rustedWrite anything you like about the word above.
We Have A Winner!!! 05/25/10
After his long journey with Dorothy through the land of Oz, the Tin Man and his new heart returned to his little house in the woods just off the yellow brick road. Many years passed and Tin Man started to notice his joints getting a bit stiff. He began using oil everyday, sometimes more than once a day to help keep him going. After a few years, Tin Man realized he couldn't even get out the door anymore without lubricating each joint a few times. That was when he knew he had rusted and it was time to go to the Lolly Pop Guild nursing home to live out his final days.Winner: Melinda (@mstacer)
Reason: Maybe I'm a bit biased because I'm reading Wicked at the moment, but Oz references make me happy.
5 comments:
After his long journey with Dorothy through the land of Oz, the Tin Man and his new heart returned to his little house in the woods just off the yellow brick road. Many years passed and Tin Man started to notice his joints getting a bit stiff. He began using oil everyday, sometimes more than once a day to help keep him going. After a few years, Tin Man realized he couldn't even get out the door anymore without lubricating each joint a few times. That was when he knew he had rusted and it was time to go to the Lolly Pop Guild nursing home to live out his final days.
"Tin roof, rusted!" The lyrics raced through my head as I drove a screaming 95 miles per hour down the highway, ignoring the posted speed limit. I needed to keep up with my thoughts and this seemed to be the only way to move fast enough. I veered sharply around a little yellow Honda. His horn blared, but the sound was too slow to keep up with me for long. I pressed the pedal harder. I had to outrace my thoughts. Tears streamed down my cheeks. "It just can't be true," I said with more conviction than I had dedicated to any other occasion in my life.
Not noticing the orange light glowing on my dashboard, I flew by the exit. And the next one. And the next one. I couldn't stop or I would be flooded by the truth. As long as I could keep moving, it wouldn't be true. Twenty minutes and 45 miles from Atlanta my car slowed down involuntarily. I punched the pedal to the floor to no avail. I coasted to an agonizing stop, my gut twisted so tightly I was forced to wretch stomach acid onto the side of the road.
I sat doubled over on the side of the road, choking on the truth of her betrayal. She was pregnant and the child wasn't mine. We'd been married for seven years and had been trying to have a child for five of them. Three of those years were filled with doctor's, needles, and surgeries. Nothing had come out of it. Not even a glimmer of possibility. Everything came back negative. And apparently the problem was me.
"A one night stand," she swore. One night stands don't last 6 months and end with you leaving me for him, I wanted to scream. But it wouldn't matter. She had left me long before, had an opportunity to deal with any trifle of guilt she may have felt and I was the one left to suffer alone. I had been brutally thrown out of the Love Shack. My bruises weren't visible yet, but they would be.
It was rusted through in several places, and the odometer had racked up so many miles that it finally gave up with a sigh and stopped keeping track. No one would have ever been able to guess that at one time it was a brilliant baby blue, as it had faded to a dusky gray between the rusty orange. The tires were as bald as old men sitting in rocking chairs out front of a nursing home, and the ceiling fabric was held up by staples. A dinner tray covered a hole in the backseat floor where the floor had rotted and rusted completely through, and so a map of the United States on Aluminum was duct taped over top to protect little feet. A small wooden cross hung on a leather strap from the rear view mirror, and toddler toys lay strewn across the back seat. The trunk no longer opened from the outside and could only be accessed by folding down the rear seats inside of the car, making it a dark cave of boxes and memories. To the world car was nothing to look at, a rusted out wreck, but as Emily stood in the fresh sunshine with the wind blowing through her ponytail, watching her daughter frolic in the tall grass she saw it differently. It was her ticket to freedom and a new life where she could safely tuck her daughter in at night and sleep without fear of the fists and the curses and the bruises and the broken bones and the tears. It was her shining carriage.
Time makes fools of use all,
our dreams become rusted.
So much life wasted,
so much un-eaten custard.
(What? I was hungry)
I let the rust destroy my first car. Slowly, beginning under the seals, and then spreading to the windows and boot.
My next car I watched carefully.
And crashed it in perfect condition.
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