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  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6671",
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  "thread": {
    "id": 6671,
    "subject": "Short Story 77: The Eyeflash Miracles Part 1",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2014-09-16T02:49:54+00:00",
    "last": "2014-09-16T02:49:54+00:00"
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    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072wkqPMQwNTMNmECRwU0p=-qrk9astPgoxtN3fV0T8CpWA@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2014-09-16T02:49:54+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth)  Short Story 77: The Eyeflash Miracles Part 1",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
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          "text": "*THE EYEFLASH MIRACLES*\n\n“The Eyeflash Miracles” first appeared in *Future Power* in 1976 and is\nreprinted in *The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other\nStories. *Much of the identification of more obscure Oz references in the\nsummary will rely on the work of William Ansley from the Urth Mailing List,\nthough some allusions from the first novel and the movie are easily\nrecognizable.\n\nDETAILED SUMMARY WITH OZ REFERENCES:\n\nThe story begins with a quote from Anatole France’s “Procurator of Judea”\nin which Pontius Pilate reviews his career in Judea, and when the topic of\nJesus of Nazereth comes up, he says, “I cannot call him to mind.”\n\nLittle Tib, a blind boy, feels and listens to a train coming. He finds a\nnearby body of water and drinks from it. He hopes to find Sugarland. The\nauthoritative voice of Mr. Parker calls out to him that he should be in\nschool, and another voice, that of Nitty, an ex-custodian, yells out not to\nhurt the child.\n\nNitty says the boy needs food and helps Little Tib across, while Mr. Parker\nsays, “Fishing — that’s what most of them do.” Mr. Parker speaks of\nGrovehurst School in Martinsburg and enrolling Little Tibb, inquiring of\nhis documentation and retinal pattern card. Nitty says they are two or\nthree hundred kilometers from there, heading to Macon, and that the boy\ndoesn’t have papers: “Why he got to have papers” He ain’t no dog!?\n\nWhen Mr. Parker realizes the boy doesn’t have retinas, he says, “A ghost.\nWe’re seeing a ghost, Nitty. Sociologically he’s not real — he’s been\ndeprived of existence.” All funds and identification are linked to retinal\npatterns in this society. Little Tib cries, and when Nitty says he has\nnever seen a ghost, Mr. Parker breaks down, too: “You dumb bastard. All my\nlife there’s been nobody around but dumb bastards like you.”\n\nNitty hatches a plan to have the blind boy infiltrate the central records\ncomputer system, since he would be more useful than a man with sight there.\nMr. Parker has lost his position (he says “temporarily abrogated”), as has\nNitty. He promises that when his position is restored he will get Little\nTib enrolled in a school.\n\nThat night Tib thinks of the last thing he saw, red and yellow flashes like\na real fire, and a golden nugget against a field of blue. Nitty says they\nare going to Martinsburg, but Tib says he wants to go to Sugarland, because\nthere “they know who you are” (It is probably the location of his family's\nhome).\n\nNitty says that in his life the only ones that truly knew him was little\nchildren. Lying by the fire, Tib dreams of his father. They walk through a\nglass turnstyle door past shopping centers, rising in a glass elevator to\nreach a man in a white coat who examines Tib through a retinal scanner. The\nman concludes, “We don’t know who this child is, but he certainly isn’t\nanyone.”\n\nWhen Tib awakes, he hears the fire and soon sees flowers, knowing that they\nin turn can see him, before witnessing a miraculous city descend from the\nsky.\n\nThis is a distorted but recognizable reference to a scene in the twelfth\nchapter of *The Marvelous Land of Oz,* entitled \"Mr. H. M.Woggle-Bug, T.\nE.\" Here, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and Tip — are trying to get back\nto the Emerald City and are blocked by an enchantment that makes them see a\nfield of sunflowers. These sunflowers whirl when they look at them and\ndazzle their vision and mystify them so they don't know which way to go.\nWhen the Tin Woodmen tries to cut them down, they stop spinning and a\ngirl's face appears at the center of each. The Woodman is too tender\nhearted to try to cut the flowers down after this, but they finally realize\nthat the flowers are an illusion and by shutting their eyes they are able\nto pass beyond the field. (Ansley)\n\n“Then the city came down like a cloud and settled on a hill in front of\nhim. As soon as it was there it pretended that it had been there all the\ntime, but Little Tib could feel it laughing underneath.”