Volturi's Happy campers.
A/N: There's a movie I watched a few days ago, called 'Wristcutters: A love story' and I completely fell in love. I thought it would be cute if I redid the movie to be kind of twilight-ish, so here you go. The diologue is literally, almost exactly from the movie so don't send me anything about how I copied. I am very aware that I made none of this. I just took time out of my life to rearange some characters and situations for my own amusement.
I do not own 'Twilight,' 'Wristcutters: A Love Story,' or 'Kneller's Happy Campers.'
Summary: After getting dumped by the love of his life, Isabella, Edward kills himself. Stuck in an alternate universe where all the inhabitants are suicide victims, Edward finds that his girlfriend has been stuck there, as well. On his way to find her, he befriends a Russian rock-n-roller and a bubblegum chewing, chain-smoking pixie. Together they go on out in search in search of love, adventure, and the true meaning of life.
Onward with the story…
I cleaned my apartment before I slit my wrists. It was easier to die knowing that people at least thought I was cleaner than I really was. It was nice to off myself still being able to hold some type of illusion.
I was never really a depressed person. People have their moments, I'm sure.
I was lucky for some time, before I killed myself. I had a wonderful girlfriend, Isabella. My parents, Elizabeth and Edward Sr., were alright, too. Although I think sometimes I miss my dog, Renesme more.
Most of all, I miss Isabella.
Shortly after I killed myself, I found a job working here at Mediocre Burger. My manager was nice enough to find me a place to stay, with my Bulgarian Roommate, Laurent.
"Edvard, 'Ow many times do I have to tell you? If you are going to pizz, you hef to pizz vith the zeat down."
"Sorry, Laurent, I forgot." The pillow muffles my excuse.
"Ow, could you forget somezing like zat? Zit, zit, zit." Laurent waves his hands wildly before walking out of the small apartment. Of course, even here, after I die, I'm still miserable.
Who could have thought of a better punishment, really? Everything's the same here, only shittier.
I've thought about killing myself again, but I wouldn't want to end up in a bigger shit-hole than this.
I wrap a mystery meat sandwich up and put it in the window.
We have no customers. Ever.
Xoxo--
"Maybe you just need a drink." You try not to stare at the obvious way people off themselves. Like the bartender who just handed me a warm beer with the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. He seems like a nice guy.
I drink from the bottle and look around the small bar. There is one guy playing pool by himself. Another sitting at a table drinking. He looks depressed, like he's going to off himself again.
I wonder if he'll do it. I wonder what happens to you when you do… It's while I am thinking this that I hear a girl's voice. I turn around to look at the girl as she speaks to me. I notice her face looks a little blue.
"Excuse me, me and my friend Tanya, over there, have this game where we try to guess how people off themselves and we were just wondering about you." She waits. "So, how'd you do it?"
I take one swig of my beer, tap it down on the table. I pull my arms out of the sleeve of my leather jacket and show her the long, thick, puckered scars from my suicide. She comes as close to smiling as you can get in this place, and calmly says- "Three points for me-he!" In a seriously chipper, sing-song voice. I take another drink of my beer before replying.
"That's an extremely rude question to ask." She looks unaffected by my statement.
"Precisely. That's how the game works." She turns around to return to her friend, Tanya.
"How did you do it?"
"Me?" She asks. She tells me about laying her head next to the oven. About leaving a note that reads 'Are you sorry now?'
As we play the game, we find there is one guy in particular we are stumped about.
"He can't stop burping, I'm telling you, it's drowning," I say
"No, look at the bluish color of his face, it's gotta be gas," Irene says
Tanya says "Why don't you go ask him." Both girls take a hit from their cigarettes. I get up to ask the guy. He turns around and stares us down. I sit back in my seat.
"No, I don't know about this one, he seems ill-humored."
Tanya speaks again. "No, you have to go ask him."
A random guy, sitting behind us, turns around and strokes Tanya's arm lightly with his finger. He is stocky and tall. Built, like he's in some crazy wrestling league or some shit. His hair is cropped short. He looks like he's trying to grow a mustache.
"Why don't you try it with me," he says in a thick Russian accent. The guy swings his chair around to face us and continues smoking his cigarette.
Tanya looks toward her friend, Irene, and towards me. "Do you know this guy?" she asks. I shrug and shake my head. Tanya and her friend whisper to each other. "There he is."
Irene says "We'll be right back." They get up with their cigarette's. The new guy looks at me.
"Can I give you some advice, man?" He says. "Whenever a chick says 'We'll be right back,' just write them off, man. They just end up leaving you for some other guy." I nod sarcastically and then look towards the girls. They are walking out of the bar with some other guy. They spot me watching, wave, and then disappear. I look back towards the new guy. He does not look smug. Though I'm not sure you can manage to look smug here.
"So what about you?" I ask. The man, Emmett he says his name is, tells me about how he was in a Russian rock band. He tells me about the gig he played. He tells me about the crowd boo-ing and telling him and his band to 'get off the stage.' "Fuck it all," he says. And then he tells me about how he poured the rest of his beer into the hollow of his guitar, and how the amplifier ultimately electrocuted him to death.
"You offed with the guitar?" Emmett nods.
"It was epic man, Iggy pop- almost came to that gig."
I can tell me and Emmett are going to be great friends.
