You're in the guards now.

What do you do when you leave school with no qualifications ?

I had no prospects, with no connections and no skills. Apparently fiddling around and pulling a machine to bits and then putting them back together so it didn’t work anymore, wasn’t  considered a skill.

My mum said she found me a job.

“Great ! What is it?”

“It's in the army.”

“The British one?”

“No , you're too useless for that one. No, the only army that will take you on is the army of the Wicked Witch.”

“Where’s that?”

“Her fortress lies somewhere over the rainbow, where the skies are blue .”

So I thought about it and signed up.

“You came at the right time laddie, we're about to go to war with Dorothy.” Said the sarge.

Just my luck, to join up as soon as a war is about to break out. 

We had to wear these massive clunky grey overcoats. I could barely move in mine and we were given this heavy pole with an axe on top, it made my wrists ache.

The training wasn’t much. All we had to do was to march around and around the Wicked Witch castle singing “O, E, O” all day long. My arms get tired carrying that big axe everywhere. I asked the sergeant if we could do new steps in the march , maybe a hop every fourth step or sing a new marching song like “pack up your munchkins.”  or even whistle a tune like, “the wizard has only got one…..” , but the sarge gave me a right bollicking. He says when Dorothy’s forces come to attack the castle, "You'll be glad we did all this marching around singing “O, E, O” all day long.

I asked the sarge if I could transfer to the flying monkeys. They don’t have to march round carrying heavy weapons singing “O, E, O” all day. They always seem to be quite happy jumping up and down making wild whooping noises.

To be honest It's a bit daunting training to be a guard with the witch around. She screams and cackles a lot and has a habit of suddenly popping up from nowhere in a puff of red smoke. She’s always on her broomstick riding around the castle making words in the sky. Most of them are disgusting rhymes about Dorothy. The witch doesn’t like her. Dorothy sounds like a right madam. She killed the witch's sister, and stole her ruby red slippers. That Dorothy sounds a right horror. 

Three months have passed.

 It ain’t half boring up here, mum. All we have done is march around the castle wearing  heavy overcoats, carrying heavy axes going “O, E, O”. but I’ve got a new purpose. I asked about promotion. The sarge finally said, “OK, you can say the line near the end”. So I practised and rehearsed that line when Dorothy comes to take over the castle and throws the water over the witch.

Why does the witch keep pails of water all over the castle if that's the only thing that can kill her? Just asking for trouble if you ask me.

But I’m not trained to think. Just trained to march around the castle carrying a bloody heavy axe, singing soddin “O,E,O” all the time.

This morning Dorothy turned up gobbing off, her dog was barking, the lion was roaring, the tin man was rattling, all us guards were “O, E, Oing” for all we was worth , the flying monkeys were going crazy jumping up and down whooping, the witch was screaming,”I’ll get you my pretty!”

 Then she turned her broomstick to fire and Dorothy got a bucket of water and threw it at the witch.

Well, I warned them it was risky keeping buckets of water around this place, but would they listen to me?

It was quite scary watching the witch disappear to nothing.

Though It just seems to make the flying monkeys even more excited, clapping and doing somersaults.

And now is my big moment, time for my big line. I strode forward to face Dorothy and said….

“I’m SPARTACUS!”

The director shouted, “Cut!”, and then he started screaming at me.

“Why did you change the line?”

“ I thought I’m Spartacus sounded better.”

“The script writer took three years, two heart attacks and a broken marriage to write this stuff. Give the line to one of the flying monkeys. You, soft lad, get back in line.” 

But I’m not down, the sarge has got me a transfer to this ace flying unit, who are always looking for fresh talent and I only have to do one mission.

I’m off to join the Kamikazes!

Simon is a writer from England. He is a member of the All Seasons writing group. He seeks stillness and solitude.