\n\nThis also represents the first hint of a vision in the conceivably waking\nworld for Little Tib, as it is unclear if he has fallen asleep or not,\nthough the text shows him waking up after witnessing the apparitions. Green\ntowers which look like glass and high walls evoke the Emerald City of Oz .\nTip rushes to enter, asking to see the King, and the gate man pulls him\nthrough a window and puts glasses on him which become lines painted on his\nface. (In the Oz books, green glasses were employed by the Wizard to make\nvisitors see the entire city as green — part of his charlatanry); here,\nsince the vision of the marvelous city is from inside Tib [or, if it is\nexternal, is there because of Tib] the perception that makes the city\nwondrous is a part of him, symbolized by the glasses simply having no\nexternal existence, becoming a part of Tib.\n\nThe gardens of the city are sidewise, and the palace wall “was made by\ntrees holding hands.” Tib sees the “king” descending stairs from the\nclouds: “She was a beautiful woman, and although she did not look at all\nlike her, Little Tib knew that she was his mother.” (Ozma was disguised as\nthe boy Tip by the witch Mombi in *The Marvelous Land of Oz* and was then\nreinstated as the rightful ruler of Oz, yet this city has parallels to the\nCity of God and Vishnu’s Vaikuntha as well). When Tib awakens, it is to\ndarkness.\n\nThey determine to catch a train. Mr. Parker talks about the light modern\ntrain design, and says, “There only remained the awkward business of the\ncrews — Fortunately it was found that mechanisms of the same type that had\nalready displaced educators and others could be substituted for railway\nengineers and brakemen. Who would have believed that running a train was as\nroutine and mechanical a business as teaching a class?”\n\nNitty carries Little Tib when they catch the train, and Mr. Parker goes to\nsleep. Nitty tries to describe the passing landscape, saying there is\nnothing but pinewood forests with animals. “You like animals, George” Bears\nand big old cats. (Of course echoing the “Lions and tigers and bears” of\nOz fame). Nitty tells Tib that Mr. Parker’s mind was augmented to make him\na better superintendent, and the loss of the upgrades and his job has made\nhim crazy and sometimes dangerous.\n\nHere Tib begins to display signs of pallor and fever, which accompanies\nmany of his miracles throughout the story (this time, the healing of Mr.\nParker’s fractured mind). Nitty sees a bear waving at them from the woods\nas two railway patrolwomen accost them. Mr. Parker wakes up and begins to\naddress the two women as if they were new teachers under his jurisdiction.\nThey think he has been “shooting up on chalk” and also indicate that Nitty\ndoes not have to assume colloquial speech patterns for their benefit. (His\nexaggerated ethnic speech patterns were a charade for Mr. Parker’s\nbenefit). The railway police tell them to get off at Howard and leave, but\nthen toss a gas grenade into the car on their way out. Little Tib imagines\nhimself on the hill above the creek, and “a kiteflying west wind was\nblowing” — this purifies the boxcar and blows all the gas out of the can as\nwell. Afterwards, Mr. Parker returns to normal and feels as if he has\nawakened from a long dream. Tib has grown very hot and feverish, and the\nsound of the wheels becomes like “the rushing blood in the heart of a\ngiantess.”\n\nTib enters another dream state, dominated by red: red leaves red grass, red\nbirds, and even faces in the trunks of trees. A cardinal flickers to his\nshoulder and Tib says he wants to stay there forever, walking down that\npath. The cardinal assures him, “You will, my son,” and makes the sign of\nthe cross. He comes across a red and white striped house and encounters a\ncopper man. He hears hammering in the hills. The copper man says that the\ngiant is making the noise. Tib winds up the copper man’s TALKING ACTION\nkeyhole so that they can communicate. The man of copper says that his words\nwill blow away the mist concealing the giantess. She has an enormous broom\nthat continually swings at a passing rat.