We go out every night. I tell him about Isabella. He helps me as I stumble back to my apartment in a drunken stupor.
Xoxo--
I am lying in bed, reading. Laurent comes in with an empty tub of cottage cheese. I know I am in trouble.
"Edvard, did you finish all my cottage cheeze?" I groan softly.
"I'll get you some new cottage cheese, Laurent." He seems stunned for a moment.
"That's not ze point, Edvard, I vas planning on having zome now." I wait.
"Don't you have, like, a Plan B, or something?" Laurent throws the empty carton towards the foot of my bed.
"You do zis all ze time, Edvard!"
"Alright, Alright! I'll go get you some more cottage cheese. Jeez."
While in the freezer section of the small convenient store down the street, I realize every carton of cottage cheese is the same. There's no variety. Every day I get closer and closer to just seeing where I land, were I to kill myself again. Then I hear my name being called.
"Edward? I always thought I'd find you here." I turn to look at a man I know as James from when I was alive. He has a deep red scar, splitting his face in half. His pony tail hangs low, from the back of his head. He is wearing the same leather jacket I always used to see him wearing. He looks to be very happy, though I can't really tell. He has a chipper voice. That kind of gives it away. He was always incredibly annoying when we were alive.
"James, what are you doing here? Did you come here just to get the two hundred bucks I owe you?"
"You always did have a sense of humor. Same as every one else I guess. You know what they say about suicide's happening in three's man? Well there's some truth to that. Hey, is this cheese any good?" He takes the cottage cheese out of my basket. "But what really did it for me was Isabella's suicide." He puts the cottage cheese back. "Too much sodium," He says.
"Isabella's suicide? Wait, Isabella killed herself?" He nods.
"Yeah, she offed herself about a month after you," he says conversationally. I run out of the store. I hear James call after me.
"Hey man, I still want that two hundred bucks you owe me!"
I tell Emmett the next day. "She's here, man."
"Who, Ophelia?"
"Isabella, man. We have to find her."
"We," he says.
"Yeah, you're coming with me." Emmett shakes his head.
"No way, man. Give me one good reason why I should come with you." He takes a hit from his cigarette.
"Do you have anything better to do?"
I know I've got him there.
We are playing pool in a bar when Emmett tells me he has a car that we can use to find Isabella. I tell him I know that she's not in the city. He wants to have dinner with his family before we go. His real family.
"You've gotta be shitting me. I've never heard of a whole family offing themselves before."
"Iz true. My mum, she offed because she was missing Russia." Emmet sinks a ball into a middle pocket. "My father, he offed, well, because he couldn't go on without her, I guess. But what really did it, was my little brother turning out to be gay." Emmet sinks a ball into a corner pocket. "My little brother, I guess he just had it in his genes."
"My father," Emmet continues "man who would not cry if you dropped ten pound sledgehammer on his foot, grabbed little brother when he got here, cried like a baby, no shit." I was stunned.
We end up eating at his family's house. His mother and father and brother are great.
"In Russia, there father always fed ze workers a meal before he hired them. He wanted to see if they ate. And he would hire whoever ate the most, because whoever ate the most, those were the best workers." I am drunk already and trying to listen to his mother.
"Are you trying to hire me?" I ask smugly. Emmett's mom, Esme fills my glass with another shot.
"What about your parents, Edward?" Emmet's father, Carlisle asks. His accent is the thickest.
"It's a long story. Basically they never really saw each other. They didn't speak. It's-" He looks concerned. I speak into my glass "I know." Take another shot.
In the kitchen, washing the dishes, I get to speak to Emmett's little brother, Jasper. "You know, seeing your family like this almost makes me miss my parents, even though most of the time they just sort of creeped me out." Jasper continues washing the dishes.
"You know, I'd be here a lot sooner if it weren't for Emmett." I nod my head. Jasper has no accent. He tells me the story of his lousy fifth grade soccer game and how he didn't want to go on living after losing. How he told Emmett if he didn't give him one good reason to live, he was going to hang himself with a jump rope. Jump straight off the kitchen table.
Emmett told him to get off the table. Then, he would give him a good enough reason.
"So, he just slapped you?"
"Yeah. I didn't really know what he meant, at the time. Whatever it was, it worked up until a few months ago."
Emmett and I get ready to go out looking for Isabella the next day. His car is thoroughly trashed. You can tell it was red at some point, but now it is covered in black splotches of spray pains. The back bumper is smashed in. It looks like a reap hoop-dee. No matter how wrecked the outside of the car is, I find myself melting into the inside.
He says "What if you can't find her, man? Are you going to kill yourself again?"
I sigh. "I don't know, maybe," I say in all seriousness.
We are driving in his car, drinking beer, smoking cigarettes. I try to turn the headlights on, to test them out.
"Those don't work."
"What? That means we can't drive at night, like, at all."
"Like I said, they haven't worked for years."
"We'll get them fixed. Hell, I'll even pay for them."
Emmett says, "If you insist."
I pick up a box of cassette tapes and look through them. Each one is labeled with masking tape, but none have actual writing on them. I accidentally drop the box on the floor.
"Shit," Emmett says. I try to grab the box from the floor. I feel nothing. "Forget about it, man. Anything you drop down there, just forget about it."
"Why, is there a hole?"
