The Lizard of Oz: Chapter Sixteen
Mr. Plato
Mr. Carroll asked the Mothers of Fact, “Could you please direct us to the home of the Muses?”
“Certainly,” answered Miss Fortune. “Their sorority house is on Mount Parnassus.”
When they got to the base of Mount Parnassus, Mr. Carroll said, “Okay, Miss Osborne, it’s up to you to invoke the Muses.”
“But what should I say?” asked Miss Osborne.
“Whatever you feel.”
So she said, “Please, Muse, we’re very lost and confused. I don’t know how we’ll ever find our way out of here if you don’t help us.”
A hollow echoing voice asked, “Which muse do you want to see?”
“A muse. Just a muse,” she answered.
“Yes,” said the voice, “the A-muse is my favorite, too. Right this way. Third cave on the right.”
Mr. Carroll introduced the speaker, “That’s Mr. Plato. He’s the speaker of the house. He helps the Muses talk to strangers. He interprets their signs and words so people can understand them.”
Plato led them into a dark cave and had the class sit down facing the wall. Miss Shelby, Mr. New Man, and the Redcoats all sat with them. The A-muse — a young lady in a light blue evening gown — sat by the fire behind them, moving her hands to cast shadow shapes on the walls. She was very good at it, and soon the kids were all laughing at the funny shapes and having a great time.
Miss Osborne stood off to the side with Mr. Plato and Mr. Carroll. She was very concerned, “Muse, Miss Muse,” she called. “I hate to interrupt. I’m sure the children enjoy those shadow pictures you’re making. And any other time I would enjoy them, too. You’re quite good at it, really. But, you see, we’re very lost. And I’m sure the children’s parents are worried sick.”
The Muse didn’t say a word in reply. She just kept making shadow pictures on the wall of the cave, and the kids kept laughing.
“Mr.Carroll,” Miss Osborne pleaded, “why doesn’t the Muse answer me? Why does she just make shadow shows for the children?”
“She’s answering you in her own way,” he said. “The children understand.”
“Well, I don’t,” she complained, her voice trailing off in despair.
“Come with me,” offered Mr. Plato. “I’ll explain in words.”
He led her deeper into the cave, and told her the story the Muse was showing with her shadows.
“Once upon a time there was a world and an unworld. People lived in the world, and unpeople lived in the unworld. The world was very much like the unworld; and the people were very much like the unpeople. The sun spent half its time in each place, and everyone lived and grew and died and was happy.
“The name of the world was Home and the name of the unworld was Ome.
“In Home there were machines that could wash your dishes and your clothes. They could cook your food or keep it cold. The people of Home were very happy with their machines. Machines saved them so much time in doing things they’d never enjoyed doing. And they could be made to do much more. So people kept working on the machines to improve them.
“Soon the machines could move you from one part of Home to another at great speed. They could even tell you how great they were and show you pictures of how much everybody loved them and depended on them. That made it easier for people to work harder to earn more so they could afford to buy more machines and better machines that could do more of everything they’d ever dreamed of.”
Miss Osborne could hear the kids reacting to the pictures.
“Gosh,” said Donny, “that looks like ads on TV.”
“Like videos on the Internet,” said Mark.
Mr. Plato continued, “The more people worked for the machines, the more benefits the machines could offer, and the more the machines reminded them of what great new benefits were waiting for them. So people worked harder and harder so they could buy more and more machines; and in their spare time, they enjoyed seeing and hearing and reading about all the things machines could do for them and how happy everybody was and would be.
“The only trouble was the atmosphere. The machines gave off fumes. You got used to it after a while; so you hardly ever noticed except on what would have been a bright sunshiny day; but the fumes were always there. It was a deadening atmosphere. Plants and animals started dying. But people adapted. They learned to breathe machine air instead of plant air. They learned to use machine light instead of sunlight. If they, like the plants, had kept needing the sun to grow, they would have withered and died. But they adapted. They came to depend more and more on machines. They could no longer see the sun, and what plants and animals remained were ugly stunted creatures. There really wasn’t much of anything to look at but the machines. And since there was less to distract people, people worked more efficiently, and the machines gave them more benefits, and they enjoyed those benefits.
“People used the machines, and the machines used people to make themselves better, and there was great progress throughout the world.
“Back when the sun could be seen, plants and animals and people used to grow toward the sunlight. Now, instead, they grew toward the machine light. And they thanked the machines for letting them see. And they thanked the machines for letting them grow. And by the light of the machines, they saw the machines and other people working for machines and enjoying their benefits. And the machines built them houses, much warmer and more comfortable than caves. In their houses, men sat night after night, watching the moving shadows that the machine’s light cast on the walls, shadows that showed them how wonderful their world was. And they were very pleased.
“Meanwhile, without anyone noticing it, the sun left. It wasn’t just behind the clouds anymore. Maybe just as plants and animals and people used to need the sun to live and grow and die, the sun needed the plants and animals and people. Whyever it was, the sun left the world and went to the unworld.