\n\nTib senses that this giantess, too, “was Little Tib's mother, but he sensed\nthat she would not know him — that she was cut off from him in some way by\nthe mists, and the need to strike at the rat.” Tiktok says she is only\nhitting at it once, but over and over, indicating that Tib will die if the\nbroom catches him and sweeps him away; he says he can stop it. Tib winds\nhis MOVING ACTION key and Tiktok looks into his eyes, where Tib sees his\nown reflected with “little flames in them like the flames of two candles in\nchurch, and the flames were going out.” Finally, Tib attempts to wind\nTiktok's thinking key so that he can answer the question, ?Don't you know\nme??, but there is no key.\n\n The trees with faces in their trunks are from the movie (the scene in the\napple orchard). The place where the leaves, grass, etc. are all red is in\nthe Land of Oz; it is the portion know as the Country of the Quadlings or\nQuadlingland. In the Oz books the Munchkins are only one of the four major\ngroups who live in Oz. To the north live the Quadlings, to the east live\nthe Munchkins (blue), to the south live the Gillykins (red) and to the west\nlive the Winkies (yellow). And in the center is the Emerald City where\nthings are, of course, green. Oz is first described this way in *The\nMarvelous Land of Oz.*\n\n\n  The copper man is Tiktok, \"Smith & Tinker's Patent\nDouble-Action,Extra-Responsive, Thought-Creating, Perfect-Talking\nMechanical Man,\" as it says at the beginning of his instruction manual. He\nis introduced in *Ozma of Oz* and appears in many books thereafter. Wolfe\ngot a few details wrong (in the book he has one keyhole in the middle of\nhis back and one under each arm and one key fits all of them) but his\ncopper man is unmistakably Tiktok, who is often referred to as a copper man\nin the Oz books. One of the great pleasures of the Oz books is the\nillustrations. Wolfe obviously remembers the pictures of the characters;\nthe drawings often showed details that Baum did not describe but that Wolfe\ndoes, such as Tiktok's mustache.\n\n\n  The giant version of Little Tib's mother is based on a giant in *Ozma of\nOz*. The giant in the book is another clockwork man, made of iron, by the\nsame manufacturer as Tiktok. All the iron giant can do is pound the path\nthat runs by him with his giant hammer; he is meant to discourage people\nfrom using the path. But if you move quickly and time it just right, you\ncan run under his hammer. Otherwise you will be crushed. In a typical Wolfe\ntouch, when Little Tib comments to Tiktok that he remembers his mother\ntrying to hit a rat with a broom just once, Tiktok replies that she *is*\nonly swinging the broom once, but that moment is occurring over and over.\n(Ansley)\n\n\n Tib awakens to a baby crying in a doctor's office and the touch of a\nstrange woman who has “the hard cold hands of the copper man. Embarrassed,\nTib finds himself on Nitty's lap, his stick gone. He says hello to a little\ngirl with only one leg and hears the ?*Bam. Bam. Bam*.” sound of the\ngiantess' broom. The girl's mother warns her not to let Tib touch her face\nwith his dirty hands. When Tib feels the little girl's artificial leg, he\nnotices “a rubber thing with metal under it, and metal strips like the\ncopper man's neck going down at the sides. Little Tib reached inside them\nand found her leg again, but it was smaller than his own arm.”\n\n He thinks of walking amongst the spinning flowers towards the green city\nand the girl's leg grows to full size. The mother screams. Tib still has a\nfever and the doctor's office refuses to see him without a retinal scan.\nThe doctor's employee says, “They'll think he might be in the country\nillegally. Once an investigation like that starts, you can never stop it.”\n\n Mr. Parker asserts that he is himself ill and that Nitty must leave so the\nboy must accompany him in to see the doctor. The doctor gives him\nmedication for influenza. Nitty and Mr. Parker later discuss their plans to\nreprogram the machine. “You work that program right and that machine will\nfind out they need a man running it again. Need a maintenance man too. Why\ndoes a man feel so bad if he don't have real payin'- work to do — tell me\nthat.”\n\n Tib comes to the realization that he must have dreamed the healing, and\nthat the other world in which he can see must be the real world. After\nsleeping for a bit, they decide to hitchhike to Martinsburg. Nitty tells\nhim to wash to get rid of his tear streaks, and when they go down to the\ncreek Nitty pours water over Little Tib's head and ducks him under in a\nclassic baptism scene. As they are hitchhiking, Nitty assures Little Tib\nthat they will get a ride before ten because of his prayers. Tib says Nitty\nshould pray for a job, and the older man says, “I did that, right after I\nlost my old one. Then I saw Mr. Parker again and how he had got to be, and\nI started going around with him to look after him. So then I had a job —\nI've got it now Mr. Parker's the one that doesn't have a job.”