Hi, my name is Chad, but most people just call me Tinman. At first I lived in the little town of Choppersville in Oz, and I trained to become a professional bobsledder. Most residents of Choppersville train to become lumberjacks, but I really wanted to follow my dream.
When I was in high school, our bobsled team had an away race at Munchkin Land High. On the way down the bobsled hill, I spotted a beautiful young munchkin maiden. I was so distracted by her beauty that I crashed into a tree. I had to be rushed to the hospital and that was where I learned that my entire body would be made of tin to keep me alive. The town chef came into my room to bring me my dinner, and that’s when I realized it. She was the beautiful munchkin maiden from earlier that day at the race. When I asked her for her name she smiled a sweet innocent smile and said “My name is Stella Noctem.”
Instantly, I knew I was in love. Dazed by her beauty I hadn’t even noticed the doctor was in the room. He politely asked the sparkling Stella to leave so he could perform his surgery. As she left, the smile quickly vanished off my face, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a big chainsaw and a couple sheets of solid tin. They had to amputate every part of my body and replaced them with prosthetic parts made of tin.
After the surgery I was truly a Tinman. I ventured out into Munchkin Land to find my maiden which whom I was in love. I found her at her small house that was built in the shape of a cupcake. I knocked on the door and immediately she opened it. She was shocked by my strange transformation and didn’t say a word. And, there was also something else unusual. I didn’t feel the way I had felt in the hospital. I robotically raised my arm and pounded on my chest. Echo. All I heard was an echo. At that very moment my dreams of ever loving my munchkin maiden had vanished.
I would’ve been sad but because I had no heart, I couldn’t. Stella looked down and sighed. As she shut the door in my face I could see a tear, yes a tear, sliding down her once perfectly happy face. I clanked and clattered all the way home to Choppersville where my mother, Elizabeth, and my father, Daniel, greeted me with sobs and whimpers. Not only had my dreams of my maiden been crushed, but also those of becoming a professional bobsledder. I grabbed my axe (a gift every boy in Choppersville gets on his 10th birthday) and headed to the woods to do what my parents had said was “My calling” and “My true destiny”: chopping down trees.
I walked slowly, bumping my new metallic legs together as I went along, until I got to Choppersville Hill. Just as I had started to chop, it began to downpour. And, sure enough, I rusted solid right in that very spot. I couldn’t move or speak, just think. Seven long and dreadful years I stood, rusted in place, with axe in hand, until, finally, somebody spotted me. It was a young girl, named Dorothy, and the scarecrow, named Ava, from down the road. They found me, oiled me, and offered me to come along with them to the Emerald City to get me a new heart from the wizard.
I accepted the tremendous offer without any hesitation. Down the Yellow Brick Road we skipped ‘til we made it to the one and only Emerald City. By that time we had also picked up another companion, Rex the Lion. When Dorothy, Ava, Rex, and I had first asked the wizard for what we wanted he had said “No!” But, after we killed the Wicked Witch of the West, he saw reason. I was given a small plastic watch in the shape of a heart. Humbug! That stupid, lying, humbug! Though I didn’t show it at the time, I was furious with the “wizard”. As his silly little balloon was about to take flight, I attached a small device that blew him sky high, never to return to Oz.
Before he had left, he officially made Rex, Ava, and I rulers of Oz until he would return. Luckily for us, he never did. For a while it was great, but it soon turned very sour. I scoured Oz in search of a doctor who could give me a new heart. Unfortunately, there was none. Not long after I had returned there was a warrant for my arrest. An unnamed Osian had ratted me out and told everyone that I had strapped the device onto the wizard’s balloon.
I fled from the Emerald City and walked the streets of Oz under the cloak of darkness. Eventually, I walked all the way back to Munchkin Land. I found the little cupcake house and peeked in the side window. There was Stella. My Stella. With another man. A man I knew all too well.
His name was Chopfyt. After I had been made into tin, he had needed limbs like I had. But, they had no more tin at the time and it needed to be done immediately. They took my dismantled body parts and sewed them to him. He was exactly like I was, but with a different brain. Oh, how this made me furious! Who does he think he is?! First stealing my body, then my maiden! My maiden! My Stella!!!
I couldn’t help myself. I was so upset, I broke through the window of Stella’s little house and, with only one swipe of my axe, decapitated the un-expecting man. Stella let out a gasp and quickly ran towards the phone to call the Emerald City. I couldn’t be taken back there. Not after this. I didn’t think. I don’t know why I did it, but then I did something I thought I would never do. I stumbled over to Stella. My Stella. She was my Stella. She was. I took my axe, raised it up high and then- SLICE! Right through her stomach I slashed her. She fell to the floor, taking her last dying breath.
I stopped, dropped my axe, and knelt down beside her. It was silent. I looked into her lifeless eyes and started to cry. I don’t know why I cried. I had nothing to cry about. I had no feeling. No love. No heart. After a little while, two Osian guards barged in with machine guns and dragged me back to the Emerald City where I was thrown in the dungeon. And that is where I am now, writing this at this very moment.
I will be killed in only a matter of hours. I am going to be dismantled and thrown into the furnace. So this is what I have to say before I go. In my time here in the dungeon I have realized one thing. I can love. I loved my Stella all along. Just because you have no heart, doesn’t mean you can’t love. Love is not something you can see, or smell, or taste, or touch. The only way you know it’s there is if you feel it. And I felt it. Stella, my little star of the night, goodnight.