"Yes… uh, no." Emmet hesitates. "A sort of black hole?" My eyes go wide. I pick up a cassette tape that did not disappear. I go to put it into the tape player.
"That's not very good," Emmett says. "It's my band."
I listen to them for a moment. "Ugh. We're even worse than I remember."
"What are you talking about? I like it."
"Yeah?" Emmett asks.
We continue to drive.
Around dusk Emmet and I run into a small mechanics shop. "Mike's auto repair."
"Good timing," I say.
Emmett replies. "I'll bet you a beer they won't be able to fix it."
Emmett and I are waiting for the mechanic to finish up with the car. Emmett is watching a taxi cab pass back and forth in front of the repair shop. Emmett looks towards me and then points at the cab.
"Man, look at that."
"Yeah, so?"
"Look at him." I see the guy is Israeli or some shit.
"What, Emmett?"
"Just think about it. Suicide? Doesn't it freak you out, just a little bit?"
"No. We're all here for the same reason. No one fucking cares. We're all immigrants here."
"Well he keeps staring."
"Probably because you're looking at him like you need a fucking taxi. Stop looking at him." Emmett and I walk into the repair shop.
When we meet the mechanic there, he has just finished taking the headlight out. He looks nervous, or high. I can't tell which. Maybe it's both.
"Well, there's definitely something wrong. Though I can't figure out what it is." He has a deep southern accent, and he's lankly, like a little boy. His hair is shaved into a Mohawk looking thing. He's the first Asian I've ever seen with a mullet. Emmett and I look at each other. "I'm gonna get Mike in here, to tell you what's wrong. He can fix a-a-anything."
We wait for Mike. He rolls into the shop. One leg and one arm's broken. He has a large beard, but he's small; scrawny. The assistant, Eric, we find his name is, looks at Mike adoringly.
"Start her up, let's here this beauty moan."
"Moan?" I ask. "No, we just want, you, to fix the-" It's no use. Emmett looks intrigued as to what Mike has to say.
Mike closes his eyes. "Exhaust needs fixing. Rotator belt. Uh, what a bitch of a fuel pump you've got in there." I tune Mike out.
Emmett and I end up sleeping in the car. When I wake up, I light a cigarette. The air is muggy, hot. There is no wind. I play with Emmett's sunglasses when they accidentally fall into the black hole. I figure I'll keep that a secret. Obviously not for long, though. It's bright out.
Ironically, the first thing Emmett asks when he wake up is "Where are my sunglasses?" I look guilty.
I gesture slightly, towards the black hole under my seat. Emmett knows what happened.
"Man, I told you to be careful about that."
"I'm sorry."
I open the door to stretch my legs and walk around. I find out the hard way that the car is on a lift.
We are driving again. Emmett does not speak until now. "You owe me a beer, man."
Later on, we're listening to Emmett's old Russian band. I am just starting to doze off. Emmett speaks again.
"Man are you awake? You're missing some really beautiful shit." I roll my eyes inwardly. I know I'm not missing anything but desert, abandoned cars, and waste. I'm close to sleep when the car swerves to the shoulder and comes to a complete stop.
I ask Emmett, "What the fuck, man?" as he backs the car up to a small girl in a white, moth eaten dress over jeans with a red sweater. She has sunglasses on and short, pixie like hair. Emmett leans out the window, to take a better look.
She asks, "Where are you guys headed?"
"East-ish," I reply.
"East-ish?" She asks. Emmett and I nod. "You guys have no idea where you're going, do you?"
"You haven't been here that long, have you?" I ask.
"No, I haven't." She tosses her purple jansport backpack into the backseat and climbs in after it. "I've actually been hitchhiking ever since I got here." She takes her sunglasses off. "I'm looking for the people in charge?" She asks it like a question.
"The people in charge." Emmett repeats.
"Yeah," she says.
Emmet would laugh if he could.
"I'm here by mistake."
"Everyone is here by some kind of mistake, right?" Emmet asks.
"What, you don't like it here?" I ask.
"Are you kidding me?" She asks. "Do you like it here?" You can tell she has attitude. It's cute for someone so small. Me and Emmett are silent. "How could anyone like it here? You can't even smile. It's hot as balls. Everyone's an asshole. No. I just want to go home."
I take a good look at the girl. She stares back at me. "What's your name?" I ask.
"I'm Ali," she says. She puts a piece of bubble gum in her mouth, starts chewing and then hands us both a piece. "What's your name?"
"Edward."
'Edward," she repeats.
We continue to drive. We learn that Ali smokes cigarettes, too. We stop by an outdoor camping store. All of us lie in the tent together. Ali tells us that she likes the tent. Especially the little window in the side. I go out to pay for it. Ali soon follows me.
I see her steel a sign out of the corner of my eye. I have no idea what she's doing.
As she places it in the bonfire that night I realize what it says. 'Shoplifters will be severely prosecuted.'
We are all lying on our sleeping bags. The sign is still burning.
"I wonder if people that die normally get to see that stars." Ali says. "I really miss the stars."
She has this way of getting to you. She makes me realize that I miss a lot of the things I never thought I would have, from before I offed. I think she makes me want to change things. I feel a little like my old self when she's around.
Probably because, according to her, she's not supposed to be here in the first place.
"Get used to it," Emmett says.
"I don't want to get used to it, I want to go home." Emmett snorts. "This guy that gave me a ride yesterday said that there were these people in charge, and that they wear white outfits."
