Friday, August 25, 1939**

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by DreamBetterDreamzzz

by DreamBetterDreamzzz

Friday, August 25, 1939**

Auntie Em joins Uncle Henry in the field of their Kansas farm. She gives a quick look side to side to make sure they are alone.
"What we going to do?" Em asks her husband.
"I am not sure. At first I was just so happy that she was fine."
"Yes, she is physically fine, thank God."
"I was so relieved that I thought her visions of all her adventures with the house being swept away by that tornado and landing on some witch in a land no one's heard of—well, as I said, I was so relieved that her stories, her dreams, were simply a delightful frosting on the cake."
"But not so much anymore?" prods Em.
"No, no, even Hunk, Hickory, and Zeke have each said something to me privately. They think the world of her but they don't know what to make of her insistence that her wild stories are true."
"They humor her?"
"Always. They never contradict or make light of her."
Auntie Em and Uncle Henry start walking slowly together, both looking down to their hands which curl and clutch expressing what their words cannot.
Uncle Henry continues: "They almost believe her. They want to believe her. Like us, they are relived she survived the tornado but are also working through the guilt that we could not find her and she was left to face the tornado alone."
"I wish some part of the story could be true."
"It can't. We found her unconscious. We moved her to her bed. She woke up a few hours later."
"I agree," says Auntie Em. "But she is so insistent. Her retelling is clear. She never hesitates."
"She just got some whap on the head that cemented her dream into an experience. I don't doubt she believes this really happened."
"But what of it? Do we just let her continue?"
"I am reminded of our friend Reuben Baum. When he came back from France in the Great War we all said 'How can you keep Reuben on the farm after seeing Paree?'"
"Yes, what a lucky man to be sent overseas and see no fighting. It is as if he was just invited to an after war party in Paris."
"Exactly. He had an experience that could have been horrible and life changing, but wasn't. Now he farms like the rest of us."
"So, Dorothy has an experience that could have been horrible and life changing, but wasn't. We should be grateful. So what if she carries a dream that is more vivid than usual."
"The young are blessed with great imagination."
"And what of her other dreams, like putting on a show with someone named Rickey Mooney and making a living on the stage?"
"More imagination, Em."
"I suppose."
Both Henry and Em look to their hands. All vision is colorless because of the Kansan dust. The windswept particles, always moving, coat a reality of the physical, of land, marriage, and work that no OO-LA-LA technicolor vision can long penetrate. Like the dust, Henry and Em drift off to their life of perpetual chores, knowing Dorothy will ultimately join them. In gray and muted Kansas, where eyes must stay as slits, there is no other choice.

** Friday August 25, 1939 is the date that The Wizard of Oz first opened. It premiered at many places earlier in the month (Los Angelos, New York, Wisconsin), but the official release date is August 25.