From the very first panel of ‘I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying’, we Constant Readers are braced for heartbreak.
Issue 37 of The Sandman brings us at last to the final chapter of A Game of You and while the story might end, this one stays with us far longer than any of the other volumes before it. In Preludes and Nocturnes, we were eager to see where Morpheus’ story took us next. A Doll’s House left us wanting to know more about Nada’s story and Seasons of Mists satisfyingly answered our questions when it reached its end.
For myself, the conclusion of Part Six of A Game of You is bittersweet because one of our favourite characters meets an unexpected end and the fallout from that demise is just crushing. Worse yet, this entire issue cuts even deeper now. In 1990, acceptance of gender identity was a distant fantasy. These days, it feels like a mirage because of the escalating assault on LGBTQIA+ rights because of the intolerant fanatics among us.
We open to Barbie wearing a black dress in a public bathroom, applying makeup as she tells us that she has spent the last three days travelling on buses across 1600 miles to reach her destination. It is a journey she is compelled to make against her will despite being mildly traumatised by what happened to her. Even as she tries not to remember, she inevitably does, and we see the events following Morpheus’s deconstruction of the Land.
All the players are there, waiting for judgement and it is Barbie who finally speaks, asking Morpheus what he intends to do. Morpheus doesn’t feel there’s anything left to be done. Under the terms of the compact, he has unmade the land and, except for granting its invoker a boon, his duty has been mostly fulfilled. Barbie disagrees, insisting the Cuckoo is evil and should pay for her crimes. While Morpheus agrees that the Cuckoo, now looking like a sad little girl who realises she’s not going anywhere, is dangerous, she’s not evil. The Cuckoo is simply acting according to its nature.
Barbie reminds Morpheus that the Cuckoo tried to kill her and he counters that Thessaly breached the Dreaming to do the same. Is she to be destroyed, too? While Foxglove and Hazel think the Dream Lord is joking, Thessaly knows better. Barbie must also accept some blame in keeping the Cuckoo prisoner. Somehow her dreams and the connection to Rose Walker kept the Cuckoo trapped in the Land. Neil reveals the connective tissue between the various volumes when Foxglove admits to knowing Rose Walker as the only straight friend of poor ill-fated Judy, her former lover.
According to Morpheus, the only evil performed tonight has been carried out by Thessaly in the spell she used to get them to the Dreaming. Considering what has taken place in the waking world, the Lord Shaper isn’t exactly wrong. Hazel asks if he plans to hurt them and Morpheus admits to having no such intentions, but he could leave them trapped in the Dreaming by doing nothing. This leaves Hazel rather distraught, and Foxglove does her best to comfort her.
Morpheus goes to Barbie because he still has business with her and explains the nature of the Land. He created it for Alianora, the beauty we saw in the previous issue. I’m assuming that when her time was done, she would end the land using the Porpentine and the Heirogram, invoking the compact between her and Morpheus. As Alianora died before this was done, the Land continued, becoming a playground to all the little princesses of the world. Now that Barbie has invoked the compact and the Land’s time is done, she may ask for a boon from him, anything that is within his power to grant her.
Barbie weighs her options. She could ask him to kill the Cuckoo or restore the Land, bringing back to life all her friends, Martin Tenbones, Wilkinson, Prinaldo and Luz. As Barbie decides, Thessaly makes a last bid for vengeance. She tries to convince Barbie to use her boon to kill the Cuckoo, convinced she’ll be able to get them out of the Dreaming when the deed is done. Thessaly's blood thirst makes Barbie's decision for her.
She takes the Dorothy option, which is returning everyone home, safe and sound. Morpheus approves of this decision and agrees. The Cuckoo looks hopefully at Barbie, asking if she can fly. Still miffed at almost being murdered, Barbie dismisses her with a curt goodbye. The Cuckoo walks away, then runs before spreading her wings and soaring into the sky, a majestic bird whose dark wings ripple with iridescent colours. Barbie’s anger becomes awe and Thessaly fumes at vengeance denied.