"That's a crock of shit," Emmett says. "He was just trying to get in your pants."
"No he wasn't," Ali says defensively. She's tough as nails. "He said I had a really good case." She throws her cigarette away from camp. Looks up into the starless sky again.
"You know what I think?" Emmett says. "That you have about as great a chance of finding the people in charge, that Ed does of finding his princess."
"That's not true," Ali retorts. "And I think Ed will find his girl."
"Yeah," I agree. "Plus I have a feeling that's she's not that far away," I say, looking smug.
"Whatever," Emmett says. "Even if you do find her, I bet she's found some other guy by now. Some big, black guy that's got a big dick."
"You're wrong," I say. "It wouldn't matter anyways."
And I know it wouldn't.
At night I dream of me and Isabella on a beach. It's a memory from before I offed. She's braiding a bracelet and leaning into my front from where she's sitting in between my thighs. She wraps the bracelet around my wrist.
"I was just thinking." I look at her. Her beautiful mahogany hair and brown doe eyes. I've never seen anyone so beautiful. "If you were to ever cheat on me." I wait for her to finish, knowing it would never happen. "Make sure you do it with someone pretty." I laugh.
"I would never cheat on you." she smiles and looks back at me. All teeth and lightly tanned, freckled skin.
"I know that baby," she says. And then she kisses me.
I awake with a start. Lean up, and then turn over to my other side. Ali is sleeping. Her expressive blue eyes are closed. She looks peaceful. It's the most vulnerable I've ever seen her since she hopped into Emmett's backseat yesterday. I think back to what Isabella said on the beach and wonder if she would think Ali was pretty. I know she is.
But no one compares to Isabella.
I look next to me at Ali as I lay back down. She has her thumb in her mouth, her pointer finger hitched around her nose. I think- She's got a secret side to her no one really sees.
You can though, it's possible. You just have to look really close.
We wake up and get ready to go. Ali walks over to the drivers side.
"Emmett, do you mind if I drive? I'll get us there in half the time."
"Where?" He asks.
"Over there." Ali points across the horizon. Emmett agrees. I climb into the passengers side.
"I'm not sitting in the back," Emmett says.
"What, why not?" I ask. I look out the window to see that Emmett is very set in his ways at that moment.
"Everyone knows the guy in back doesn't have a cock." Ali snorts, keeps chomping on a piece of bubblegum. She shakes her head. I want to reiterate the fact that I have a penis, so I am not sitting in the back, either. Ali is shit out of luck.
"Well, I have a cock, man. Do you have a cock?" I ask Ali.
"Yeah, I have a cock. A big fat one." I stare at her for a second realizing that that just came out of her mouth. She looks at Emmet, her wide, blue eyes so innocent seeming.
Emmett stands next to the car with his arms crossed for a long while.
We all end up sitting in the front. Ali seems extremely uncomfortable with Emmett sitting in the middle, but we all get used to it. We continue driving.
We all get to know each other much better over the next day or so. All sit in the front seat, together. Ali rolls us cigarettes. Licks the paper. We sing along to Emmett's band. Chew bubblegum. Lose things to the black hole. A lighter. Ali's lipstick. We are looking at a map. Ali is trying to read it, trying to find the right direction. I am driving. She turns the paper over at least three times before Emmett takes it out of her hands and throws it under the seat. Staring ahead, the whole time.
Everywhere we go, I ask if anyone has seen Isabella. I describe her. Pretty. Long, mahogany hair. Big, brown eyes.
Ali asks the same people about the people in charge. "The PIC." she calls them. "The PIC?"
We try to smile. Ali pulls the sides of her mouth up with her small fingers and looks in the rear-view mirror. She makes me try it. For a moment, we are all smiling in this place where it's impossible.
On our way to get something to eat, Emmett asks me to clean his new sunglasses. I rub them on my shirt. Blow on them. Rub them on my shirt again, not sure if they'll be clean or just more dirty. They slip out of my grasp and fall under the seat. Emmett looks at me.
"Man, are you doing that intentionally?"
"No, I didn't mean to drop your sunglasses. It was an accident." Emmett tosses me his hat.
"Why don't you just drop that down there, too."
"No man, I'm not going to drop your hat down there. What are you talking about?" I toss his hat back to him. We start arguing at the same time. Ali covers her ears with her small hands.
"Guys, guys, can you please stop bickering. Emmett, there's a diner over there, can we stop?"
"Yeah," he says "And you, don't touch my stuff." I shake my head.
We stop inside the diner. Ali and I sit together. Emmett is speaking to his mother in Russian on the phone. Ali turns to me.
"Didn't he just talk to his mom?" I nod.
"I guess it's normal in Russia."
"I don't think that's normal anywhere," Ali says, taking a drag of her smoke. She stumps it out.
She tells me she is going to get more smokes. She asks if I want some. I say sure. Emmett comes out from behind a beaded curtain after talking to his mom.
We start talking about Ali.
"Yeah, but she told me you were cute, last night."
"Cute. That's what girls call a puppy. It's like 'I'll leech off you for as long as I can, but don't even think about trying to get in my pants." I think about it.
"Yeah, you could be right about that. The whole people in charge thing is a little weird."
