Sparkle and Fade
Disclaimer: I don't own The Wizard of Oz, or the quotation from Charles Dodgerson.
----
"A boat, beneath a sunny sky
Lingering onward dreamily
In a evening of July-
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
pleased a simple tale to hear-
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frost have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantom wise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
lovingly shall nestle near.
In a wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream-
Lingering in the golden gleam-
Life, what is it but a dream?"
- by Charles Dodgerson, also known as Lewis Carroll, author of Alice in wonderland.
----
Dorothy Gale sighed and pulled the covers close to her.
She couldn't sleep, she hadn't been for the past few weeks.
She wanted to see how her friends were, she wanted to see the Scarecrow,
she wanted to see the Cowardly lion, and the Tin-woodsman.
She sat up, unable to grow tired.
And walked over to her window, earnestly pulling it open and hiked her legs over the side, since it was on the ground floor she could easily escape the bindings of her room.
Dorothy exhaled at the sight of the dark inky sky, the stars like tiny pin-pricks in a dark fabric covering all above her.
Wandering over to the grassy plains, she unknowingly collapsed over a pile of daisy's.
They were dewy from it being such a early hour but Dorothy took no mind.
She bit down on her lip, short of crying.
The moment threatening to rip her heart in two, her utter dying to return to Oz, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't, she couldn't sleep, she couldn't day dream.
"Maybe" a little voice in the back of her mind whispered, "it's because you're becoming an..-"
She choked down the word. Fighting her own mind, not allowing it to form, but it did..
Adult.
And it was true, she was growing hips, Aunt. M had to begun throwing out most of her clothes, and her features were becoming womanly, She secretly feared this fact, and she refused to face that she was growing up, and that soon she would forget her imaginary world of play, where men were made of tin, and lions feared their own reflections.
She wouldn't, she couldn't allow herself to forget, to become one of them, a adult.
Because that's how adults always are in the eyes of a child, them.
"Don't forget about us, Dorothy" "Yes, don't forget about us." "Well, of course I won't."
The promise she made to them echoed hard in her ears.
She refused to become one of them, she wouldn't grow up, then she'd be one of those boring woman, with no imagination.
But life was getting ahead of her, she couldn't fight it, as she hardly noticed, until she couldn't dream, and Dorothy found that sleeping was fruitless unless you had a lovely dream to accompany it, not only could she not dream, she found her normally boundless imagination was shrinking into nothing.
She squeezed her eyelids shut, seeing the Cowardly lion, his mane a glowing caramel color. The Tin-man, his body a silver gleam in her eyes. The Scarecrow, her favorite, his form a abundance of hay, sticking out his clothing in all directions, with a cork shrew smile on his face.
It was only a picture in her head, they wouldn't speak back to her.
She opened her eyes, her nightgown was getting grass-stains. She stood up with the nights breeze chilling her arms.
The sun had begun to rise up, just enough so the light streaked the stars.
She tried to imagine never seeing Oz again, and wondered what they would be doing,
Scarecrow would surely be king of Emerald city, with his new, political brain.
The Cowardly lion would rule the forest, he had become so brave, for her.
And The Tin-woodsman would find someone to love, now that he had a heart, he could love, and Dorothy wondered if he loved her.
And she wondered if they'll miss her, or, if like her eventually, they'll forget all about little Dorothy Gale, from that small town in Kansas, who visited for a bit.
And she thought that maybe all children have those little adventures, and after time that we all desperately try to cling on to childhood, those lovely memories that they made, when they were young, and soon we all forget eachother, even the figments of our youth forget us,
and we all become a part of something greater, or maybe it's just easy to think that.
She finally decided to go back and lay in her bed, and she would go to sleep, but she wouldn't dream. No, She wouldn't dream.