Back in the now, Barbie stares at herself in the mirror, recalling that dream and how it refuses to fade away from her mind.
In the empty skerry, Morpheus explains the Cuckoo has gone from the Dreaming, into the worlds beyond and is unlikely to bother Barbie again. However, to deliver everyone home, he has to disappear for a few moments, but not before giving them some parting words. He tells Barbie that they’ll meet again in dreams, though she is unlikely to remember him. Foxglove and Hazel have some strange adventures ahead of them, but Morpheus advises them to select their companions more carefully. For Thessaly, he has nothing but reproach. What she did was dangerous and its full measure will become apparent when the group awakes. If she keeps behaving this way, she'll not survive another century. It’s advice Thessaly is not about to take.
In the public washroom, Barbie tries to get cleaned up as best as she can, convinced she still smells like a Greyhound. No matter, she’s here for Wanda.
The group waits in the skerry for their ride home with Thessaly grumbling about Morpheus, who has got under her skin when Hazel makes one last attempt to learn how old Thessaly is. Thessaly answers, but it’s a response that does little to answer the question. Before Hazel can press any further, they vanish from the Dreaming...
We’re back to the bathroom with Barbie, who has finally finished getting ready. She’s drawn a veil across her face to complement the black dress and steps out into a diner in Kansas (no, really). It’s a charming place where locals behave like uncouth morons who make lewd remarks as Barbie walks by. Barbie winces and says nothing. She meets an older woman who turns out to be one of Wanda’s relatives and we’ll later learn is called Dora.
Dora invites Barbie to take a booth and orders them breakfast. She doesn’t react well to Barbie’s drawn veil and refers to Wanda as Alvin and a sinner. Dora lays it out on the line, laughingly claiming the rest of the family isn’t as broad-minded as she is, and has suffered enough. They’re mourning Alvin, not Wanda, and don’t need Barbie to remind them of that. Indeed, even when they’re served their food, the waitress offers condolences, remembering weird Alvin only.
Dora asks for details about what happened the night Wanda (screw Alvin) died and Barbie explains she slept through the storm that brought down the building. Dora confesses to having a similar experience during a twister, though she dreamt of the bombs dropped during the war.
Barbie reveals she woke up in the rubble after the building’s collapse, covered by the body of Crazy Homeless Lady who had a name, Maisie Hill. Barbie doesn’t remember Maisie as the woman she and Wanda met in the subway, but it was Maisie’s body crushed by falling bricks, along with Wanda (sob) and George in the bath. The authorities assume the collapse caused his mutilations. Even though Barbie doesn’t like George, she still feels bad about how he died.
Emergency services pulled her out of the rubble, and while Barbie was being carried away, she saw Wanda inside a plastic body bag. She reveals to Dora how hysterical she got, yelling at people to get Wanda out of the bag because it would suffocate her. Thanks to Shaun McManus for sparing us the horror of seeing Wanda’s broken body in our last glimpse of her. Instead, we got Wanda in a peaceful repose. Barbie breaks down at this point and Dora tries to offer her some comfort.
Once composed, Barbie reveals that they also found Foxglove, Hazel and Thessaly safe. Scarlett, the owner of the building, was visiting Maine. At the hospital, Scarlett reveals it will be years before the insurance pays up and how upset she is by Wanda's death.
What little liking I had for Dora was tossed out the window when the woman launches into another rant about Alvin and his death. God took him to heaven before Alvin could die of AIDS or something worse. She then adds that Alvin shouldn’t have denied the body God gave him. Barbie opts for the diplomatic approach and says nothing to this. Dora further reveals that the mortuary cleaned Alvin up and put him in a suit, cutting his hair. This hurts Barbie to hear because Wanda was always so proud of her hair.
