It's a year since I published this piece on my blog - and over two hundred thousand people read it - and then I developed it into a short story called, 'Stardust and Snow' - which I hope will see the light of day some day soon.
‘Fancy Believing in the Goblin King’
My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used
to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can
that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some
reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.
When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just
said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’
But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a
matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different,
but that’s okay.
Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were
still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London
with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He
must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t
quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the
film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark,
mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and
goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights
and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.
It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was
there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.
‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that
caught my attention.
‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the
casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have
told the tale a million times already.
He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing,
all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.
He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and
he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic
spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he
broke the confidence.
It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and
who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is
dead. Does the magic still exist?
I asked him what happened on his adventure.
‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a
signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one
side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea.
He spent thirty minutes with me.
‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.
‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?
‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and
uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he
told me. ‘It’s magic.’
‘And so I did.
‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I
wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it
makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world
and all the people. And now you will, too.
‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie
and it was true, I did feel better.
‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin
air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on.
And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.
‘’Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them
perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.
‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe
in my whole life.
‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.
‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’
I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and
wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the
film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac
suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles
and cobwebs and glitter.
What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?
‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can
feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And
years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’
My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.
‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in
an invisible mask.’
But I do. I really believe in it.
And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.
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