As The Stars Allow

By H. C. Turk

In this retelling of THE WIZARD OF OZ, the original fantasy is shown to be the result of a virtual reality experiment gone wrong. Though still a poignant fable, this story has the bite of future science.

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A girl carries her doll in one hand and a fresh scalp in the other, on her way to a better land she'll have to make first.

Though her memory is faulty, Melody recalls leaving school after being accused of witchcraft. Her pseudo-doll, Dodo, defended her by removing the teacher's scalp (instead of her entire head). 

Dazed Melody walks home only to be confronted by the teacher, who wants her scalp back. She also wants to have Melody's dangerous doll confiscated. To protect her best friend and herself, Melody summons a storm that takes her to a better place.

Swept up in a tornado, Melody arrives at Munching Land, where school kids nibble on snacks all day. There, Melody begins an adventure along with her new friends: Scarecow, Metalman, and Tiger. The four journey to the Odds wizard, who will help them find their true place in life. 

Upon meeting Odds, they learn he will only help them if they bring him the Bitch Witch's gizzard. (Bitch Witch is the teacher with the removed scalp). So, the group travels through the forest to Bitch Witch, who attacks with an army of flying aardvarks. Melody and Dodo are swept away, and the others are beat up.

In the witch's lair, Melody and Dodo are rescued by the Rich Witch, Gilda. When Melody's recuperated friends arrive, they perform minor surgery on Bitch Witch using Metalman's axe. After they sew her back up, she's not the witch she used to be.

Then the group returns to Odds, who says it's the wrong gizzard. Angry, Melody begins digging around behind the scenes to find that Odds is an electronic simulacrum. Finding the scalp from the story's beginning in her pocket, she is convinced to don it. When she does, it becomes an electronic connection, and she is on another world.

This world is Earth, where Melody is a scientist experimenting with a group of people (real equivalents to Metalman and Tiger and Scarecow). Now she has to relearn the stunning events that drove her to a world of fantasy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: H. C. Turk
• Release date: Oct 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386481676

Book preview

Chapter 1

Her First Day, Again

She didn’t know how long the scalp would continue to bleed. Melody was no expert, considering how seldom she scalped anyone. Looking down, she saw that the blood had dripped onto one shoe, staining the white white canvas completely red, like a certifiably fresh cut of meat from the butcher shop. The other shoe only had a few red drops, like jewels. Though she had been trying to hold the scalp away from her body, her arm was getting sore.

The ostensibly stuffed bird tucked under her other arm wondered why she was taking the thing home, like another animal, a bloody pet. She better not pet him with her hands all messy like that.

From far far behind, Melody could still hear those human sounds coming from the school. Could mere gasping carry this far? Screaming could. Maybe crying. Horror goes a long ways.

Especially when you take it with you.

She didn’t want to move any faster because that would stir up dust on this long and wide dirt road, no end seen, not on either end. Which was the beginning?

She had been working late, and the sun was low in the sky. Was it true that the color of light near dusk and dawn is warmer than during the middle of the day? She’d have to ask a photographer. They knew light. Looking along the road, the soil did seem browner than during noon, rather yellowish.

There, that fork ahead, two paths. At the end of one, the tops of buildings in the City were barely visible through the hazy air. The tallest belonged to either a university or a church. She wasn’t certain, since she had never been there. But that was her goal: to visit the great City, not for its luxury, but because she might find a place where she would fit. She didn’t fit on this road. But it was only a conveyance.

The only nearer building she saw was a barn in the middle of nowhere, but that was her locale. The nearest house was hers, if she made it that far.

This was all difficult for an average child. Ostensibly average. She wasn’t a big girl or a little girl. She wasn’t a young girl or an old girl. She was an everyday girl, if that day were holy, or hellish.

She would make it no farther without doing something, because she felt the onset of panic rising from her hand into her entire body, her being, and she had to end it, just as she had caused it. No, no, she didn’t do it, but she had caused it. Melody was responsible for that woman left behind bleeding from her brain….

No, no, not from her brain, just her skull—it was only a flesh wound. But the flesh was in her hand, and she couldn’t return it. She could never return to school—and this was her first day!