\n\n Tib prays, begging that he would even ride with cattle or garbage. A bus\nstops and welcomes them to the “temple of Deva”. The bus' driver, Dr.\nPrithivi, is a syncretic spirtualist who wears a cross with three crossbars\non his neck. Dr. Prithivi claims to be a doctor of the soul: “If someone is\nsick a physician should be summoned. Should they be evil they should summon\nme.” Nitty comments that no one would seek that aid — for the evil one\nwould be making money. Dr. Prithivi says that all men are evil but few make\nmoney. The bus stops at a road side park so that they can “recreate”\nthemselves. Looking over the high view from the park, Dr. Prithivi recalls\nhis boyhood in the Himalayas, where he once saw a leopard in his garden.\n\n Little Tib tries to picture a leopard or even a cat, and eventually sees a\nlion standing on its hind feet in front of him, with a red ribbon knotted\nin its mane dancing to “the remembered flute music of Dr. Prithivi's\nlaughter.” Tib dances with the lion over the air, whose description matches\nthat of the lion from *The Wizard of Oz*. The crowd pulls him back from the\nledge.\n\nDr. Prithivi says that Tib must be presented to the god and unveils his\nsix-armed statue of Deva holding syncretic symbols of many of the world's\nmajor religions (and even a phallus thrown in for good measure). Tib\nimagines being crushed on the stones below and pictures them in his mind,\nand soon sees himself pressed against a wall of stone in a rocky land. He\nfollows the shadows into the mountain until he hears a tapping as of\nmarbles poured on a floor and sees torches kindled. (After the baptism and\nthe dance with the lion , the fantasy of his visions are no longer\nrelegated to dreams, and freely interact with the waking world — his visit\nto the gnome kingdom here echoes his later trip to the dark realm of the\ncomputer in the County Administrative Building). Here gnomes with axes\naccost him, stating they are a police state and that Tib will be drafted\ninto the labor force. They take him to their king sitting on his cushions\nbehind gold curtains, who accuses Tib of trespassing and asks how he\npleads. Asking for mercy, Tib says that trespasses should be forgiven,\nwhile the Gnome King sees it as an admission of guilt. The lights go out\nand Tib manages to run away as the gnomes struggle in the dark, but soon he\nsees another faint light which he wills to be Mr. Parker and Nitty near a\ncold water creek.\n\nInstead, it is a forest of silver and gold trees emitting light, the sky a\nvault of cold stone. Grapefruit sized fruit dangles from the trees, and\nwhen he pulls one off he sees that it unscrews (the grass which had been\ngems turning into “real grass in some way, or perhaps a carpet or a\nbedspread”). Inside the fruit are hot meat and gravy and other food “so hot\nand dry he did not even try to put them in his mouth.” He finds hot tea and\nmanages to drink a bit despite the heat, finally in the dark again.\n\nKnowing that he is waking up, Tib hears “the noise of hundreds and hundreds\nof picks” and a star shaped shadow in a new light congeals into a gnome\ncoming after him, then an army of gnomes with arms “sticking out at every\nangle, so that it looked like one gnome with a hundred arms, all reaching\nfor him.” This image of the gnomes and their sounds will resemble the\npossessed demon legion of the computer Tib will soon find when he finally\nconfronts the darkness in Martinsburg. In addition, the demon depicted on\nthe side of Prithivi's bus, Hiranyakasipu, has a name which means “clothed\nin gold” or “soft cushions” - and the king of the gnome's throne is fitted\nwith real gold curtains, as he sits on a bed spread with linked diamonds.\nThese gnome scenes, too, are based on Oz books. Baum elected to spell gnome\nwithout the g to avoid confusions in pronunciation.\n\n\n The nomes are introduced in *Ozma of Oz.* The land outside the Nome\nKing's cave is very much as Wolfe describes it. Baum's Nome King's\nthrone room is similar to Wolfe's description, but there are\ndifferences. Baum's nomes are constantly digging with picks and\nshovels when they are not smelting gold or hammering it in their\nsmithies. They only stop when the Nome King needs them to serve as\nsoldiers.