“It’s Dr. Blood, right?”
Dr. Blood:
It use to be the Tin Woodman of Oz. But not the Tin Woodsman as it is often pronounced. Some called me just Tinman.
Carr.:
You are also known as Dr. Blood in Collagesity; that’s how I’ve always known you. But you don’t remember me.
Dr. Blood:
I do now. Starting just a couple of minute ago, when I first laid eyes on you.
Carr.:
And you remember being in Baker Blinker’s house taking a shower.
Dr. Blood:
I do now. It’s all kicking back. I was trapped in the woods that time forgot until this very morning. When I was a flesh and blood man — just like you, Homer — I chopped trees as a function. Nick Chopper I was called. I fell in love with a village maiden servant whose master did not approve. She bribed a wicked witch from the east to enchant my formerly trusted axe. I started hacking away at my own extremities one by one. An arm in January, a leg in March. Even my head at the end. Ku-klip the tinsmith replaced each with a tin replica as they went away. So I still thought, still breathed, still acted. Yet he forgot to make me a new heart. And I’ve never loved since. And so, to me, I’ve never *lived* since. Trapped until today.
Homer:
This story seems familiar. You’re not the Futurama robot?
Dr. Blood (patiently):
I’ve told you this story before, Homer. How I got caught in a shower and became immobile?
Carr.:
We’ve all heard portions of the story, Mr. Simpson. You have “The Wizard of Oz” film in your Springfield, don’t you? Some form of it is available in all planes I know of.
Homer:
Is that the one those Pink Floyd guys did the music for?
Carr.:
In one dimension, yes. How did you two meet?
Dr. Blood:
I found Homer in the meat of the forest surrounded on all sides by the transparent, hyperdimensional Tinbaby, the one who gave me my exterior heart from the future.
Homer:
Futurama, see? Told you.
Carr.:
Ah, the vortex opens. Collagesity citizens have seen the Tinbaby too.
Dr. Blood:
It is me in the future, when I get younger.
Carr.:
But you’re getting older, like all of us. I’m 415 now. Last year this time I was 414. And the year before that: 413. And so on back through the eons. Is that not how it works for you?
Dr. Blood:
It didn’t. But it does.
Carr.:
Stop your stop talk. I want to do a test now. Go up that ladder just behind you Dr. Blood and see if you pass through the door at the stop. Top, I meant there. Stop top? We’ll see.