They leave the diner, heading towards the cemetery where Barbie tells Dora that she hasn’t considered where she would live now. Her first thought upon learning about the funeral was to get on a bus to attend it. However, she might not go back to New York and keep going west. She has no family and home is a state of mind. Foxglove and Hazel have moved upstate to stay with Foxglove’s mother. Since Hazel’s a chef, she won’t have trouble finding a job and Foxglove being a writer can do that anywhere. She assumes Thessaly will get another room somewhere. Although Thessaly is quiet and nice, she’s a survivor. She’ll be fine.
At the funeral, Dora reminds Barbie once again that they are there for Alvin, not Wanda. Introductions are awkward, with the family making less than subtle comments that Barbie is not welcome. She’s told that New York’s a city of sinners and made to stand in the back. When Barbie is out of earshot, Alvin’s mother tells Dora she doesn’t want Barbie coming back to the house for the wake. She wants the town to remember Alvin as the god-fearing boy he was. Bitch.
At the end of the funeral, Barbie isn’t upset at being barred from the wake because she wants to say her farewells to Wanda. While Dora waits in the car, Barbie goes to Wanda’s grave and sees a headstone for Alvin, with an epitaph that is just the bullshit you’d expect from Wanda’s family. I won’t dignify it by repeating it here.
Kneeling by Wanda’s grave, Barbie teases Wanda about making her come all this way to say goodbye, even if the places along the way have beautiful names such as Florissant, Mulberry Grove and Aurora. Like magic kingdoms. She admits to having many questions about that night, especially why they were in George’s room. Why was George in the barn and why were Foxglove and Hazel avoiding her now? How did Maisie Hill happen to be there too? Barbie admits to going to Maisie’s funeral attended only by the woman's daughter. Sad.
Barbie wishes Wanda was here to help her through this. So do we all. Please Neil, if you can retcon anything in the show, please retcon this. I don’t think it would hurt the story if Wanda survived and she and Barbie conquered the West.
Moving on, Barbie imagines everyone has secret worlds inside of them no matter how dull and mundane their real world is. I think this is true. We have places inside us we retreat to, where our hopes and dreams reach their most spectacular. Barbie thinks people may have hundreds and thousands of these worlds inside them and considers the whole thought weird. It isn’t. It’s more real than anything else.
Barbie reaches into her bag and produces a Hyperman comic, which she bought from the seediest comic book store in existence. Help me out folks, I bought my comics online back then. Did they look like this? The owner, who looks like he should sell porn, makes a lewd remark that Barbie confesses she wishes Wanda was present to hear. Wanda would have cut the guy off at the knees with her rapier wit. She drops the comic onto the casket and performs one last tribute to Wanda by scratching out Alvin’s name on the headstone and writing Wanda in bright pink lipstick, aptly named Tacky Flamingo. Glorious.
She returns to Dora and they drive back to the bus station, with Dora asking Barbie her plans now. Barbie doesn’t know. She recounts a conversation with her mother about where she was going and what she was planning to do. Barbie gives Dora the same answers. Out and nothing. She then adds she was a princess and had a cuckoo living in her head. This effectively ends the conversational part of the drive, which I think was Barbie’s plan all along. I wouldn’t want to talk to Dora, either.
On the way back, Barbie suddenly recalls something.
She is on a bus about to arrive in Indiana at 4 am. Amidst the rain, wipers and a passenger whispering his crazy mantra, Barbie finally relents and falls asleep. Wanda is there, gorgeous and perfect, in a graceful gown and wearing her red hair long again. She reminds Barbie of Glinda from Oz, an idea Barbie is sure Wanda would love. Wanda is finally the person she always wanted to be. Death arrives and whispers in dream Wanda’s ear, causing Wanda to realise she’s being watched. She turns to Barbie and they both wave. Beautiful.
With that, Barbie arrives at the bus station and bids Dora goodbye. As Dora leaves, Barbie reflects on the memory and supposes it means we must take our goodbyes when we can.
And with that, Barbie’s part in this tale ends. I hope you enjoyed this recap of A Game of You. I’ll be back next week with ‘The Hunt’.
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