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Redsonga
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Rock and RainAuthor's Note:
Don't worry, I'm not putting off any of my other stories for this, it has been mostly written for a while now.
This is a very depressing story. In fact, I would say to me this may be as far as the FR world could go into dark subjects and not lose itself. I had to think long and hard about even writing this story at all, given how Bell Jar-ish its journal entries are, but.. here it is. This idea came to me when I started to think about the details of Gobo's past in my verison of FR and that extra something behind Marlon's Peter Lorre-ness. A dark short story, posted in two parts.
But you really don't remember, was it something that he said, or the voices in your head, calling Gloria?
~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~
Rain. It came in relentless curtains, drawing its' freezing cold grip tighter around the network of tunnels. Or what had once been tunnels. Their ceilings were now covered with a heavy barbed wire, letting in the view of the threading grey clouds.
The thunder boomed drowning out the small splashes from running feet and the hollow clang sound of two bodies hitting into think metal.
A voice, quick, sharp, and decided, his words spoken as if to outrun the wind by sheer will alone:
"Go through! Go on, get!"
"B..but..wa..a..bbout..you and Miara" Another voice, this one female, barely managed words before it was met with the sound of screeching metal on stone.
"You're the only one small enough, it won't do any good if they catch us all…Here!"
The sound of cloth being shuffled was interrupted by the second speakers' gasp.
"B..But..B…Bezel, th..this is.."
"Take it, take it and go, now!"
"Bezel..I've..al..always.."
All was silent for the tiniest of moments, a second that passed as quickly as a heartbeat.
The moment was lost to time as the running splashes made by a single set of feet picked up again, fading with a dark echo into the night…
Down toward a place called Fraggle Rock.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uncle Matt stared at the paper, willing the right words to jump from his inked quill in the right order and onto the blank expanse before him. So far he was not having much luck.
"All right Matthew," He whispered to himself. "You can do this, you're brave, smart, you have an superb vocabulary..Now, once more…"
The tan fraggle was just about to put feather to paper when the sound of an almost awake snore and grumble from the bed to his side made him freeze, cupping a hand around his work with a guilty glance.
When the room fell into silence he melted back into a clam writing position where he sat , his hand working with a quick burst of inspiration:
Dear Nephew Gobo,
I'm sure you remember that today is the day I shall be venturing out into Outer Space and leaving Fraggle Rock for places unknown. By the time you read this I will surely be many miles away on a grand adventure, but I don't want you to worry. You can always be sure that no matter how far we are from each other your old uncle loves you very much.
You are a big boy now Gobo and I am very proud of you, that is why I think it is only right that now should be the time I tell you…
His hand began to shake, forcing him to hold it steady with the other to stop the small trembles.
…That is…Remember how I always told you that my little brother, your father, Bezel and your sweet mother, Miara were lost to a most regrettable cave in? Well that was..that isn't…I never meant to say…
"Gobo's Uncle Matt! Gobo's Uncle Matt?" A voice yelled at the top of it's gravely sounding lungs, causing the writers' blocked fraggle to jerk bolt upright, knocking a whole hollow gourds' worth of ink onto the floor. "Are you awake?"
"Yes I am Marlon, but why in the rock are you up so late?"
Matt half turned to see the short red haired yellow fraggle trot into the room at his normal frenzied pace, his one smaller swinted eye glinting brightly.
"I..like..the night..It's good for thinking…" Marlon replied, laughing over his uneven breathing.
"Well, be that as it may " Matt began, trying in vain to follow the energy filled furry body as he zipped around, poking and sniffing in all the nooks of the two beds. "…you really should…" He sighed in exasperation. .what is it you want?"
Marlon looked up for where his hand was hanging greedily over Gobo's hat collection on the wall, zipping back to the mustached fraggles' side.
"I want lots of things, millions of things..but I wanted to ask you a question…" Marlon hissed, drawing uncomfortably near.
"Alright, but be quick about it," Matt edged away, clearing his throat. "I leave within the hour."
"This Outer Space..are you sure it doesn't need a…" Marlon began hopefully, dusting the explorers' already clean jacket shoulder.
"A king? Marlon as I've said a'gain and a'gain, if I come to know of any such job openings I will be sure to tell you first of all." He ended with a sigh, sitting back down to his writing as if forgetting the visitors existence right away.
