...and as soon as I began to read this entry - the name 'DAVID ICKE' turned up...

Let me think....TIN MAN was probably TOMLINSON...MONKEY BAT was probably MARK R...THE LION was almost certainly PRINCE WILLIAM...and GLINDA was definitely RIMINGTON...here is the entry:

Thursday, April 21, 2011D: L&L (part 44 - Scarecrow) -- Mate


Back then...

It was my birthday, if I remember rightly. Well, one of them, anyway. It had come to the stage when I couldn’t remember my human birthday, so I took the day I became Scarecrow as my day of commemoration. All of Oz had made its annual pilgrimage to Emerald City to pay homage to me, their humble and obedient servant, Emperor of Oz. Even Glinda, charmless harridan that she was, had sent me a card, wishing me the very best of good fortune for the day. Even now, as I sit waiting for Dot to make her plans, I can recall the verse the Good Witch wrote in that card:

“Tick-tock, look at the clock,
Better put on my birthday frock.
Tick-tock, man of the year
Is another year closer to death, I fear.
How-now, a bloodied dead cow
Is roasting on fires with fishes and sow.
Caw-caw, the crows made of straw
Will burn with the beasts, according to Law.”

(She had signed it, On your birthday, dear Fiyero, love. Glinda. Heartless bitch!)

It was also to be the last time the three of us were together in the one place. The Lion, Nick the Tin Man, and me: the triumvirate. We had cake and wine, and remembered our past conquests and glories. But even then, I knew we were no longer bonded by quests or friendship. Politics ruined everything.

The Lion’s courage made him my fiercest ally. There was no one I could turn to more if I needed an insurrection put in its place, an opponent I wanted to fall into a barrel of hot oil, or an ideology dismissed with a carnal snarl. He was my right hand man: an Animal for all seasons. It was a pity Glinda liked to fuck beasts, though. My spies told me how Lion and the Good Bitch of the North held clandestine meetings behind my back, hoping to use my lack of knowledge as a sign that I was a weak leader, that I was less than omniscient. Of course, they were right. I didn’t even know my own heritage, let alone how to run an empire. But I wasn’t about to let my people know that. For all intents and purposes, I was Scarecrow, Emperor of Oz. However, my title was now not worth the paper it was written on or the crown I now wore. I was a fugitive in my own palace.

Nick the Tin Man was a different breed altogether. His new heart was supposed to cure him of his love-sickness, but I think (as others did) it solved nothing. When we sat together I saw in his eye a vacuum so dense no light could ever hope to escape from it. His heart had created a soul so black no ‘love’ could ever redeem it. Did this happen overnight? I think not. But I was so enamoured by the trappings of power that I neglected my friends and only sought them whenever I needed a favour.

So my birthday party was to have been an attempt to break the ice, a way to find our common ground and to get our friendship back on track. I was in the shit and I knew it. I needed as many people on my side as I could get.

It was to be our last supper.

The feast, it has to be said, was splendid: sweetmeats from all over Oz heaped onto plates to large that even the Lion had trouble keeping up with the pace. Every vineyard from Munchkinland to The Vinkus was represented in all their palatable goodness. We all got good and roaring drunk – which is a dangerous thing to do when your ass is in a sling and you need your wits about you. But old habits die hard. Just ask the Lion about that. At one stage during the banquet, he spotted a serving girl he took a fancy to and rutted the poor wench in front of a very interested audience. She was left bleeding, but still carried on with serving the dessert course when it came around: Gillikin Pears in Ambrose coulis, a personal favourite of mine.

Entertainment was provided by Glinda’s Clockwork Creations: a parade of little tick-tock men who whirred and hummed in harmonic symphony. I held a particular dislike for these foolish automata, seeing nothing in them that was in the least bit aesthetic.