\nThe Metal Forest is described in *Tik-Tok of Oz* (Chapter 19, \"King\nKaliko\"). It is a sort of treasury for the nomes. Again some details\ndiffer from Wolfe's description. The major one is that the cave of the\nMetal Forest also contains living trees called Hotel Trees which bear\nThree-Course Nuts (described in Chapter 22: \"Kindly Kisses\"). The\nfruits are cocoanut-sized [sic] and unscrew into three sections (soup,\nmain course and dessert) but they are obviously the source of Little\nTib's golden fruit. (Ansley)The heat of the meal stems from the\nterrible fever Tib has after actually walking on air, and he awakens\nin a motel which Dr. Prithivi has paid for by taking up a collection.\nNitty believes the hot tea in Tib's dream was the ice water and\nmedicine he administered to the boy.\tNitty calls Prithivi, and when he\narrives they discuss the lion that Tib saw. Prithivi says his bus has,\n“a picture of a man with a lion's head.  It is Vishnu destroying the\ndemon Hiranyakasipu. — It was Vishnu also who circled the universe in\ntwo strides; this is a kind of dancing on air perhaps.”  He goes on to\ndiscuss the significance of the lion — it symbolizes Christ (a winged\nlion is the badge of St. Mark), it is the emblem of the tribe of\nJudah, and the son-in-law of Mohammed was called the Lion of God.\nPrithivi indicates the lion represents Christ because they were\nthought to lick their cubs to life, which are born dead. Prithivi\nasserts that the hand of god is in all.  Mr. Parker prefers other\nparanormal explanations, such as levitation, rather than a spiritual\none for Tib's miracle.  Prithivi lets Little Tib know his plan to have\nhim star as Krishna in a play, which will ultimately give Mr. Parker\ntime to enter the County Administration Building and reprogram the\ncomputer. \tNitty identifies Little Tib as a wonder-worker who cured\nMr. Parker of his mental problems and says that even Jesus did not\nalways know when he performed miracles. “You don't have to believe he\nwas God.  He was a real man, and he did those things.  He cured all\nthose people, and he walked on that water. — Saint Peter walked on it\ntoo.  Saint Peter saw Him.  But what I'm wondering about is, if it is\nthe boy, what would happen to you if he was to go away?”\tMr. Parker\ndescribes how to unlock the County Building to Tib and they hear the\nmusic of Dr. Prithivi's play, which Tib identifies as remote and\nforeign. Mr. Parker says, “What you sense is remoteness in time — It's\nlike an old, old thing that never knew when to die, that's still\nwandering over the earth.”  \tTib says, “It never was here before, was\nit” — Then maybe it isn't an old thing at all. He remembers a baby he\nonce saw, which he had thought “was old until everyone told him it was\nvery new, and it would be alive, probably, when its mother was an old\nwoman and dead.  He wondered who would be alive a long time from now —\nMr. Parker, or Dr. Prithivi.” This talk probably invokes religious\nideologies such as the coming of Christ and other myths in antiquity —\nif they have never been “here” before, then they are new, though the\nideas and their very being is not necessarily of this time. \tThey lift\nTib through the bars in the window and he proceeds in the darkness\nuntil “the funniest-looking man Little Tib had ever seen” shows up and\noffers to go ahead of him. The Clothes Man, as Tib considers him, says\nsighted people in the light see things that are there, while blind\npeople in the dark see things that aren't there. He also says that his\nbrain came from the Wizard himself, revealing that he is the Scarecrow\nof Oz. Tib comes to a locked door and the Scarecrow says he could get\nthrough it if only he had the ruby slippers. It seems that Tib is\nteleported through the door; he then goes up the stairs to hear the\ncomputer calling out to him amidst a terrible sound like thunder and\ndropping stones which reminds him of his encounter with the gnomes.\n\n It identifies itself as many and legion, and Tib instructs them to “Get\nout”, at which point the computer goes dead and the Scarecrow tells him\nthey are gone, though Tib might encounter them again. Tib opens the door\nand they return to act in Prithivi's play.\n\nPrithivi gives him a flute as a prop, which Tib knows he can use to feel\nhis way as a walking stick, and introduces him to the performer playing\nIndra. Prithivi recaps the story of Krishna (see Religious Allusions below)\nand instructs Tib not to drop the mountain when he lifts it in the play.\nWhen the gong strikes thrice, Tib is to exit the bus and go onstage.\n\nLeft alone with Indra, Tib notices that he is not from this region. Indra\nsays he is from the capital, Niagara, and begins to tell him a story of\nwomen who wanted to do something nice for the world, so they volunteered\ntheir eggs for genetic modification “that would make the girls and boys\nsmarter and stronger and healthier.” Scientists studied these children\nalong with control groups of regular children, brought from farm, ranch,\nand factory families from neighboring towns. (The experiments were done in\nHouston, and the Sugarland Tib seeks is but a few miles away from there).