Panting as she looked down, she noticed that the road was about the same color as her birdie. He had the look of a generic bird from an ancient epoch, when flying creatures were dinosaurs, one step removed from dragons. He was no dragon—he was her best friend, so why not seek his help?

If you ate this, Dodo, she said to her birdie, who seemed to be a stuffed doll, I wouldn’t have to hide it.

He gave her a look as though a tunnel had been bored through her head, ending at the bloody scalp.

There’s no bone, she added, just skin and hair.

And blood.

You’re my best friend and you could help me if it’s not too much to ask, she beseeched.

He would never ask her to eat anything both hairy and bloody. But she was on the verge of tears, and he couldn’t bear to see her sad.

He might offer to help her bury it. In another time, he and his kind had terrific claws, though now they were plastic.

Understanding his offer, Melody fell to her hands and knees and began digging just off the road where the soil might be looser, but it wasn’t. Dodo leaned against her and wanted to help, but those days were past for him. And Melody had trouble breathing, that human skin in one hand as she dug with the other, bending her nails and making them filthy, her fingers sore before creating a decent hole, and she panted while wondering how authorities could surgically replace the scalp if it were buried along the side of the road like a dog bone.

She stopped, understanding that she was going nowhere. That was her problem in life: she was always trying to find a better place, but always ended up nowhere, digging along the side of a road that led from dust to dust.

In that moment, she felt ashamed. No one could be proud of being a loser.

Considering the greater scheme of movement that is life, Melody watched the breeze blow a leaf past, continuing nowhere. Had the leaf sought this transportation? Of course not. Fallen leaves aren’t alive, and can’t ask for help. Melody could. She wasn’t ashamed to ask for help, but didn’t know how. Her birdie was trying; now it was her turn, but how? Wishful thinking?

Melody didn’t understand why Dodo was pushing her. She had set him down to lean against her thigh as she dug, and now he was shaking. Then she understood that he had been trying to warn his mistress.

Came a sound from above:

She might want that back, you know.

Melody looked up to see a crotch. She could tell by the dented lump in the fabric that she viewed a woman. The sun was so bright, glaring past the edge of that body into Melody’s eyes. But was it the sun, or just the sky?

I know what happened, came that voice from above, which had the sound of a man.

Melody wasn’t too concerned. After all, Dodo wasn’t growling.

Looking up, she focused on that structure behind the speaker. Vehicles are structures, aren’t they? Not just schoolhouses are structures. So are prisons. Why did this vehicle seem grander to Melody than just a truck?

I don’t, Melody said abruptly, stricken with awareness, with ignorance. I don’t know what happened.

She was tall and solid with definite hips and bosom and ramrod-straight carriage and long, curly hair that seemed to float and Melody was mesmerized. Her face, or his, was long with a regal nose and deep-set eyes, intensely dark, probing but generous. After all, he/she had not condemned Melody after seeing that scalp.

Melody stood, and no one gave her a hand. She gave Dodo a hand, tucking him against her side where he belonged.

That’s not a real toy, spake the newcomer, and Melody would not ask if he referred to Dodo or the scalp.

Melody had never been taught by her parents to run away when confronted with danger. Her birdie gave better lessons than the parents she had never known.

So, let’s learn, the tall person said, not exactly smiling.

She turned and walked to the truck those few steps behind. Rising, Melody felt relieved, if only because she left the scalp in the dirt. She didn’t think that Dodo wanted to sniff it.

Because she knew little of transportation, Melody could not guess the truck’s age. That signage on the flat side seemed brand-new, gilded letters and curvy, colorful script: Ozymandia’s Odds & Ends: Divinator Of The Strangest Truths From Birth To Beyond!

What a boxy device, like a tiny barn with a cab for driving attached in front. On the way to the box’s entry door in back, they passed a man, an average gent bending to pump air into the sturdy tires with a tubular device that hissed as he leaned on it and rose and leaned on it and rose without looking to Ozymandia. When Melody neared, however, the man’s eyes went wide and he gasped while choking out the words:

Is that a real dodo?!

Yes, Melody had to say.

Her lie did not calm him.

Don’t let it bite me! he beseeched.

You have my vow, Melody said quietly while stepping past, pulling Dodo closely against her chest. Though he didn’t purr in contentment, neither did he quake from fear. In this encounter, he was the dragon.