The last thing I remember before life, as I knew it then, had ended was seeing Nick rant to himself about something or other, I can’t recall what. But he was becoming increasingly agitated and his soulless eyes had taken on a hellish colour. He stood up and screamed at the crowd in the room. There were no words to his horror, just a shriek of frightening perplexity. It was as if the last vestiges of his sanity had fled into eternal despair. I had never seen the likes of it before or since. I knew I should have kept in closer contact with him after Dorothy Gale and the Wizard left. It was all my fault...or so I thought.

The witch entered the Banqueting Hall in the only way she knew how: she just appeared in a puff of pink smoke (pink being her favourite colour that year). The Tin Man continued his rage against the dying of the light, while Lion, on seeing the woman of his beastly dreams, wrapped his arms around himself, purring plaintively. It was an odd series of events, you’ll have to agree.

“Scarecrow,” Glinda the Bitch said in a tone that silenced all proceedings, including Nick. “I have come to pay my respects to you, our wonderful Emperor of Oz.”

I nodded to her. “My thanks to you, good lady, for your reverence and in providing us with your personal army by way of theatrics.” I raised my glass to her. The Lion, I could see from the corner of my eye, was pleasuring himself ostentatiously. I’d hate to be the servant cleaning up after that mess. Personally I couldn’t see the attraction. Glinda wasn’t even that attractive. Maybe it was just glamour then, I didn’t know. But she was powerful; more powerful than I, that was for sure.

“It gives me no pleasure,” Glinda continued, “to issue you with a notice of eviction. I’m so sorry, Scarecrow, but the people have spoken through me.”

It’s not that I was surprised – I wasn’t – but the fact that she thought she represented all of Oz bothered me. I believed I had the Munchkins at my side, and perhaps the Animals, too, because of my association with the Lion. Emerald City was always a fickle place. No matter who held the title of Emperor, it was the witches who held sway.

“Are you sure you’ve checked your numbers, Glinda?” I asked.

“There is no doubt, Scarecrow,” she said smirking. “Isn’t that right, darling?” The Lion pushed back his chair and grabbed the nearest of my bodyguards. Within moments the poor man’s throat was on the floor, with his innards decorating what was left of my birthday cake. My remaining guards pointed their pikes at my former companion, but the tick-tock men were ready for them. Replacing their metallic hands with buzz-saws they sliced their way through the crowd, severing arms, legs and heads with gay abandon. I sat through it all, guzzling down wine in the hope that extreme inebriation would make it all go away.

The Tin Man put his axe to good use but it was hard to see whether he was protecting me or fighting for his own life. As it was, both tick-tocks and human felt the full force of his chopper. He was an equal opportunity assassin.

It didn’t take long for the massacre to end. Still standing were the remnants of Glinda’s clockwork army; Nick the bloodied Tin Man; the Lion in full feral mode; Glinda herself, unaffected by the carnage; and me, drunk as a lord.

Glinda took one of her tick-tock men and said to it: “Take Scarecrow to the city borders and leave him there. Make sure he walks through the gate. Once he’s through he can never come back in again.”

“How do you fathom that?” I asked, although I knew what the answer would be.

She turned to me and smiled that wicked grin of hers. “I have cursed you,” she said. “If you try to re-enter Emerald City you shall die. While I live, this curse will be on your head.”

“And what if I don’t leave?”

Glinda cocked her head. “Oh, you’ll leave all right. Tik-Toks, to me! Lion, to me! Tin Man, to me!” Suddenly she was surrounded by power, brute strength and metal – lots and lots of metal. One of the clockwork creations grabbed me from my seat and pulled me down the hall. Once I was outside my palace it was as if a clearing had been prepared for me in advance. It was a straight road to the city gates. I tried struggling but I may as well have been fighting with Nick; it was getting me nowhere. I called out my friends’ names but all I got in reply were snarls and clicks. Very soon I was at the gates. My handler dropped me like I was leprous. He kicked my side and pointed to the gate itself.

In a voice that sounded like rusted pipes he said: “Go and do not return.”

So, like the coward I was, I went – and did not return.
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