\n\nWhen the children turn six, strange things happen:\n\n“People and animals — sometimes even monsters — were seen in the corridors\nand therapy rooms who had never entered the complex and were never observed\nto leave it. Experimental animals were freed — apparently without their\ncages having been opened. Furniture was rearranged, and on several\ndifferent occasions large quantities of food that could not be accounted\nfor was fond in the common rooms.”\n\nThey notice that the strange events coincided with the examinations of the\ngenetically improved children. Tib insists, “I'm not one of those.” The\ngroups were separated in two but the paranormal activity continued to be\nobserved for both groups. A belief that the mutations could occur\nspontaneously spurred those in central data processing to enable the\nretinal scanners to identify these individuals. No abnormalities were found\namongst the children, so the President “under the present unsettled\neconomic conditions” in the fear of social unrest, pushed to terminate the\nexperiment. “The brains and spinal cords of the boys and girls involved\nwould be turned over to the biologists for examination.” Little Tib says he\nknows this story: the three Wise Men warn Joseph and Mary, so they take\nJesus to Egypt. Indra says, “No — that isn't this story at all.” He then\nreveals that an individual was identified at a retinal station, but the\nnormal detention methods involved burning out the retina of the criminal\n(which rendered criminals helpless and was accomplished quite cheaply with\nsodium vapor light overvoltage). Alas, the subject could never be\nidentified in this fashion again and in this case they failed to accost the\nsuspect.\n\nThey did find that it was one of the boys involved in the experiment as a\ncontrol. The scientists and government people knew that it could not really\nbe one of the controls and believed that “one of the mothers — possibly one\nof the fathers, but more likely one of the mothers — saw it coming a long\nway off and exchanged infants to save her own. It must have happened years\nbefore.”\n\nTib says, “Like Krishna's mother.”\n\nIndra replies, “Yes. Gods aren't born in cowsheds.” Indra says that he will\nkill the boy soon, and the thunder prompts Nitty to come in and call them\nout so that they show can start.\n\nWhen Tib ascends the seven stairs to the stage, he can see a village of mud\nhouses and people all around him, with a mountain in the distance “and\nbeyond the mountain a marvelous sky full of palaces and chariots and\npainted elephants; and beyond the sky, more faces than he could count.”\n\nHe believes that this is Prithivi's dream, one so strong that the angels\nhad come to make it true, or “Dr. Prithivi's dream working through him. He\nthought of what Indra had said — that his mother was not his real mother,\nand knew that could not be so.” He pipes a music that isn't his, and Indra\ncomes, “his face — a carved, hooked-nose mask. In his right hand he had a\ncruel sword that curved and recurved like a snake, and in his left a\nglittering eye.” Tib knows that the eye is to record any of the strange\nthings that surround him and that Indra cannot strike without that\nevidence. The rain comes (echoing the play's story of Indra's anger [he is\nthe god of rain and thunderstorms] when Krishna's usurps his worship in\nfavor of the mountain).\n\nWhen everyone runs for cover, Indra and Tibb are left alone. The Tin\nWoodsman appears with his ax, declaring that wood has never stood long\nagainst him, and cuts off Indra's mask. Tib recognizes his father and the\nTin Woodsman asks, “Don't you know me, Georgie?” indicating that the father\nwas once enamored of the Oz books. George reassures his son that he need\nfear no longer, but as he steps forward, he strikes with his sword. The Tin\nWoodsman intercepts the blow. It becomes dark, and Tib realizes he is still\nstanding in front of the computer, “with the devils not yet driven out.”\n\nHis father sits down with him on the ledge and begins to explain why he has\nto hunt for his son: the subsistence farming his people have done is\nbecoming obsolete, and they will become extinct like other useless animals,\nso “we've got to join them before it's too late.” His father knows that the\n“great men and kings and queens and Presidents” he dreamed of being related\nto in school are really not a part of his family, but recognizes that Tib\nis a prodigy and healer. “You're our ticket. Everybody was born for\nsomething, and that was what you were born for, son. Just because of you,\nthe family is going to get in before it's too late.”