s not illegal,” Ray had replied. “Illegal costs more. A lot more.”

“Money’s no object,” Lyman had replied. “I just need someone with the guts to carry this through.”

Lyman had written a number on a piece of paper, a very large number, and then he had pushed it over to Ray.

“For this much money,” Ray had replied, “you can have my guts and a kidney besides.”

“I want you to find the Yellow Brick Road,” Lyman had said, “and bring back at least three bricks. No bricks, no money.”

“I’ll tell you all I know about the Road in a few days,” he had added.

“I have an idiot for a client,” Ray had thought. “Still, a job is a job and I can earn a bucket of money. Time to pack.”

Ray had had a personal interest in taking the case. As a child, he had loved the Wizard of Oz books, even “Glinda of Oz.” Once, for Halloween, he had worn a Tin Woodsman costume made of boxes spray-painted gray. The assignment brought all that back to him.

It had turned out that all that Lyman knew was not much.

Three days later he had received a package from his client. It had contained a copy of “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” a handwritten paper with “Directions” scrawled at the top and a bus ticket to Liberal, Kansas. Liberal had been Dorothy’s home when the tornado transported her to Oz. According to the directions, Ray had to go to Liberal, “catch a tornado, find Oz, and bring me the bricks.”

Liberal is a small town in southwest Kansas of 20,000 residents. Farming and oil are the main industries. It includes a small “Dorothy” museum in her old farmhouse and an annual Ozfest, which was in full swing when Ray had arrived. He had felt like he’d stepped into another world when he got off the bus.

“Never seen so much gingham and pigtails,” he had thought. “And there are Tinmen, Cowardly Lions, Scarecrows, and way too many flying monkeys.”

There was also a small, and obviously fake, Yellow Brick Road. Ray had been tempted to take a few of the bricks back and get paid for just trying. In retrospect, that had definitely been the better plan. But then Nature had intervened.

Ray had been face-first in an “Auntie Em Fried Chicken Lunch” with all the fixin’s when the town’s tornado siren had gone off.

He had seen the funnel forming just outside of town. Everyone had run away, except Ray. In a stupendous moment of delusional self-confidence, he had run toward the tornado.

The expected had happened, and he had been sucked up into the cloud. Round and round he had spun, along with a few cows, some old furniture, and a couple of land sharks, until he had lost consciousness.

When he awoke, he knew he wasn’t in Kansas anymore. But it sure didn’t look like Oz.

There was only one explanation.

“Too many sequels,” he thought. “Sucked the imagination out of the place.”

Long before Baum finished all fourteen Oz books, his imagination was as dry as Kansas dirt.

Instead of the vibrant colors he had loved as a child, everything was shades of gray. The trees, bushes, wheat fields – everything looked like an old black and white movie.

Once Ray got over his shock, he still had to find the formerly Yellow Brick Road. He had no idea where to look, so he trusted to his luck and just started walking.

After a couple of hours, his feet started to hurt. Then his legs. And finally, his back. After two days, Ray was giving up hope, when then he saw it, off in the distance, a gray town. Now he didn’t hurt so much.

As he got closer, he could see that the village was uninhabited. The buildings were munchkin-sized, and they were old, dilapidated, and falling down. Gardens were dead. Weeds grew everywhere.

Ray made his way to the center of town, and there it was – the Yellow Brick Road!

The red and yellow spiral at the beginning was now gray. It was overgrown with weeds and many bricks were broken or missing. It was the saddest thing he had ever seen, but if he listened, he could hear the faintest of echoes:

Follow the yellow brick road
Follow the yellow brick road
Follow follow follow follow
Follow the yellow brick road

“No sense in hanging around,” Ray thought. “This place is heartbreaking.”

He dug out three bricks and put them in his satchel. That was the easy part.

“How the hell do I get back?” he wondered.

Dorothy had travelled back to Kansas in the Great and Powerful Oz’s balloon, but that wasn’t an option.

While he was thinking things over, Ray dug up another brick. While holding it, he thought “I want to go home.”

The next thing he knew, he was back in Liberal, Kansas.

“The bricks grant wishes!” he thought. “Now I know why Lyman wants them so badly.”

