Bring Me My Red Ruby Slippers!

Toto, we're totally screwed ...

Dear Reader,

Yesterday, I came across Veronika’s fascinating post ‘The Self and its Alter-Ego.’ It encouraged me to embrace my inner selves. Challenge accepted. So, I handed my pen over to an unapologetically wild alter ego, and what follows is a gloriously unhinged escapade. Consider this my love letter to the different selves we all contain – may your laughter be my reward!

Somewhere Over the Rainbow (and five ‘lines’ in!)

At the Yellow Brick Club in Vegas, Dorothy prowled the dance floor like a lioness on speed. Tossing her golden mane back with theatrical flair, she surveyed the crowd through dark shades, her grin as wild as the bassline. “Bring me my red ruby slippers!” she roared, her voice slicing through the haze of lasers, sweat and regret.

The writhing crowd froze in place as if the Wizard himself had shouted “statues!” Only Angel – bless her coke-dusted soul and misplaced loyalty – stirred, wobbling on her glittering slippers. She had always been Dorothy's reluctant partner-in-chaos, equal parts enabler and antagonist.

“Uh … these?” she slurred, blinking up at Dorothy like a deer caught in a strobe light, dangling the slippers as if they might bite her. “Honey, take them … You’re looking, umm, ravishing. Fancy a drink? Or, like … a Jacuzzi?”

Dorothy rolled her eyes so hard they almost spun out of her head. “Not falling for that one again, sweetie,” she muttered under her breath. No, tonight Dorothy had one mission only: retrieve her slippers, click her heels and sort out the tornado of chaos masquerading as her life.

Slippers handed over … click, click, click, Dorothy’s ruby heels struck the floor, the mantra tumbling from her lips like a prayer: “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like …” And poof! She vanished, leaving Angel to shrug, remove her top, and continue slow-dancing with her girlfriend to a remix of “Stairway to Heaven.”

Dorothy’s Paradoxical Paradise

Invisible, Dorothy landed with a thud in her parents’ garden, the dewy grass clinging to her feet like clingy ex-lovers. The house was as she remembered: gleaming, pristine and practically begging to be the setting of a true-crime documentary. “Toto, we’re totally screwed!” she cried before hiding her slippers in the middle of a row of cabbages.

She shuffled into the kitchen. “Let’s see if they’ve finally figured out how to make coffee,” she grumbled. “Nope!” One sip and she spat it out so violently it could’ve put out a small fire. “What even IS this … liquid despair?” she muttered, slamming the mug onto the counter.

The front door burst open with an ominous bang and Aunt Em stumbled in, looking like she’d lost a fistfight with gravity. Before Dorothy could even brace herself, Tin Man stormed in behind her, his steel-capped boots glinting menacingly.

“I swear if that dog’s been chewing my shoes again …” Tin Man began, just as Toto trotted in, the red ruby slippers clamped victoriously between his teeth. Dorothy froze.

Tin Man snatched the slippers out of Toto’s mouth and stared at them with wide-eyed glee. “Oh, she’s here again, isn’t she?” His grin was the stuff of nightmares, the kind that said, “I microwaved a spoon just to see what would happen.”

Before Dorothy could uncloak her invisibility, Tin Man shoved his boots into the red slippers with all the grace of a rhino in stilettos. “There’s no place like Vegas!” he cackled. Sparks flew. Toto yelped. And with a flash of light and the YMCA tune playing, they were gone.

Aunt Em, Cigarettes and Existentialism

Hidden, Dorothy watched the scene unfold, jaw slack, until the sound of Aunt Em’s raspy laugh yanked her back to the present. With a heavy sigh, she shimmered into view, sunglasses sliding down her nose as she slumped into a chair. “Seriously?” she muttered, the springs groaning in unison with her existential despair.

“Well, well,” Aunt Em drawled, lighting a cigarette with the dramatic flair of a noir film villainess. “Still chasing rainbows, eh, Dotty?” She exhaled a plume of smoke that smelled faintly of burnt nostalgia and bad decisions.

Dorothy glanced at her. “And you’re still here. Fancy a medal?”

Aunt Em smirked. “Fancy a spliff?”

For a moment, Dorothy considered it. Maybe it was time to stop chasing rainbows and start chasing a bit of inner peace. She cracked a half-smile. “Why not? Can’t make things worse!” she said, realising with a quiet chuckle that her chaos might not be something to escape after all – it might just be something to embrace on her own terms.

Tin Man’s Vegas Adventures

Meanwhile, in the neon hell-scape of the Yellow Brick Club, Tin Man landed squarely on Clarence the cross-eyed bouncer singing, “Young man, there’s no need to feel down, I said … ” The crowd turned, jaws dropping as Toto sailed through the air, landing triumphantly atop a table of overpriced cocktails.

Just as Angel, now topless and mid-cartwheel, spotted the ruby slippers.

“Hey! Those are Dorothy’s!” she screeched, her coke-fuelled brain lighting up like a Christmas tree, while her girlfriend attempted to juggle three champagne bottles. Tin Man barely registered her words. He was too busy dragging Toto into the DJ booth, mumbling something about “finding a heart on the blackjack table.”

In the booth, Tin Man’s steel hands fumbled with buttons as sparks flew. Toto, now precariously spinning on a record, yelped. The crowd cheered as Tin Man’s heavy boots accidentally dropped the sickest beat of the night. “If I only had a heart …” he muttered, dragging Toto through the emergency exit into the chaos of neon-lit Vegas.

Moral of the Mayhem

If you think your life’s a mess, remember this: at least you’re not dodging coked-up lionesses or chasing down kleptomaniacal robots in Vegas. Ruby slippers? They’re just shoes – but your chaos? That’s all yours. Own it.

Life doesn’t come with a manual, but it sure does come with one hell of a soundtrack!

The End

Laughter can sure lift life’s weight, as this detour into delightful absurdity proves! And to think, this all began with a post about the self and its alter ego. Maybe the best way to understand the ‘selves’ we all juggle is by letting chaos take the stage – a reminder that imperfection is where the fun truly begins! Until next time!

Yours in words, Deborah

If my words strike a chord and you feel inspired to dive deeper into my poetry or explore my essays on Jungian thought, I invite you to visit: The Liberated Sheep