\n\nHe touches his father's face, and again it comes off, revealing a metal\nmask. He says he is the president's man now and that Tib's mother is in a\ndifferent division, probably in Atlanta (gee-seven).\n\n“Inside himself he said forever that that was not his real mother, and this\nwas not his real father; that his real mother and father were the mother\nand father he had had at the old place he would keep them inside for\nalways, his real mother and father.” He cries, and the mask comes off once\nagain to reveal his father's face, saying that it is actually the Federal\nReserve Card and being so poor all the time that has driven him to this\nbetrayal, as well as the conditioning. Tib runs away and bumps into Nitty.\n\nThe next day Little Tib is taken to a school for special classes for the\nblind. Since the computer no longer works, Mr. Parker offered his services\nand sent a woman named Ms. Munson to get Tib for the school. On the fifth\nday of school, he hears his father's voice in the corridor, calling himself\nMr. Jefferson. He takes Little Tib out front, to send Tib to Niagara for\nexamination. As they are walking, Tib sees a small man in front of him in a\nbright green coat — the Wizard of Oz. Tib asks to be freed, and the Wizard\nwarns that if he is caught again it will be for good. “You remind me of a\nfriend of mine named *Tip*. Tip with a* p.* A *b* is just a *p* turned\nupside down — Tip turned out to be the ruler of all of us in the end, you\nknow,” the Wizard says. Then Tib sees two realities at once, and time seems\nto reverse so that Tib's father is once again about to pull him from the\nschool. This time, he gives his name as George Tibbs rather than Jefferson\nand claims to be from the Office of Biogenetic Improvement through his dirt\nfarming expertise? part of the agricultural program.\n\n[Tib] thought about what he was going to do, and not running. Then about\nKrishna, because he had been Krishna. Had Krishna run? Or had he gone back\nto fight the king who had wanted to kill him? He could not be sure, but he\ndid not think Krishna had run. Jesus had fled into Egypt, he remembered\nthat. But he had come back. — He remembered talking about the Jesus story\nto his father when they were sitting on the stage. His father had brushed\nit aside; but Little Tib felt it might be important somehow.\n\nAs Tib sits there, his chair bothers him: “The chair was hard - harder than\nany rock he had ever sat on. He felt the unyielding wood of its arms\nstretching to either side of him while he thought. There was something\nhorrible about those arms, something he could not remember.” (It seems this\ncould echo the crucifixion of Jesus, a dim memory of something horrible,\nand Tib makes his decision).\n\nTib escapes in the crowd of children and walks away from the school, until\nhe hears the whistle of a train He heads toward it. He sees a little girl\nahead of him, “so he knew she was an angel.” She will not tell him her\nname, but says he can call her Dorothy, claiming he fixed her leg. She says\nshe can help him, telling him what to look out for. She tells him a shaggy\nman is ahead, and Tib once again runs into Nitty, who says Mr. Parker\nforgot him.\n\n“Well, little blind boy, Mr. Parker is white — and when a white man has\nbeen helped out by a black one, he likes to forget it sometimes.” To Tib,\n“black and white seemed very unimportant.” Nitty says it works the other\nway, too, and Tib introduces Dorothy to him.\n\nThe final Oz character referred to in “The Eyeflash Miracles” is the\nShaggy Man. A character with this name first appears in *The Road to\nOz*, the fifth Oz book. He is a hobo Dorothy meets in Kansas, near her\nUncle's farm, when she is trying to find her way home. He and Dorothy\nbecome magically lost and, after many adventures, find their way to\nOz, just in time for Ozma's birthday party. The Shaggy Man appears in\nmost of the Oz books that follow *The Road to Oz*, at least briefly.\nWolfe breaks the pattern of the story here. Until this point, all of\nthe Oz characters were in Little Tib's dreams or visions and they had\nvery little, if any lasting reality in the \"real\" world of the story.\nBut Nitty is a real person and he also is identified with an Oz\ncharacter. (Ansley)\n\nHere Nitty asks if Sugarland is real, and Tib says it's in Texas. They walk\nhand in hand down the railroad ties turning yellow in the light of the\nsetting sun, soon starting to skip."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}