"See that's exactly what I'm talking about." We both look up to see Ali standing in the doorway, listening to us. She storms out of the restaurant. I watch her from the window, run my fingers through my tousled copper hair. I see her grab her purple jansport and run to the side of the road to flag down a car. She gets in just as I'm running after her.
Emmett and I drive alone, now.
"You have to admit, though, it's good to be on our own again, no?" I look at Emmett and roll my eyes.
"Emmett, you know I love you man, but you can be an asshole."
"What? We're looking for Gretchen, right?"
"Yeah, we're looking for Gretchen," I reply sarcastically. I look in the backseat expecting to find Alice sleeping or smoking or chewing bubblegum. Instead, there are two pairs of traffic-cone orange sunglasses sitting on the seat.
"Did you get us sunglasses?" Emmett looks confused. I pull the sunglasses out from the back and hand a pair to Emmett. "Ali got us sunglasses, dude." We both put them on. Everything is tinted orange. It's the most color I've seen since I've gotten here.
Emmett and I drive for a few hours until we have to get gas. I am standing at the pump, waiting for the tank to fill. Emmett is inside buying cigarettes.
"On what charges?" I hear.
"Breaking that sign was a clear case of vandalism." I look at the sign that once said 'no exit.' Someone had broken off the 'N.'
"I was just trying to brighten this place up a bit, it's so depressing here. I can't believe you're doing this, this is so unnecessary." I look over in time to see a police officer ducking Ali into the back of his cop car. I run over to where they are.
"Wait, that's my sister, what's going on?"
"Your sister," he says. You can tell he doesn't believe me. I simply nod my head.
"Well, your sister here is going downtown." The man makes to leave.
"Wait, can't I just talk to you for a minute? Please?" He sighs. "How long have you been here?"
"A time," he says.
"My sister here hasn't been here that long. The whole no smiling thing is really getting to her. You remember what it was like when you first got here, right?"
The man seems to contemplate this for a small while. Finally, he takes his police hat off. My eyes immediately seek the large part of his head that is missing skin. He looks as though he offed with a shotgun to the roof of his mouth.
"I guess I can look away just this once."
"Thank you officer." He pulls Ali out of the car. She bites her lip. Her short dark hair is matted to her face. A striking contrast the paleness of her skin. Her eyes stand out, sparkling. She looks like a fairy.
"You stay out of trouble, miss."
"You bet, officer," she replies. She looks at me. "You didn't have to do that." I wish I could smile. Ali goes to stand at the side of the road, her thumb in the air.
"What are you- are you really going?" She nods. "I'm sorry," I say sincerely. "for what happened back there." Ali shakes the apology off.
"It's no problem." I stand by her a while longer. I'm not sure I want her to leave again. "You know, it's probably going to be hard for me to find a ride with you standing there, so..." I nod my head and go to leave her.
"I hope you find what you're looking for." I stare deep into her eyes. "I really do." She nods her head, chewing more bubblegum. That's Ali for you.
"Thank you," is all she says.
I go back to the car. Emmett is sitting in the passenger seat.
"Dude, you'll never guess who I just saw back there."
"Who?"
"Ali, man." I go to drive away.
Hear 'creek, RIP!' Realize that I forgot to take out the nozzle.
"Man, did you forget to take out the nozzle?" Emmett asks. I am calm on the outside. Inside, I am freaking out. A large, brooding man- rivaling Emmett's size comes trotting up to our car.
"Shit man, you deal with this guy," Emmett says. I snort. The guy grabs the nozzle, holds it up.
"Sorry," I say, weakly.
We are inside his shop. The man goes behind the counter to grab a large black binder. He sets it on the counter.
"It's alright, it happens all the time." I nod. "See, all filled out already. Sign this." I look at the book and read the sheet.
"It says 'what were you thinking about at the time the incident occurred?'" He looks at me like I'm stupid.
"Just that." I wait for a while. Nod my head sarcastically.
"Oh, right." I begin filling out the page, then come to a blank. I flip back to see other entries.
'Here I am again, buried in debt… If pulling the trigger didn't solve my problems, I don't know what will.' creek, RIP.
'I was wondering if I was to drunk to drive.' Creek, RIP.
That's when I saw it. I come running out of the gas station. Ali and Emmett are fighting.
"No, but what's fucked up is that you don't think it's fucked up to talk shit about me behind my back-"
"But you weren't even there-"
"Exactly!"
"Guys! Guys! I found it, it's her, look." They both read the paper. "Her telephone number, address, everything." I am mesmerized by her chicken scratch handwriting. I love that handwriting.
'I spaced out because the man at pump three looked exactly like my ex-boyfriend. Where is he? He feels so close.'
"It's Isabella man." I shake Emmett's shoulder. I am ecstatic. "I knew she was close. I could feel it."
"Well, what do you want to do, you want to call her?" Emmett asks.
"No, the guy inside said her place wasn't to far from here." I shake Emmett harder. We are ready to leave.
"You should buy her some flowers," Ali suggests. She is digging the toe of her cowboy boot into the grey dirt.
"Flowers would be nice, but did you see the flowers in there?"
"Yeah."
So Ali and I spray paint the flowers on our way to Isabella's house, outside of Emmett's car window as we drive. We turn yellow weeds into a teal, spray-painted bouquet of wonderful.
"Wow. Isabella's got taste," Ali says.
"No shit man. I would never have guessed Isabella to be a turquoise kind of person."
