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It was like walking through a haunted house run by your friends - you see the artifice for what it is, you know the backstage secrets, and it is a different fun for you than it is for everyone else. The muppets dropped down from all over - as we passed through the belltower there were legs dangling before we even got inside. They jumped down to scare others; they jumped down to say hello to me. It was nice to take the long way and see everyone.
I wasn't nervous till we got to the last gate. How many times had I done this? but it was still the most frightening thing. Everyone had to see him once a year and he would not be postponed.
I stepped through the gate and was glad to see a friend I had begun to forget; he had been away for a long time. The thought flickered, did they bring him back just for me? but that seemed silly, ego! I told myself. He looked tired but healthy, which was such a relief, I couldn't help the tears. He hugged me as best he was able with his gigantic arms; he always was so careful. This year he was dressed as a monk or something, all tattered brown cloth.
Through the gate. There he was. Everyone had to see the dark Skeksis and the light Skeksis once a year, and of course you understand, they were the same guy. All that remained was for me to go to sleep so he could understand my mind a little better. It was as easy as closing my eyes.
I do not know how long I slept or what I dreamed. When they called me to come back, I took my time along the sliding path; there were flowers and small friends hiding in it. I wasn't stalling; one of the benefits of the sleep it that it removes anxiety; time would wait for me.
I reemerged. Dark Skeksis is always first. I went to his side. He was like gray stone. He looked at me with weary kindness. I knelt down.
There is no need.
I didn't understand - we always knelt.
There is no need for you to see me this year.
What?
No more words, he just looked at me with a long slow sad look and then, impossibly, he did something new for me, something I had never imagined of him - he smiled, and shut his eyes, and his attention was gone from me, and I was free of this level.
We all took pictures - in the end I took pictures through the windows of the bus, leaning in, trying to record the last minutes I would have with the kids, the last flashes of their faces. A lot of them were crying, and that made me happy, and of course made me cry. It will be 2002 before I see any of you guys again. It was too much, I hurried to my own bus and pulled myself up and said let's go.
There was hardly room for me on the seat; I had to nudge him over. I hated to wake him but I needed to get at the seat belt; Tiny was driving like he meant it. The sleepy man had close-cropped hair; he might have been the lead guy from Live or he might have been Bob Rhodes. Either way he was always looking for the right words. He smiled sleepily at me and mumbled an apology when his head dropped onto my shoulder. No, it's ok, I said, and he nuzzled into my neck and went to sleep.
His notebook was on my lap and I am not proud of reading it, but that is what I did. His scrawly handwriting was its own language but it was not a challenge to me. The first pages told how he had found a cassette he thought was a demo, with xeroxed handwritten lyrics. He listened to it and was just blown away and started telling people about it, trying to find out who these people were, how he could meet them and get them hooked up with a label. Turns out it was just a bootleg copy of a Weezer album, the lyrics were hadwritten in the actual liner notes, and everyone thought he was a fool and completely out of touch.
"I wanted the bus to punch through a brick wall like a steel tube," I thought, and tried to go to sleep.