Mouth agape, the man stared after Dodo as Melody passed. He remained in a rather hunched position, not as though prepared to bend over his pump again, but as though about to leap away.

Ozymandia waved a blithe hand to her helper.

You might return to your work, M. Lyon, she instructed in passing.

He did not begin pumping again until Melody was around the corner. She did not feel relief, but sympathy. The girl had suffered her share of fear.

Ozymandia led the way up a set of folding steps. One, two, three. Melody always noticed the number of steps she traversed. While ascending, she looked down, not because she needed to carefully place her feet, but because she did not want that person’s derriere looming in her sight. Gentleman or not, Dodo wouldn’t stare.

The interior was dense with objects. In that corner sat a canvas sack filled with lumps, most unmoving. Shelves held crucibles of stone and tarnished metal, some adorned with floral patterns, some only having the color of clay. Though not dark inside, the only light sources Melody saw were lightbulbs with no connected electrical wires. A learned girl, Melody knew of batteries. Shelves with no sagging held candles in the shape of skyscrapers, and multiple pendulums with string and wire supporting glass and metal weights above their wooden bases marked with signs and symbols known only to historians of divination. On all of these shelves, Melody saw not one book.

She couldn’t read their language.

On the floor behind a covered chest whose fabric showed no evidence of wrinkling, Melody noticed a tiny reflection. An eye. Focusing, she saw surrounding fur. A mouse. She couldn’t tell if it were alive or dead. Dodo didn’t even shrug. He had never been carnivorous.

Squeezing her hand while staring at the rodent, Melody recalled the feel of hair in her grasp, but did not feel congealing blood. Before accompanying the divinator, she had well wiped her hand in the dirt.

Melody scarcely noticed that her host had cleared the top of a geometric table situated in the floor’s center. Perfectly centered thereupon she had set a glazed ceramic dish that held a large handful of fragrant leaves, actually the long and pointy parts of whole leaves, stripped away like the scalp from…. Sniffing at a distance, Melody almost recognized the crop.

No chairs at the table. Ozymandia simply knelt on the far side while looking to Melody. Now they were the same height.

Join me, child, and we shall delve into your past, that most horrifying and holy of histories.

I don’t want to be horrifying, Melody sadly responded, trying not to look down to her hand.

You know little of horror, child, Ozymandia said while glancing up to a carved shape on the wall.

Melody didn’t know if it were wood or painted plaster, but she recognized a fylfot.

My family survived the fascist infiltration of our country, Ozymandia continued. You need not fear your first day of school.

Looking around, Melody saw no scalps. Maybe she spoke with the wrong oracle.

My first day ended early, Melody said, not caring that her voice was weak, childish.

Then let us relive the time in the way of awareness, Ozymandia replied, and held out her hand for Melody to take her place.

Following the invitation, Melody knelt, the table top at shoulder level. With no ceremony, Ozymandia lit the leaves with a matchbook whose printed logo was a swastika. Smoke rose, not much. Melody suppressed a sneeze, and Dodo remained nonplussed. No one thought the place would catch on fire.

What do you see, owner of this myth? spake the divinator.

Smoke.

What events do you sense in these hot, rising particles, what Truth that came but never went?

Aren’t you supposed to recite an incantation? Melody wondered.

Ozymandia replied with neither smile nor frown:

What you mention is a type of entertainment. You and I seek actuality, which might not be amusing.

Melody clenched that hand. How clean can you get your skin by rubbing it in the dust? Now her hand was bloody and dirty.

She would not wipe it on her dress, or her birdie.

Should I see what I want to see? she had to ask.

You will see what you have to see, if your vision is honest.

I, I think I’m afraid to learn what really happened, Melody admitted.

If you are too weak to learn of your own life, you will learn how dangerous ignorance can be.

Though looking closely to the smoke, Melody saw only a distorted view of the room’s far side. That pendulum. Divinators utilized them to find the future in their swinging patterns. The one with the metal weight was making Melody dizzy without even moving.

I want to learn more of my life than my first day in a new school, Melody said.

How much more?

Can you help me find my home?

You don’t know where you live?

I don’t know where I should live, Melody told the seer. I didn’t learn that in school.

