Alone in a Corn Field

There were days when the Scarecrow wished he could close his eyes and go to sleep. After 150 years of being self-aware, it had become tiresome to never sleep. Oh, he could approximate sleep to some degree, but it was never true sleep. He was always aware of what was going on around him. And after 150 years, he had lost all of his friends.

First, the greatest of friends: Dorothy, who had eventually grown up, had chosen to return to her family in Kansas. The Lion had gone to his "kingdom" in the forest, and sired a whole line of lions before he eventually died of old age. Ozma, too, had passed on after a long and successful reign. Even Nick Chopper, the Tin Woodsman, had rusted away into obscurity. All of his friends from all of his adventures had faded out of his life.

He felt like Joseph's family in that strange book from Kansas that Dorothy had once brought him. Joseph's family had lived on in a strange land where everyone had forgotten what Joseph had done for the country. It was like that now for the Scarecrow. Nobody remembered him or the services he had given to Oz.

And so one day, he had decided to bring himself full circle. Now jaded by the never-ending process of living, he had climbed back up onto a pole in the middle of a field of corn, and taken up Scarecrowing again. The munchkin farmer had come out one day and jumped in shock when he looked up and saw the Scarecrow, but he had just sighed. Whenever the farmer tried to talk to him, he just ignored him, no longer content to talk to anyone. Eventually the farmer got used to him being there and stopped trying to talk to him.

Then one day, everything changed.

A girl came walking down the yellow brick road, now barely recognizable, in strange clothes. And for the first time in many years, the Scarecrow wanted to talk. The girl's face matched Dorothy's in every way. It was like his long gone friend had returned. She had the same look of fear on her face that Scarecrow had seen on Dorothy's face all those years ago. The same look of confusion.

And so he spoke.

"Hello there!"

And it was the same thing again. The girl, no more than sixteen years of age, looking around for a voice, not believing that it could possibly come from the Scarecrow. So he climbed down from his pole (so easy to do since he had put himself up there this time instead of being mounted like some trophy animal) and held out his hand to shake. The girl moved away, unsure of her own safety. She wore a strange type of shirt with a picture on it, and (as the Scarecrow was somewhat shocked to see) pants. Girls just didn't wear pants.

Finally, he put his hand down, and spoke again. "What is your name?"

She looked at him strangely, and mumbled something about "the stories" being true. Then she said "My name is Dorothy Gale Redmond. And I think you may have known my grandmother."