When we pull up to her house, I'm thinking that I'm going to hyperventilate, but nothing happens. I just can't wait to see her. I walk up to the door. Wait just in time to see some man answer and have him tell me that she's moved. I walk back to the car dejected.
"What happened?" Ali asks.
"She moved." I hand the flowers back to Isabella and stare ahead. A long while later I hear the sucking nose from the black hole sound, though I say nothing. We continue to drive all night.
I sleep in the back of the car. Ali and Emmett are up front. Suddenly the car is stopped and Emmett is yelling.
"In-fucking-credible," He says.
Ali exit's the car and looks towards the front of the hood, where the headlights are glowing a bright, brilliant white.
He grabs her and kisses her hard. I swallow thick, the weird feeling I get in the pit of my stomach.
"Okay, Emmett," Ali says.
"It's just the headlights man, I mean it's great, but..." Emmett let's Ali go They stumble back to the car. Since I am awake, we all sit in the front seat again. It's not crowded or uncomfortable like it was the first time. I really couldn't picture this any other way.
We are driving some time now. Emmett occasionally flicks the headlights on.
"Do it again." He does. And it seems much more beautiful than I ever thought it would. Just then, we notice something in the road, almost to late.
Ali exclaims, "Emmett, watch out!" She points in front of her with her cigarette still in between her slender fingers.
Emmett swerves to the side of the road to avoid the person. We all climb out. 'You okay's?' heard all around.
Emmett looks at the man in the middle of the road. He has just stood up to full height. He has a thatch of white hair covering his head. It is split in two. One side to the left of his head, the other to the right. He is wearing an old vest with a pocket watch attached on the inside pocket. He looks magical. Like something about him is otherworldly.
"I think I slept on my ear wrong," the man says. "Do I look asymmetrical to you?" We all look at each other. The man then pulls out a flyer.
"I've lost my dog," he says. "And I'm just sick about it."
"And you were looking for him in the middle of the road?" Emmett asks.
"I was resting."
"In the middle of the fucking road?' Emmett asks. "Don't you think that's a little irresponsible?"
"I had to rest so I could look for Caius." The man stops and looks at us seriously.
"I'm Aro Vulturi." Aro grimaces. "Don't call me Aro. My mom used to call me Aro. Call me Vulturi." We remain silent.
"Look, it's to late to keep looking for Caius. You guys, come back to my camp." He pauses. "It's not really a camp, we just call it that."
We don't really think about. First, becaue no one can really kill us here. Second, because Volturi seems like someone who would have never killed himself in the first place. He seems to full of life. We start walking, following, oddly fascinated by Vulturi. As we pass the sign that reads 'Vulturi's Happy Campers,' we also, consequentially, pass by a man sitting on a stool. Normal enough. Except that he's floating. Hovering above the ground.
Aro is riding in front of us, on a small motor chair, elaborately decorated.
"Did you see that?" I ask. Emmett and Ali stop.
"What?" they ask.
"That guy was just floating." Ali and Emmett look confused. I am pointing to \the same man, except now he is sitting on the same stool, which is now resting firmly on the ground. "He was three feet in the air," I say with conviction. Vulturi reverses his motor chair and rides along next to me.
"Don't worry, that happens all the time here."
"What?" I ask. "Miracles?"
"Yeah," he says, shortly. "Turning stones into flowers, changing the color of certain objects-"
"-Fixing the headlights?" I ask. Volturi is listening to me intently. "His headlights were broken, and she fixed them not too far from here." I point to Ali. Vulturi nods.
Emmett stops to glance at this young woman sitting next to a makeshift igloo. She has long blonde hair and is very pale. Like Ali. Her honey brown eyes are staring at nothing. You can hear a faint humming. Or, whistling rather coming from something.
"What is she doing?" Emmett asks Vulturi. He looks toward the girl. She is humming, deep in her throat, a small tune.
"Oh, that's Rosalie. She's hilarious." Although no one can smile. Rosalie never looks up.
That night, we are all eating mush, smoking cigarettes. I am sitting next to Ali. Emmett is sitting next to Rosalie, who is paying rapt attention. Volturi is telling a story.
"There was once a crooked tree and a straight tree, growing in the forest." We all listen to Volturi and watch slideshow pictures from an old overhead projector. Everyone from camp is fascinated. "One day, the straight tree says to the crooked tree, 'You are crooked! You always have been and will continue to be crooked. But I am straight and will always be straight." Volturi's good friend, Marcus, changes the images on the overhead projector. They have nothing to do with the story. A camera, a few men. No trees. We continue to listen to volturi's deep, throaty voice. "One day, the lumberjacks all came into the forest. They said 'Cut down all the straight trees' So they did. And the crooked tree is still there today, growing crooked." Volturi sighs. "The end."
Ali lights a cigarette with a match. Once she is finished, she throws it off to the side of her. But instead of settling in the brush next to her and extinguishing, it floats up, above our heads, into the pitch-black sky. It looks like a star. I wish I could do a miracle.
A few days later, it is nighttime. Ali and I are sleeping in bunk beds. I wake up from a horrible dream. I look over and see that Rosalie is teaching Emmett how to hum in his throat, like she can. I sigh loudly. Ali peers over the edge of the bunk bed.
