By accident, Marbles and I found out that we shared a passion for the work of Jim Henson.
Quite soon he had become my best friend, and on some Saturday in the middle of December, I was invited to his house to work on a joint project for English class in which we had to write a short play about Abe Lincoln's Gettysburg address, when in his room, I noticed a beautiful little book about Fraggle Rock, with the ever so yellow Wembley Fraggle on the cover. And then I knew. This was a muppet man.
His room appeared to be a hidden treasure: besides Fraggle Rock, there was this fantastic illustrated book called "Brian Froud's Faeries," a master piece of the man who created the world of Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, and Marbles also had a copy of another cult work "The Secret Book of Gnomes," by Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet (the latter apparently being a famous Dutch landscape painter who did not mind having the occasional fantasy side project).
(Later, I realized that I had seen this mysterious book before, in Canada, during a visit to family. I must have been only seven or eight, but I remember being sucked into that book and its world, as if it casted some magic spell on me.)
On that Saturday in December, we jumped into a sky ocean of faeries, gnomes, muppets and Fraggles, and started to create our own island in this world, of new ideas and story lines, of dark entities and prophecies, and we immediately drowned up to the very top. Not even one word was mentioned about our English project. Ever.
This little island was soon to be called The Movie.
Every day at school, we talked about it. And after school, we talked about it. And at home, we called each other and talked about it. We knew this specific project had a raw yet subtle intrinsic power. And the other kids knew it too. Many tried to be part of The Movie, but we always declined. We were Masters, the emperors of a thought, a movement which was about to set its pace, and you'd better be pretty good if you wanted to join us.
We could spend hours sitting in a secret corner of the school's courtyard talking about The Movie, about Jim Henson's world, about Kermit singing "The rainbow connection," riding his bike in the same movie a little later, about Animal being Animal, about Beaker and dr. Bunsen Honeydew. About new puppets we had in mind.
We wanted to be Fraggles living underground, write about adventures, and end the day with telling stories to each other and eating Doozer construction work.
We wanted to live in the Labyrinth, be invited for a cup of tea by a friendly worm, and then move along straight to the castle in the middle, and dance the magic of the babe.
("You remind me of the babe"
"What babe ?"
"The babe with the power."
"What power ?"
"The power of Voodoo."
"Who do ?"
"You do."
"Do what ?"
"Remind me of the babe.")
Often we missed classes, but apart from some extra detention, nobody got hurt. And I got to tell Mr. Jolston all about our plans, and he laughed, and motivated us to go along with the dream, and see where it would take us.
We could have legendary conversations, even standing next to each other in the school's restrooms, while taking a leak.
(Marbles — agitated, red face, BIG eyes: "He should have a squeaky voice !"
Me — contemplating, silent: "Mmmm. Yes.")
Something was in the air.
We might just be able to pull it off.