little max and the wow factor

A Cause des Garçons - Yelle

Little Max was a lonely boy. He’s father was a very successful business man and his mother was always on parties or having tea with her friends; because of that little Max had to be by his own most part of the time. Sometimes by night his mother went to his room and gave him a night kiss, but that didn’t happen that often. His father never touched him because he thought that would make him weak and stupid.

Little Max didn’t have any friends, or anybody to talk to, except his toys and sometimes Mrs. Kwiatkowski, his tutor. She was a loving lady who always smelled like wild flowers and was very fond of Max, almost like if he were her own child. One time his terrible uncle Robert told him that she was paid to love him. That made Max felt very sad indeed. He asked Mrs. Kwiatkowski if that was true and she said in a calm voice “That’s not true at all, my little mouse; you know I love you dearly”. Max knew in his heart she was telling the truth.

Little Max was quite a normal child, but he had a big secret not even Mrs. Kwiatkowski knew: every time he made a story it came true, the characters in it became real. This could be a great thing, but there was a time when his room was full of his friends that he had to make a story about how happy they all lived in a place far from there and how they could come and go through a small door he drew on the floor.

The way his secret worked was like this: he create the character, which little by little started to take form and colours, then, when was completed, he said “wow” and the character started to move and be alive, but not any “wow”, it had to be a magical one, a real “wow”.