"You awake?" she asks. I nod. "Listen, I was thinking. If I'm going to find the people in charge, I have to keep looking."
"Yeah, and I need to find Isabella."
"Exactly," Ali says. We both look over to our friend.
"We can't wait for Emmett forever."
Later on in the week, I am hanging around with Vulturi. He is kind of landscaping. I am sitting next to the mini pool. A small, broken, wrought-iron staircase is to my right side. It leads up to nothing.
"Everyone at camp can do miracles, except for me." I sigh, "I've been dying to do one, even a small one."
"It's never going to happen if you're expecting it, you know what I mean?" Volturi asks. I nod, sort of confused. He never really words things right.
"Yeah, I guess, I don't know. " Just then we see Ali round the corner in a small red carnival truck. It's about a foot off the ground and has to be shorter, lengthwise, than Ali is herself. There are two seats. The rest is trunk.
"Hey, Volturi, you mind if I use your truck? We're out of logs."
"Go ahead," he says. "You look great in that," Volturi finishes, after looking at her for some time.
"I know, I like it," Ali replies. I turn away.
"Edward? You wanna go for a ride?"
"Sure," I say. "You okay?" I ask Volturi. He nods his head. He has some kind of glint in his eye. Though I think it might be dust.
I hop in the small clown car with Ali. We pick up logs along the way to some huge basin. We sit on the ledge. Ali has binoculars. We spy on Emmett and Rosalie across the canyon.
"He's teaching her how to fish." I grab the binoculars from Ali.
"Yesterday he tried to teach her all the names of famous basketball players and their positions. She had, no idea what he was talking about." Ali and I sit in silence for a while. Pass the binoculars back and forth. When it's my turn, I look in them and am dumbfounded.
"Oh my God, he's doing it."
"What?" Ali asks.
"Changing the color of the fish." Ali sighs and gets up. She walks to the truck.
"When are you going to get over these silly little miracles?"
"When are you going to get over this whole people in charge thing?" I snap back.
"That's different and you know it," she replies.
"Oh yeah, because you're not supposed to be here." I hop in the car. "I just don't know how someone could-"
"Listen, you little jerk," she says, jokingly.
"I didn't really kill myself." She pauses. "I just OD'ed." She tells me it was the first time she had ever done heroin. She did not want to die.
"Do you ever miss the things from before you offed?" She asks. I shrug. "I do. I miss my parents. I miss my dog. I miss my apartment, my friends. I'm even beginning to miss the things I hated at this point." I nod again.
"It's funny," I say. "I had a dream last night, that my suicide didn't work." I see her looking at me very seriously. "And while I was alive, I just, sort of missed this."
We have this moment. We both understand what the other is talking about. I think that Ali was right. She does have a great case. She doesn't belong here. I sincerely hope, in that moment, that she gets her second chance.
When we get back to camp, we walk around together for a short while, both in respective silence. We hear Marcus screaming.
"I found him! I found Caius!" He is panting. Everyone groups around him. Volturi looks much brighter.
"Marcus, where's Caius?" Marcus cannot breathe, he is panting so hard. "Marcus is Caius okay?" He still cannot answer. Ali hands him a glass of water. "Marcus where's Caius? Is Caius alright?" We are all awaiting his answer. Caius has been missing for a week. After Marcus get's done drinking the glass of water, he calmly answers.
"Caius is fine." Volturi is visibly relieved. "Wolf, on the other side of the forest has him. He's performing miracles. But not like our miracles. Significant, planned miracles. There are hundreds there to watch him."
"Where is Caius?" Volturi asks.
Marcus grimaces. "He refuses to come home. They're feeding him t-bone steaks."
"Caius has been brainwashed," Volturi says in all seriousness. "Can you take me there?"
"I only know how to get there on foot," Marcus replies.
I nod my head at Ali. This is the way we can escape, get out of camp.
"Do you guys mind if Edward and I come with you?"
"You guys want to see the miracle that asshole is performing?" Emmett asks.
"Yeah, I wanna see it," Ali says. I know we both hate lying to Emmett.
"T-bone steaks, you say?" Volturi asks.
"16 ounces. Prime cut."
"Damnitt!" Volturi exclaims.
We walk on foot with Marcus and Volturi. We are walking for five hours. When it is nighttime, we all set up camp. Ali and I go out looking for more logs. We stumble around together, until she silences me.
"Shh," she says. I walk towards her and step on an empty bottle. "Shh," she repeats. "Do you hear that?" I listen closely. It sounds like waves.
We both walk down the small rocky cliff to the edge of a large body of water. I'm not sure there are oceans here, but that is exactly what it looks like.
"Hi," Ali says, laughing as we bump into each other. It is weird. Laughing, but not smiling. Her laugh if infectious.
"Hi," I reply.
We walk along the edge of the beach and talk for a while.
"You remember when I said that I didn't miss the things from before I offed?" Ali nods her head. "I miss the beach," I say. Ali looks at me, chews her bubblegum and tosses a rock in the air.
After a while, we are sitting close. Ali smells like lilies and cigarette smoke, but it's feminine and beautiful. She is wearing a dress she got from camp. Ali continues to toss the rock in the air and chomp on her bubblegum. She looks at me. And there is something in her eyes that makes me feel compelled to learn even more of her than I already have. So I kiss her. And it is the most amazing experience of my entire dead-life, the feel of her thick pink lips moving against mine.
