When I awoke, the sun was shining straight through a sizeable gap in the cottage wall, and despite what I can assure you was a valiant effort, my attempts to screw my eyelids shut and ignore the daybreak proved useless. Somewhere outside, Toto was barking at birds, or squirrels, or Tooth Fairies, or whatever the hell they had in this godforsaken land. I sat up and looked around. The Scarecrow was standing patiently in the corner, eyes open wide, staring at me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

My mouth felt like an ashtray and tasted like hate. “Ugh,” I said. “Water. Does this place have running water?”

“Why do you want water?” the Scarecrow asked.

I’m generally grumpy on the very best of mornings, which this was very much not. “Um, to drink? To wash in?” I shot him a look that I’m not particularly proud of. “What the fuck do you think I want water for?”

For what it was worth, he seemed oblivious to my tone. “What is a fugg?”

As dedicated as I was to my crappy mood, his earnest, wide-eyed look of curiosity was too much. I cracked a smile. “It’s not a fugg, it’s a fuck. Like, you know, a bone? A shag? You can take a flying one at a rolling doughnut?”

He narrowed his eyes and nodded. “So a fugg is something that flies.”

It was like he was constitutionally unable to say curse words. And, depending on what kind of simulation this whole thing was, that might be literally true. “It’s a hard K at the end, not a G,” I insisted. “Fuuuuuuuuuck.”

“Guuuuuuuuuck.”

Jesus Christ. “Okay, starts with an F. FUH.”

“Fuh.”

“And ends with an UCK.”

“Uck.”

“Now say it all together.”

“Fluck.”

“Motherfucker!” That one was a real curse, not an instructional one.

“Futher mucker.”

“NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGG,” someone moaned from outside the cottage, loudly.

“I know, right?” The Scarecrow’s mismatched eyes widened, and it dawned on me that, as far as I knew, we were the only two people in the vicinity. “Wait a minute, who said that?”

I poked my head out the door and heard another moan come from somewhere off in the woods. Could it be…? I pushed a few steps into the foliage, with the Scarecrow following close behind, and spotted something shining in a ray of that godawful morning sun. Sure as shit, next to a half-chopped tree trunk, with an uplifted axe in his hands, stood the Tin Woodsman. And here’s something I was completely unprepared for:

The Tin Woodsman was fucking hot.

He wasn’t all cylindrical and vaguely genderless like the guy in the movie. He was all sleek and shiny, like a sexy motorcycle. I don’t know how they manufacture Tin Woodsmen at all, but his face looked like it was chiseled from something.

And, more importantly, he was here, which meant that I was that much closer to getting the hell out of this waking nightmare. Toto made a quick snap at the Woodsman’s leg, hurting his teeth in the process.

“Praise Satan,” I said. “I was worried we’d have to walk for two or three more days before we ran into you.”

“If this Satan fellow sent you, then praise him indeed,” the Tin Woodsman said. “I’ve been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me.”

“Hold on. You can talk right now?”

“Of course.”

“Then why were you moaning? For a year? Did it ever occur to you that random strangers might be more willing to investigate if you said actual words instead of making creepy sex noises?”

He stood silently for a moment. “I’m trying to shrug,” he said at last, “but I’m rusted so badly that I cannot move at all. If I am well oiled I shall soon be all right again.”

The Scarecrow ran back to the cottage to retrieve the oil can, and returned promptly. “So, uh, which parts get oiled, now?” I asked.

“Oil my neck, first,” replied the Tin Woodsman. I did, but it was rusted pretty badly, so the Scarecrow took hold of the tin head with both his hands and moved it gently from side to side until it worked freely. The Woodsman let out a low, soft moan.

You’re killing me, dude.

“Now oil the joints in my arms,” he said. So we did, and the Tin Woodsman gave a sigh of what I can only call satisfaction and lowered his axe. “This is a great comfort,” he said. “I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I’m glad to be able to put it down at last. Now, if you will oil the joints of my legs…”

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Right. Of course. The legs. The Woodsman’s whole, like, torso unit was much more contoured than the one in the movie, and while I wouldn’t exactly say there was a bulge down there or anything, the way he was put together made it look like there might be some sort of… compartment? Like there could be attachments or something inside. I’m just saying.

I tried to get through the oiling as quickly as possible, but of course his legs were even more rusted than the rest of him, so the Scarecrow had to wiggle them all around like crazy. The process left me queasy and aroused in equal measure. And then ashamed, of course, followed by embarrassment, since, intellectually at least, I knew I had nothing to be ashamed of. Then, somehow, aroused again? Possibly by the embarrassment? The whole thing was a giant puberty shit sandwich, and I can’t tell you how glad I was when it was finally over.