The thought of Lyman owning wishing bricks was disturbing, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“A client’s a client and a contract’s a contract,” Ray thought. He had his standards.

Fortunately, Ozfest was still in full swing. He headed over to Auntie Em’s Fried Chicken Stand and ate a double order.

It was a long bus ride back to his office. He called Lyman as soon as he got there, and Lyman rushed over to claim his prize.

“Where are my bricks?” Lyman said.

“Right here,” said Ray, giving him the three bricks.

“What’s wrong with these?” said Lyman, his voice rising in anger. “Your assignment was to bring back bricks from the Yellow Brick Road and these are gray!”

“That’s all there is,” said Ray. “Everything is black and white. There’s nothing left of Oz as we knew it.”

“And I know why you want the bricks,” he added. “I wished to get back home while holding a brick, and I wound up back in Kansas.”

“So, what are you going to wish for? World peace? An end to hunger? Reverse global warming?”

Ray had little hope that Lyman would do any of these.

“Hah!” said Lyman, as he picked up a brick. “I wish to be the richest man on Earth!”

Nothing happened. In Lyman’s hands the brick was just a brick. He tried the other two, getting angrier and angrier.

“You’re not getting paid,” yelled Lyman. “I wanted yellow bricks, and you give me this worthless gray #@%!”

Ray expected this. Lyman stormed out of his office, leaving the bricks behind.

Ray had a wish, too. He’d harbored it ever since he had seen the condition of Oz.

He gathered up all the bricks, and said “I wish for Oz to return to its former glory, complete with Dorothy, witches, flying monkeys, all of it.”

Nothing happened. But slowly, as he looked at them, the bricks turned a bright yellow.

Ray smiled.

He kept the bricks for a few weeks, and they stayed yellow. He tried wishing for world peace, but nothing happened.

In the end, he decided to donate the bricks to the Dorothy Museum back in Liberal. People traveled from all over to see the authentic bricks from the Yellow Brick Road.

And back in Oz, Dorothy set out along the Yellow Brick Road with her little dog Toto to meet her destiny.

_____________________________________

My thanks to the great and powerful tigrkittn for catching a narrative error, which I corrected before the deadline.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

muchtooarrogant

I do hope the revived Dorothy and little dog Toto don't trip on the crack left by the four missing bricks. (grin)

Fun story.

Dan

From:

adoptedwriter

I LOVE The Wizard of Oz! This was awesome!

From:

rayaso

I'm glad you liked it. I agree with you about the tripping - a pratfall is not exactly the best way to start an epic journey.

From:

rayaso

Thank you! I grew up on the original movie and being scared to death of the flying monkeys. This story dovetails with my previous entry about the death of magic. This one is about the revival of magic, at least of Oz.

From:

tigrkittn

I had a great-aunt who looked a LOT like the Wicked Witch... I loved this whole story - the Baum descendant, wishing bricks, the color having been drained from everything and a wish bringing it back ♥

This one thing distracted me a little, though - the client said "no bricks, no money" and a line later Ray mentioned getting paid "just for trying."

From:

rayaso

Your poor great-aunt! That would be a hard road, looking like a witch! You caught an error left over from an earlier draft - shame on me for not proof-reading carefully. I corrected it before the deadline.

Edited Date: 2024-08-17 04:31 pm (UTC)

From:

roina_arwen

This was amazing! Did you name him Ray in honor of Ray Bolger?

From:

erulissedances

Oh bravo - that was the correct wish!

- Erulisse (one L)

From:

tigrkittn

I always catch the nitpicky details - occupational hazard of being a copyeditor. I usually ignore them in Idol entries but I thought (hoped) you'd want to know about this one.

From:

rayaso

Very much so! Anything you notice is fine. If you don't want to do it in a comment, send me a personal message.

From:

autumn_wind

I absolutely love this! My daughter had a similar idea for this prompt -great minds think alike eh? You are such a good writer and I always enjoy your stories. Great imagination and the way you write brings the reader right into the story with vibrant, realistic characters-really well done!

From:

xeena

AHHH I LOVE THIS SO SO MUCH.

