The Tin Man

A gentle plume of smoke rises from a clearing within an isolated forest, a spot where the remains of the old world are at peace. A can of black beans sits empty in the embers of a near-extinguished campfire, where a solitary figure with melancholy eyes, clad in armour, stares at the tin helmet by his feet. His face is hard, dirty and covered in rough stubble, his dark disheveled hair falls limply across his brow. His stomach grumbles in agony, but the man can do nothing to sooth it. The wind washes over him and carries off with his stench, the scent of dirt and blood long unwashed. Eventually he breaks his stillness and, reaching underneath his breastplate, he pulls out a golden heart-shaped locket. With a thumb the man clicks it open, though its hinges have stiffened with time. His eyes focus on the old picture inside, at three individuals: a woman with long blonde hair cascading over a bright summer dress, a tough man with a mighty mane of hair and a perfectly groomed moustache, and a broad-shouldered individual with hair as stiff as straw. In the photo they are smiling before a great emerald statue, the features of which had worn over the years. The man’s lip trembles at the sight of them, but he fights the tears. He closes his eyes and holds the locket to his chest longingly.

‘This wasn’t what I wanted… This isn’t what I asked for’, he grumbles through the immense pain in his throat.

After a few minutes of being still, he throws water over the embers and continues his journey northward.

The clouds have parted leaving a streak of blue coursing through the morning sky, the sun’s rays break through, though they do not shine on him. The yellow brick road on which he wanders is uneven and destroyed in parts. His feet are wet with blood, his skin is chaffed from weeks of walking, resting only to eat and sleep. Finally, on the horizon, glimmering in the sunlight, the city of green glass overlooks all. With each step, the countryside through which he walks appears ever more war torn. The farms around the city were scorched to starve out those within, and the gore of battle is being picked clean from the charred earth by vermin.

As the man enters the city, he keeps to himself, but his gaze is attracted by the normality of life here. The war ravaged this land for eight long years, and many of the children around him were born knowing nothing else, and some without families. The sound of marriage bells exist alongside funerals, most individuals being lowered into unmarked graves. Shop keepers and farmers lost their lively hoods, many more their lives. The tears of widows and widowers swell the ground where the flowers may never grow again. It all seems so overwhelmingly unfair to him, and taken by the suddenness of his emotions he puts his tin helmet back on and averts his gaze, watching only his feet as they shift ever forward.

The man stops. Before him: a trial of steps leading up to the emerald palace. He ascends in silence, step by step, his feet heavy with exhaustion. The tin suit weighs him down making each movement excruciating, but he endures until he reaches the top. He is met with an open doorway leading into the outer court: a picturesque garden space, geometrical shapes with bright flowers and pristine hedges. The sight of it brings him to a stop, and fills him with resentment. The idea that the palace remains untouched as the homes of his people burn; that the fat aristocrats dine within the emerald halls whilst his people starve; the idea that the wizard breathes whilst his people lay breathless in his stead.

‘Welcome, Tin Man. Come in’, invites a source-less voice.

The tin man grows stiff for a moment, but forces himself into the empty inner court room.

‘Why have you returned?’ questions the wizard.

‘This wasn’t what I wanted’ the tin man whispers.

‘Speak up’, instructs the now-commanding voice.

He clears his throat and takes off his helmet. His left hand finds the locket beneath his armour and he keeps it there.

‘This isn’t what I asked for’, he says, with growing confidence.

‘You asked for a heart’, the wizard responds coldly, ‘did you not? This is what it means to have one. You did not know of what you asked’.

‘You did not give me a heart, you tore it from me. That is all you have ever done. You promise people what they want, but you never deliver. You promise to give, but all you ever do is take. You believe yourself a god, but all I see is a coward’, says the tin man with a fire in his chest.

‘A coward you say?’ screams the wizard in a baffled rage. ‘I am a god amongst men, an entity of supreme power, one you cannot comprehend. Do not patronise me, or I will kill you where you stand’.

The Tin Man calms himself, the disdain for the Wizard replaced by pity. ‘You are nothing but a conjurer of cheap tricks held up by an army that no longer trusts you. You rule in fear and maintain a pillar of lies. Your war was meaningless and hundreds of thousands of people died for nothing’. The tin man unsheathes his sword and throws it onto the marble floor. ‘Where are they’?

‘Your claims are false’, retorts the stunned wizard. ‘You know nothing of what you speak’.

The man sighs deeply. ‘Tell me where they are, or I will tear this place apart brick by brick until I find you and expose you for the charlatan you are’.

After a period of silence and consideration, the Wizard unsympathetically responds: ‘in an unmarked grave by the river’.

The wizard speaks again but his words fall upon deaf ears as the tin man turns and leaves the palace, pulling bluebells from the garden on the way out. He descends the steps and slowly makes his way through the forsaken city. He passes through the gates and traces the river that runs through the road. The sky rumbles with thunder and rain swells the riverbed. As he walks through the thick mud he removes his tin greaves and throws them to the ground, his blistered and bloodied feet find relief in the cool mud. He takes off his breast plate and casts it into the river alongside his helmet. His pace begins to slow, his posture crumbles and all of his energy leaves his body as he stumbles upon the unmarked grave and falls to his knees. The rain drenches his hair, his tears run down from his tired eyes, and the thunder crashes through the rolling clouds. With his shaking hands he tears the locket from around his neck and looks at his friends one last time. He brushes the dirt from the old photo and sees behind them, with arms outstretched, his own smiling-visage. He closes the locket, and with bruised fingers he buries it on a bed of bluebells.