The Tin Woodsman thanked us again for his release. At the very least, he was polite.

“I might have stood there always if you had not come along,” he said. “So you have certainly saved my life. How did you happen to be here?”

“Oh, we’re off to see the…” I remembered my public domain restrictions. “…Oz guy. You know, the great and powerful wizard? The woods got super dark, and I think we spent the night in your cottage.”

“Why do you wish to see Oz?” he asked.

“I want him to send me back to Kansas, or wherever, and the Scarecrow wants him to cram some brains into his head,” I replied.

The Tin Woodsman appeared to think deeply for a moment. “Do you suppose Oz could give me a heart?”

“Absolutely!” I said. “Well, technically I have no idea. But it can’t be any harder than giving the Scarecrow brains, right?”

“True,” the Tin Woodsman returned. “So, if you will allow me to join your party, I will also go to the Emerald City and ask Oz to help me.”

“Come along,” said the Scarecrow heartily, and needless to say I was more than happy to have him join the party. His timing was excellent, too, because just a short way up the road the trees and branches grew so thick over the bricks that we couldn’t pass. But the Tin Woodsman set to work with his axe and cleared a passage in no time.

This time, watching him chop away from a safe distance, the impure thoughts flowed freely without any of the extra baggage. Yeah, that’s the stuff. In fact, after we continued our trek I was still so fixated on the way his hip joints rotated as he walked that I didn’t even notice when the Scarecrow stumbled into a hole and rolled over to the side of the road. He had to call to me to help him up again.

“Why didn’t you walk around the hole?” the Tin Woodsman asked.

“I don’t know enough,” replied the Scarecrow cheerfully. “My head is stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am going to Oz to ask him for some brains.”

“Oh, I see,” the Tin Woodsman said. “But, after all, brains are not the best things in the world.”

“Have you any?” inquired the Scarecrow. Their whole conversation was weirdly polite, but nevertheless fascinating.

“No, my head is quite empty,” the Tin Woodsman answered. “But once I had brains, and a heart also. Having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart.”

“And why is that?” asked the Scarecrow.

“I will tell you my story, and then you will know.”

“Hold on,” I said. “If this is going to be a whole big thing, I’ma eat me some meat pies.” I opened the basket and was a bit disappointed at how few were left. It was a good thing neither of my companions needed to eat, because there were barely enough left to last me the day. Toto wagged his tail frantically and barked, and I begrudgingly split the first pie with him.

“Okay,” I said as we continued walking, my face half-stuffed. “Go.”

The Tin Woodsman launched into his tale.

“I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a woodchopper, and after my father died I took care of my old mother as long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone I would marry, so that I might not become lonely.

“There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for her. So I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the housework. So the old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East, and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg.”

“Jesus,” I said. That shit just got real.

“This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I was used to it.”

I have to admit, I was impressed by his can-do attitude. I almost asked how he even got to the tinsmith, but I remembered the sheer quantity of witch blood splattered all over the landscape a couple of days back when the house first dropped, and decided I was better off not knowing the gory details.

The Woodsman continued his story. “But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl. When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right leg.”

Okay. I was starting to see how this was going to go down.

“Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin.”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?” If some random straw-filled burlap sack could walk and talk and have aspirations, why not a metal head? I reminded myself to never construct anything that even remotely looked like it had a face while I was here.

“I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever, but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever.”

Okay, who the hell was this tinsmith guy? I was beginning to think maybe we should be following whatever color of road led to him.

“But, alas! I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her.

“My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There was only one danger—that my joints would rust. But I kept an oil can in my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a rainstorm, before I thought of the danger, my joints had rusted, and I was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me.

“It was a terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.”

Oh my God. He was so emo.

“All the same,” said the Scarecrow, “I shall ask for brains instead of a heart. For a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one.”

“I shall take the heart,” returned the Tin Woodsman. “For brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world.”

Normally I would agree with the Scarecrow—I’ll take thoughts over feelings any day of the week. But at this point I was in it deep for that sleek, shiny, heartbroken son of a bitch. Even his politeness was somehow turning me on. I had to remind myself that both of them were probably some combination of computer program and drug trip, and regardless of whether they got their respective organs or not, the important thing was that I finish whatever the hell this was and get back home.

And soon. My stomach made a weird gurgling noise, and I quieted it with another one of the few remaining meat pies. They wouldn’t actually let me starve to death in this thing, right?

Right?