I'm a massive Wizard of Oz lover and I almost wrote something to do with the yellow brick road this week too. Yours is so much better than the idea I had though, this is just so lovely and whimsical.
I love the last line so much too <3

From:

fausts_dream

Too many sequels can drain magic from anything.

I once took a contract for some blood from a Rocky movie. I got in the ring but turns out you can't actually take 900 power shots to the dome from a heavyweight without being concussed, it wasn't til much later I remembered I had accepted the contract.

From:

rayaso

Absolutely! I'm glad you caught that. His last name (Hamilton) was for Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It required a refresher in a lot of Oz, which was fun for me.

From:

rayaso

Thank you! I toyed with the idea of having Roy wish to go back to a revived Oz and be a new Wizard, but I thought this one was better. It's interesting where the mind wanders when you have wishes at your disposal.

From:

rayaso

Thank you! The Yellow Brick Road was the first thing that popped into my mind as soon as I read the prompt. Your daughter was on the same wavelength. Since I had just written about magical creatures, I tried to come up with something else, along the lines of a path not taken, but my brain kept yanking me back to this, until I gave up. Thank you for your comment.

From:

rayaso

I would love to know what your idea was! I'm glad you enjoyed mine. I hope I didn't mess up any of the Oz details. You should google the Dorothy museum in Liberal. It's really cheesy. And they hold an Ozfest every 2 years. You can't make up stuff like this. I couldn't figure out how to end the story - I was going to end it with Ray smiling after the brick turns yellow, implying that he got his wish, but I just wasn't happy with it.

From:

rayaso

Getting into the ring with Rocky would make me forget about anything! Rocky is a perfect example - great first movie, not so great sequels. Raiders of the Lost Ark should have stopped at one movie.

From:

swirlsofpurple

Love the concept here, brilliant and fun

From:

rayaso

Thank you! I had a lot of fun writing it.

From:

autumn_wind

You are a talented writer with great imagination-keep giving us these wonderful tales!

From:

rayaso

You are very kind. Thank you.

From:

mollywheezy

I didn't like Temple of Doom but loved The Last Crusade. Sean Connery AND Harrison Ford--what's not to love? ;)

From:

mollywheezy

So creative and an excellent story! :)

From:

rayaso

Thank you! I appreciate that.

From:

murielle

Aww! I loved that movie when I was little. Thank you so much for taking me back.

You really do weave an enchanting tale, G.

And now I have a Michelin-sized earworm. 😂😂😂

From:

halfshellvenus

This was so much fun! I loved the 'land sharks' inside the tornado, the 'gingham and pigtails everywhere,' the excessive (i.e., non-zero) number of flying monkeys.

But most of all, I loved the ending, with Dorothy and Toto ready to begin their adventures all over again. :D

From:

bleodswean

This is fantastic! What a clever use of the prompt! I think so many of us who watched Oz or read Oz as children certainly picture the Yellow Brick Road when thinking about setting out on a path, a life's adventure! Nicely plotted - everything slots right into place and that's got feel pretty satisfying! And of course, your trademark humour!

From:

rayaso

Thank you so much! Being an oldster(ish), I wonder if the original Oz is watched as much. We watched it on a black and white tv for quite a while, and didn't know that the black and white of Kansas changed to the colours of Oz. I still felt pretty rusty writing this, so I'm glad it didn't show.

From:

rayaso

Sorry about the earworm! Wizard of Oz has a lot of great songs. I'm glad I was able to invoke that nostalgia feeling. Do you remember the flying monkeys? I couldn't look at them when I was little. Cackling green witches, yes; flying monkeys, no.

From:

rayaso

The land sharks were added because, after "Sharknado," no tornado should be without sharks, even one over Kansas. The pictures I have seen of Ozfest were heavy on little Dorothys. I'm glad you liked the ending. My original ending was different, but I didn't like it and came up with this.

From:

murielle

LOL! I guess auto-correct doesn't like the word munchkin. That was the size of earworm. Had nothing to do with tires. LOL!

Yes! But I loved monkeys so I probably wanted more of them. You know what scared me? The wizard. Not the big puppet one, but the little guy behind the curtain. Weird huh?

Edited Date: 2024-08-20 04:53 pm (UTC)