It had been over a century since Mr. Tinker had built his
ladder to the Moon in hopes of picking stars for King Pastoria’s crown, only to
find the Moon so lovely a place that he had pulled up his ladder and decided to
make his home there.
During that time, he watched as men from Earth in very
strange vehicles came flying around his home.
He watched in amazement as a
number of those strange craft would split in two, allowing one part to actually
land on the surface and men would get out and take a look around. He was amazed
by the strange clothing they wore and how they bounced around, picking up rocks,
saluting flags and even playing golf.
Then there was that one time when one of those very strange
craft landed near his home in Mare Imbrium, which he knew as the Sea of Rains,
even though it had never rained there since his arrival.
What made the visit by
the oddly dressed men from Earth very odd was the even stranger vehicle they
left behind, much like a horseless carriage, which Mr. Tinker discovered could
allow him to travel great distances across Mare Imbrium.
Now, Mr. Tinker found himself looking down at the lovely
blue planet where his former life in the Land of Oz had once been.
He wondered
to himself how things were in the Land of Oz and was even more curious how Tik-Tok;
the Mechanical Man, who he and Mr. Smith had had invented long ago, was doing.
Had his mechanical works remained in good working condition, or was he now only
a pile of rusting gears, wheels and cogs?
The visit by the men from Earth and
the mechanical devices they left behind had rekindled his curiosity and his desire to revisit the Land of Oz.
He looked down at the gray dirt beneath his feet and longed
to see color once again. With the exception of the blues and greens of the
planet Earth which crossed the skies above Mare Ibrium every twenty eight days,
much like the Moon had done when he lived in Oz, the only color to be found on
the Moon was gray. Be it charcoal gray, light gray or dark gray, the color of
his home was gray. He found that he truly missed seeing the Great Rainbow of
Oz, as well as Polychrome, Daughter of the Great Rainbow.
Mr. Tinker adjusted the control button on the little silver
box which controlled the size of the air bubble that surrounded him and served
as his means of breathing while living on the Moon. The bubble grew a little
bit bigger and Mr. Tinker reached down and grabbed a handful of gray, lifeless
dirt. He watched as the gray soil slowly ran through his fingers and down
onto the gray surface beneath his feet.
“What would Mr. Smith
think of my little device?” he had often thought to himself. The little
silver box was indeed quite a feat of mechanical ingenuity and Mr. Tinker was
certain the oddly dressed men from Earth would have loved to get their heavily
gloved hands on his device.
He recalled how he had nearly suffocated upon his first try
at climbing his ladder to the Moon when he first discovered that the higher he
climbed, the less air there was to breath, until he found himself nearly blue
in the face and had to make a very quick decent back into Oz.
On his second attempt, he had created a bubble of air which
he thought would work well, only to discover that as he approached the Moon,
his breathing made the air inside the bubble stale and un-breathable.
Only after much thought did Mr. Tinker finally come upon a
means of providing fresh air within the bubble that he depended upon if he was
going to visit the Moon and accomplish his goal of picking stars for King
Pastoria’s crown. He had called it his “Breather-rator” and it worked very
well, at least as long as the small copper tank that contained air from Oz
remained filled.
Fortunately for Mr. Tinker, his first journey to the Moon
found him wandering the South Pole, where he found that by digging into the
soil just a little bit, he would come upon ice.
This was so because comets had
crashed there long ago and the craters they made at the South Pole of the Moon
had never seen sunlight, so the ice from the comets never melted… ever!
Mr. Tinker, being an ingenuous sort of fellow, discovered
that he could place chunks of the comet ice into the small copper tank, and by
tinkering around with the mechanics of his “Breather-rator” and placing a
couple of metal plates that he found attached to an odd metal device which
looked like a large mechanical bug that apparently had landed elsewhere on the Moon,
into the copper tank, he could turn the ice into water and then the water
would somehow turn into two types of gas. One gas he could breath, which he
assumed was air and the other was some sort of gas which burned easily when
lit. Of course, Mr. Tinker didn’t know about Hydrogen and Oxygen, which are the
two gases that, when combined, make water. He only knew that could breathe one
gas and use the other gas for heat and to power his new home on the Moon.
It was then that Mr. Tinker, awestruck by the apparent
beauty of the Moon, decided to leave Earth and Oz behind, and live on the Moon.
When men from Earth had left behind their horseless carriage, it had made his
life on the Moon much easier, especially when it came to gathering ice from the
South Pole.
No longer did he have to walk for days just to get there. Now, he
could do it in a matter of hours.
Still though, after many years of living on the Moon, the
longing for color gnawed heavily at Mr. Tinker’s soul, as did his desire to
check up on the condition of Tik-Tok.
As he contemplated the conundrum of which he found himself
in, Mr. Tinker found himself thinking about rainbows and green grass, the road of yellow brick, of blue
skies and the clear, cool waters of Oz.
The small dwelling that he had carved
out of the mountainside which bordered Mare Imbrium seemed dull and drab
compared to his memories and a sadness overwhelmed the lonely tinker from Oz.
As he often did when times like this overcame him, Mr.