"Really?" Marlon asked, popping up with his eerie heavy breathing right next to Uncle Matt's unseen ear.
"Ack!" The elder yelped, his quill leaving a splatted tail as he scrunched his muzzle in annoyance. "Really, I am a fraggle of my word"
"Well, I just came by to..um..make certain.." Marlon looked at the floor, zipping to the other side of the chair to give a better view of his pathic state. "You can never be too sure when it's about ruling the world…"
"Oh what's this?" The fraggles' beady eyes lit up again as they fell on a half crumbled piece of paper tossed on the floor with countless over ruined pages.
"I'll thank you to not read that! It's a private family affair."
"Oh..Oh?..Oh…Ah! " Marlon darted from side to side in the cave, never taking his eyes off the paper as he read, nimbly outracing Uncle Matt's feeble grabs for it on his much younger legs.
"Family you say?..But,I know this story."
Traveling Matt froze grabbing the ripped half he had managed to at last yank away.
"Pardon?"
"The names… Bezel.. Miara..I..I know them." Marlon said nodding. For once his voice sounded honest and ordinary, nearly like a normal fraggle of his nephews' age.
"That's silly, you must be thinking of some other Bezel and Miara I'm sure..." Matt said with an uneasy laugh.
"Have there been any other Bezels and Miaras?"
"Not that I can recall…" The older fraggles' laugh finally died. "Marlon, I don't want to sound cross at all but, well, you've never been known for being the most…all together of fraggles..maybe you only think…"
"Mother wouldn't lie.." Marlon begin at a dangerous hiss, his voice going louder with every word from a whisper to a belowing roar. " The letters..they wouldn't lie!"
" Are you calling my mommy a lair?" Marlon screamed, griping a handful of traveling Matt's shirt and lifting him, pit helmet and all, into the tunnel way.
"Mother? Ack!" Matt remarked, popping up quickly from a rummpled pile on the ground at the sound of Gobo stirring again, and pressing a hand over the crazed fraggles mouth just in time to cut the volume of a new scream.
"Shh..shh.. Easy now, easy…"
Marlons' red frazzled hair shook with bottled rage for a long moment as Matt took some deep slow breaths he mimicked slowly before settling down.
"We shouldn't wake Gobo. Your mothers' name, it wouldn't be…? "
'Gloria. It was a pretty name wasn't it?" Marlin said with a smile.
" There were so many eggs that year… so many taken into the care of the tribe…" Matt's gaze was already a thousand miles and many years away. " I was so busy with Gobo I must have never…..But, the letters..the journal I could have sworn I threw it away.."
"You did." Marlon replied, lifting a mud stained booklet from the depths under his cobweb covered waistcoat .
"But how did you ever find it?" Matt asked.
Marlon now sat cross-legged against the wall, thoughtfully running his finger over the weathered red thread that held together the battered loose binding.
"I like collecting forgotten things, lost things, secret things…they're intresting..useful…"
"Oh Marlon.." Matt whispered, his eyes starting to grow glossy. "I'm so sorry you had to be exposed to such..."
The yellow fraggle shrugged off the soft touch of the heartfelt words like a cold chill.
"It's okay, it doesn't get to me much anymore." The voice that replied was oddly small.
"How could something like that not…" But his question was cut short when the small voice spoke again.
"The paper..it still smells like her." Marlon whispered with a grin, rubbing his muzzle into the yellowed parement pages of the pocketsize journal. "You were such a great fraggle Mommy…"
A worn lead stained edge gave away the mostly empty notebooks' many readings over the years . The neat elaborate cursive lettering of the first entry was faded with age, its grey pencil barely readable.
Dear Fraggle Rock,
This is the journal of your beloved singing star of rock and pond, Gloria Fraggle. When I become even more famous than I already am (Is that even possible?) I know this little book will be a most sought after collectors' item. So today I have taken it upon myself to start writing my innermost thoughts here, to better keep them for future fans. After all, I am going to Above today. Bezel dear and that Miara are going to but it was my idea. I will be the first fraggle Above, adding being brave to the list of great things about me. Another great thing is that I know only those nice simple words, so these pages won't be filled with any of those boring extra frilly ones.
Kisses and song,
Gloria