“Before, the sun used to spend half its time in the world and half in the unworld. Now it stayed in the unworld named Ome. And strange things started happening there. The unanimals and unplants and unpeople who lived there weren’t used to all that light. They started growing in ways they never had before. Little lizards grew to the size of dinosaurs and dragons, and strange beasts of all kinds filled the unworld.
“The unpeople feared that if the sun kept shining that way, the monsters would get out of control and kill them. So the unpeople captured and tamed the biggest dragon they could find; and they taught him to jump, until he could jump all the way up to the sun. And he did. And he swallowed it and came back down to the ground with the sun in his belly.”
“Gosh,” said Donny, reacting to the shadow images that the Muse was making. “Can you do that again?”
Mr. Plato went on, “As the unpeople had hoped, the monsters couldn’t stand the change in climate. Soon the only monster left was the dragon with the sun in its belly, that somehow the sun had made deathless.
“The sunlight diffused through the dragon’s skin like light through a lampshade, but still the light was so intense that many unpeople were blinded, all but those who wore sunglasses.
“Before, plants and animals felt drawn toward the sun, but gravity held them back. They hadn’t been able to run to it. They could only grow toward it.
“Now, with the sun on the ground, gravity no longer restrained them. They surged forward, crowding toward the source of the light.
“It wasn’t like any light they had ever seen. As they got close, they were speechless — awe-struck and spell-bound by the sight. Ever after that, they never moved. Spell-bound to a single spot, they chanted over and over, Ome, Ome, Ome, as an expression of their awe and perhaps of their joy at being in this place and seeing this sight.
“In the old days when the sun shone equally in both places, people and unpeople travelled freely between the world and the unworld,” Mr.Plato continued. “But when machines got so good that they did everything people dreamed of and even did their dreaming for them, people stopped going to the unworld — they were too attached to the machines to want to go.
“A few unpeople kept coming to the world. While others were speechless in the presence of the light, these singers and tellers of tales put what they had seen into words, and learned to put their words together so the light shone through. They arrived at Home with tales of the unworldly monsters and dragons and unworldly things that had been happening.
“People listened to those stories, and the machine recorded them. Then the machines retold the stories in different, more familiar words, so people could enjoy the stories with no effort at all.
“One of the best stories the machines told was The Wizard of Oz. They called the land Oz because that sounds far away, and it’s much more fun to hear about a place that’s far away than a place that sounds familiar. And the machine stories were very good, so good that most people forgot the stories the unpeople told.
“But a few people remembered the original stories and passed them on from generation to generation. Over time, the dragon came to be known as the Lizard of Oz, the Great Dragon of Ome, or the Leaping Lizard.
“Legend has it that before the coming of the machines, a giant, the Promised One, stole fire from the sun — not just light from the sun but the fire itself — and brought it to earth for man. There was just enough of the fire so man was enchanted and happy, but not enough to spell-bind him. And both the world and the unworld were enchanted for many years, until the fire burnt out.
“Nobody knows why the fire went out, but it did. Then people felt a great emptiness. And it was that emptiness that drove them to begin building the machines.
“Some say that the Promised One came again and tried to bring back fire from Ome; but that this time he failed and was spell-bound to a great rock at the dragon’s feet.
“I’ve heard that things are changing fast at Home, that a humbug has been flying around beating on his humdrum, and most everyone has been picking up the beat. They say that people are getting more efficient. All are working at the rhythm of the machines. But the Humbug isn’t the cause of the changes. He’s just speeding things up a little. And nothing will really change the world until some new Promised One brings back the fire of enchantment.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Plato,” said Miss Osborne, “I’m still very confused. We’ve seen so much so fast, and the pieces don’t seem to fit together. These potheads and eggheads and everything — who are they? And what do they have to do with Home or Ome?”
“At one time or another, for one reason or another, there have been people and unpeople who didn’t like living in Ome or at Home. They found a rabbithole or a pothole or something like that, and just dropped out, like you did. They fell to their own level — suspended between Home and Ome. There are many colonies of them.”
“Well, being under the world, do they understand things?”
“Most of them aren’t sure where they are, much less what’s above them. The Underworld’s something else altogether. It lies under and underlies everything, even the unworld.”
Miss Osborne thought for a while. Then she admitted, “I really don’t understand. I’ve never seen machines like that at home, and I’m sure if there are such things, they’re very expensive and not many people can afford them. And the sun hasn’t left. It shines in Winthrop sometimes. I saw it just yesterday, before we fell down that pothole.”
“Are you sure that was the sun you saw and not just something the machines made?” asked Mr.Plato. “I hear machines have been making moons and stars and flowers and fruit that look more real than the things they’re copies of; but they are, nonetheless, just lifeless copies.”
Miss Osborne wasn’t sure what was real now, but she did know that something was very wrong.
She knew that she had to get the class home. But now she also felt that she ought to help bring fire back to the world, because, whatever that meant, it sounded like something that must be done.
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Links to other chapters and the story of how this story was written.