Tinker went about tinkering upon the mechanical devices that he had created
from the remnants that the men from Earth had left behind. He was nearly
finished repairing a minor fault within the “Breather-rator” which had left him
without heat during the last sunset when his screwdriver slipped and tore
across the dull copper surface, leaving a tiny fine scratch in the metal and a
hiss of steam emitting from it.
Mr. Tinker watched as a small cloud of steam rose slowly into
the shaft of brilliant sunlight that came streaming in from the little window
above the small doorway of his home. He marveled at the interaction of light
and steam and was pleasantly surprised when the sunlight, passing through the
water vapor, created a small rainbow arcing across the back wall.
As he stared at the arc of colors splashing across the drab,
gray surface of rock, his mind began wandering, as it often did when
inspiration was looking for a way out.
“Eureka!” he shouted. His excited shout echoed across the
rock walls and bounced off the inner surface of the air bubble which encased
his underground home.
The little tinker from Oz ran about excitedly, gathering
tools and working out details in his mind. He was coming to terms with the
scale of what he had in mind and the thought of it filled him with excitement
and enthusiasm.
For many hours, he tinkered here and there, putting together
various parts he had gathered over the years from those places where the men
from earth had landed. He had to make a return trip to the landing place on the
Sea of Rains, using the horseless carriage, to gather more parts. He also
headed south to gather more ice for his grand plan.
Finally, he was ready to try out his newest device, which he
was certain would be his greatest achievement yet. He had made all his
calculations and felt certain he had all the angles right, as well as the
mechanics of what he now called his “Rainbow Projector.” Now, all he had to do
was wait for the coming shadow. Fortunately for Mr. Tinker, the wait was only a
few hours.
As he waited, he checked his calculations and felt certain
the Terran Eclipse was near at hand. He had seen a number of them before and
they had never failed to fill him with awe.
Now, he set about adjusting the control knobs of his newest
invention, the Rainbow Projector, and filling it with fresh ice. In the
distance, Mr. Tinker could see the approaching shadow of the Earth covering the
gray lunar landscape with a reddish glow.
He turned up the heat on the metal
sphere which held the ice and soon heard the hiss of steam emitting into the
flange from which the large bubble of gas would form.
As the shadow drew closer to his home on the edge of the Sea
of Rains, he set about positioning the large silver shroud that he had
fashioned from the silver linings of the strange craft left behind by the men
of Earth, atop the ever-growing bubble that was rising forth from the metal
sphere.
As the silver shroud encasing the rising bubble began to
gain some altitude, Mr. Tinker attached the cords he had fashioned earlier.
These, in turn, were attached to the Rainbow Projector, which was now rising
high above his home. It reminded him of the balloon that the Wizard of Oz had
used to enter Oz long ago.
Just then, the reddish shadow of the Earth reached the edge
of Mare Imbrium and Mr. Tinker realized that the time to realize his greatest
dream was nearly here.
Moments later, the Terran Eclipse began as the Earth’s
shadow enveloped the entire face of the Moon.
Mr. Tinker then played out more and more of the cord
tethering the Rainbow Projector until it was high above Mare Ibrium and out of
the shadow which the Earth was now casting upon the Moon’s surface. He played
out just a bit more cord until he came to the marking on it that told him the
Rainbow Projector was just at the right altitude for what he had in mind.
No sooner had the Rainbow
Projector reached its final destination high above Mare Imbrium when a most
magnificent thing happened.
A brilliant shaft of sunlight
struck the bubble, which by now was more than a hundred feet across and Mr.
Tinker watched in awed amazement as an immense rainbow of light spread out
towards the northern region of the Moon.
If his calculations were correct,
and the little tinker from Oz was certain they were, the spectrum of colors
should spill out just beyond the North Pole, where no one on Earth could see.
He hopped into his horseless
carriage, which his Breather-rator now encased in a bubble of air, and made for
the North Pole at full speed. He knew that he had about an hour before the
Terran Eclipse would be over and he desperately wanted to see the results of
his work before then.
Fortunately for Mr. Tinker, his
transportation made excellent time and in less than 45 minutes, he was well
past the North Pole
and looking out upon the beautiful rainbow of colors that
were laid out upon the gray, dull and darkened surface of the far side of the
Moon.
Mr. Tinker looked back and
confirmed that the Earth was below the horizon, so he was now confident that he,
and only he, could see the rainbow on the Dark Side of the Moon.
For many minutes, Mr. Tinker
marveled at the beautiful colors of the rainbow which were his alone. His
thoughts wandered back to the Land of Oz and the colors which he missed so very
much.
Just then, the Terran Eclipse came
to an end and the splash of colors from the Rainbow Projector winked out,
leaving the far side of the Moon bathed once more in darkness.
The trip back to Mare Imbrium and
his home was filled with both great joy at what he had accomplished as well as
great sadness at how quickly it had ended. Soon, he was back inside the
hollowed-out cave that was his home and the Rainbow Projector had been pulled
back down. The bubble of air was packed away in the back of the cave for
further use when he needed more air.
“I do believe it is time to return
to Oz,” he thought to himself as the little tinker from Oz began reassembling
the long ladder which had been packed away over a century ago.
James C. Wallace II
Royal Liaison of Oz
