Tin

“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.