Darkling Dorxy

Her name is Dorthy. Everyone calls her Dorx. At school she wears thick rimmed glasses weekly painted green with nail polish, and braces with light blue elastic bands. But on the far wall of her bedroom she has made a road with yellow construction paper, and on this magic path she travels to the place she actually sleeps.

In her bedroom in Kansas she has a pull-out sofa that, unbeknownst to her parents, she never pulls out. In her real room, in Ozzy, she has a oak bed, enclosed with rich green curtains, gilded with silver lace. The walls are of silver glass, the Emerald City laying out before them. There she sleeps in peace, the stars in different places, but shining just as bright.

Dorx, a renaming she wears with all the pride and dignity of Stonewall Jackson, used to be able to do more than sleeps in Ozzy. Once upon a time, she used to run through the streets with her red scarf, sparkling in the sunlight, flying out behind her. In those days when it was night in Kansas it was day in Ozzy. She spent her time there drinking sparkling white grape juice with her friends, and looking through thrift shop after thrift shop for antique broomsticks. The first friend she made in Ozzy was a tall, sprightly boy of sixteen with autism, but who could make more sense out of numbers than anyone she had ever heard of. Next, they met Jasper who though they loved him like a brother still had many dark secrets he kept inside his chest. Finally, Abel joined the group, at which point they had to stop their monthly marathons of 60's Japanese monster monster movies because he got freaked out.

With such adventures to be had with such good friends, one night Dorx decided not to go back to Kansas. She was sick and tired of having confusing, impossible school work, and friends who never picked her to be their partner in gym class. She ended up staying a week in Ozzy before she finally went back. She arrived in her bedroom to see her mother kneeling by the pull-out sofa weeping, her dad leaning on the door frame with bloodshot eyes. She vowed then and there to never again see the land of Ozzy in the daytime where the light might carry her away like a wonderful tornado. Now, when  it is night at home, it is night in Ozzy too.