Melody then understood that it wasn’t the static pendulum making her dizzy. That smoke, that smell. She clenched her hand again. Yes, all ninety-seven fingers on that hand were dirty. She shook her head.

Ozymandia seemed very pleased, very pleased, without even having to smile.

Noticing a movement through that warm, distorted air, Melody saw that mouse move, toward its nest. From within, tiny eyes blinked. Was the mother protecting her offspring from threats? There was a topic Melody knew nothing about. She couldn’t discuss it with her parents.

Seen through the smoke, the mouse had the shape of an aardvark. Melody didn’t know what an aardvark was. Perhaps a zillion years ago, they were related to dodoes.

Then she felt a wonderful release to understand she would not have to learn the horrible truth from the school, because she could only do so by inhaling that dangerous smoke. Therefore, to protect her lungs and her memory, she would follow Dodo’s guidance. Feeling him wiggle against her side, Melody learned something of the more immediate past: she learned that Dodo had snuck the teacher’s scalp into Melody’s dress pocket, and now made its location known. To protect herself, Melody pulled out the scalp with her dirty hand, utilizing all one zillion fingers, smacking down on the smoldering leaves to quash their danger only to feed the latent fire, which grabbed that hair as fuel and exhaled it as a flame so intensely honest that Melody could see the truth in it, which was for her to get the hell away or burn to hell.

Due to practice, Melody was efficient at fleeing danger. With a final glance, she saw Ozymandia studying the flames for veracity and revelation, her facial features high-contrast, skin sweating, lips pursed perhaps in an ad hoc incantation, all studious and serious, a fine professional.

Melody did not feel enough regard imparted by that final glance for her to remain, perhaps seeking friendship with this diviner. After one step backwards, she turned and moved through the open doorway, down the steps, continuing to that dusty road, walking in the wrong direction: backwards, but not physically. Temporally. Along the road, directly ahead instead of recently behind, she saw the school, waiting for Melody on her first day, again.

Chapter 2

Rare And Wondrous Creature

For some reason, she had to look down to her hands and count her fingers. Just the right number, of course. What was she thinking?

Though not accompanied by parent or guardian, she was not exactly alone. After all that walking, her white shoes had a tan cast.

The road ended at a building. Maybe it began there. Melody first noticed the roof: a dull silvery metal, steeply pitched. A squirrel scampered across, nails scraping, losing its footing without comically sliding off and striking the ground. Melody would not have laughed. The squirrel wouldn’t laugh at her for falling from the sky.

She ascended the wooden steps into the shade of the portico. One, two, three. Not considering tucking Dodo out of sight, she pulled the tarnished door handle—which wiggled—and the door opened.

She noticed all those children first, and above them. Though not high, the ceiling was domed. She didn’t see a light fixture, no candelabra or chandelier. Light from the sky entered the windows like a slow, warm wind. It was hot enough inside already.

A pack of caloric generators: children her age, or similar. They stood near, or ran around, flat desks with fake wood tops, tan, and painted metal frames, grey. The children were not too dirty, not too clean. None appeared to have recently been digging up root crops, or preparing for surgery. They did, however, lack mediocrity. If only from a sense of mediocre self-importance, average appearing Melody admired averageness. Not so much here. They were fat and crooked or had big ears and squashed noses or dragging legs and that one’s exposed knees suggested tiny skull tops. Melody might recommend stockings, heavy stockings, opaque and thick, suitable for frozen climes. Not freakish, mind you, but these little people surpassed average.

Most of them were chewing: a handful of nuts, prunes and apples, a carrot. Crunch. Melody did not understand why students were allowed to munch away during class, but school was not in session. On to the first lesson.

Late your first day?

You’re not supposed to bring toys to school.

Though looking toward that mass of staring faces, most of the kids static now, Melody could not tell which had spoken.

I don’t have any toys, she replied.

What do you call that thing under your arm?

My guardian.

Mass snickering ensued. Through the big windows, Melody saw a truck in the distance, rolling along and kicking up dust. She couldn’t read the sign.

Show us what you have to eat, a student recommended, to which Melody replied:

I could show you my new shoes.

They looked, and scoffed.

"They’re cheap. I have