Of course, we all know how "The Wizard Of Oz" ends...
We learn that all our hopes and dreams can't be found in an Emerald City, that the wizard is just another man behind a curtain and that there really is no place like home.
Dorothy clicks her heels three times and returns to Kansas...
where we're led to believe that she lives happily ever after with Auntie Em and Toto too.
As for the Lion…he returns to the forest with a false sense of courage and spends the rest of his days intimidated by the lions and tigers and bears.
And we're left to wonder why indeed a Tin Man ever really wanted a heart - a fragile vessel that merely serves to fill a void...a temporary replacement for the pain and feeling of having it ripped apart.
As for the Scarecrow...
He returns to his cornfield where's he left with no other decision than to climb his post and return to what he once was.
Supposedly a smarter man...but now possessing a knowledge that only allows him to sit and wonder.
Aware that soon the crows will return to slowly scatter his thoughts across the fields.
And he's left to watch...and listen...
And remember...
That there once was a time when a girl from Kansas took him by the hand and walked with him down a yellow brick road.
bill@klosterman.com