We fall asleep on the beach, wrapped in each others arms. Wake up to Volturi yelling our names.
"Edward, Alice, I hope you guys didn't sleep out here!" We both get up slowly, look on the ground. There are needles and condoms littering the entire beach. I think it's safe to say that both Ali and I are extremely grossed out.
"This is were the prostitutes and drug addicts used to come. It got to be even too dirty for them!" Volturi yells. "Come on!" We stumble and trip up the cliff of the beach.
We continue to walk. Eventually we make it out the other side of the forest. In front of us is a large, weathered, split level, stone castle. We see a big crowd of people, all wearing red hats. Volturi, Marcus, Ali and I all go up the stone steps to a small chamber were Wolf is said to be 'preparing.'
"He's my dog," Volturi says.
"People don't own dogs here. He's free to go if he wants," Wolf replies. Wolf is a muscular Native American man with wide brown eyes, and dark, tousled black hair. As Ali and I enter the room from our place on the stairs, we see Volturi pour a small amount of dust over Caius. Wolf is trying to fan it away. Through the smoke I see Isabella.
"Isabella?"
"Edward!" She exclaims.
"Oh, it's you!" She says as she hugs me tightly. I bury my head in her thick mane of hair. She smells faintly of strawberries and dirt.
"I can't believe it's you." she says. "You look exactly the same."
"Well, sort of," I say. "But you do."
"Yeah, my hair." I nod. Her hair is straight and long. "You love my hair." She fingers her auburn locks.
"Come," she says. She grabs my hand. I look at Ali. She looks stoic, but supportive. Most of all she looks slightly happy that I've found Isabella after all this time. But only slightly.
"Go," she mouths. I follow Isabella outside.
"After you offed yourself," Isabella says. "I couldn't go on." She runs her hand over my stubble. "I had no idea, how much I hurt you," She says. "Anyways, I met Wolf and learned his teachings. He said he was going to perform a miracle. He said that we were all trapped in the living. That there was a better world. When I learned that he killed himself, at the hospital, I simply went up to the roof, jumped off," Isabella stretches her arms out like wings. "And flew." I cringe. Isabella snorts a little and staggers slightly. The way that's she talking is sort of creeping me out. After I offed, she become some sort of cultist or some shit. It kind of creeps me out.
I look away from her and down towards the ground from the roof we are standing on top of. I see Ali walking around out of the corner of my eye.
She stands next to a sign, holding a permanent marker, looking oddly suspicious. It reads 'Save us Wolf.' She scribbles an 'H' in between 'S' and "Ave.' The sign now reads "Shave us Wolf." I snort.
I walk down the stairs to the ground level and look around for Ali. I can't seem to find her, but I do spot Volturi. He is holding Caius in his arms. I see Ali sitting on the back of a large tractor, then. She waves to me, I wave back.
The show is just about to start. Isabella and Wolf are standing on the roof. I try to get Ali to come stand with me. I wave her down. She can't hear me.
"Why don't you just tell her," Volturi says.
"Tell her what?'
"That you love her." I am only sort of shocked.
"She wouldn't hear me." I gesture to the large thicket of people.
We look up towards Wolf. Isabella is holding a box. She opens it, grabs a knife. You can hear several people 'ooh-ing.' Wolf nods his head in thanks, to Isabella. He puts the knife to his heart.
"What is he doing?" Volturi asks. He fixes the beret on top of his head. "He wouldn't do that twice. Everyone knows how bad it hurts." I nod my head.
Just then, Wolf looks toward Isabella and says, "Bella, join me." She has never looked so crazy in her life. I don't know what has happened to her, but she is not the same Isabella that I knew. She is 'Bella,' now, and I don't know who that is. I feel like I've wasted my time, for only a moment. Then I realize that looking for Isabella, Bella, whatever, is how I met Alice and Emmett. I know I haven't wasted my time, now. I sigh. Then Wolf stabs himself straight in the heart.
The crowd cry's out in amazement. I see Volturi whisper into a walkie talkie next to me. Then Isabella points to the sky.
"Here he comes! Here they come! Raise your hands to the sky!" I look up to see several little white parachutes falling form the sky. When they land, everything bursts into chaos.
"Everyone disperse this is the PIC!" The crowd runs wild. I look for Ali, try to find her. I fear she'll be trampled to death by the hordes of people. I see a plethora of white vans pull up next to the weathered, split level, stone castle. Ali is nowhere to be seen.
Eventually I realize that Volturi is a PIC, and that they really do all wear white. I look towards the vans and see them taking Isabella away. Or Bella. Whatever. I see them shove Wolf's dead body into the back. I see Ali through the small fishbowl window of a mini PIC truck. She puts her hands up to the window. Her voice is muffled.
"Edward, Edward! She yells. "I'll be back in ten minutes! Stay here!" I nod and wave her off. Watch as she disappears with the small white van.
I wait until it's dark, and even then I don't want to leave without her.
Emmett's car grinds over to where I am standing, waiting for Ali. He gets out of the car. Rosalie is in the passengers seat.
"What are you doing, man?" I have missed Emmett's thick Russian accent.
"Waiting for Ali, she said she would be right back." I am not leaving.
"Come on man," Emmett says. "Get in the car." I look at him. He knows that Ali is not coming back. I know, too.
When we get back to camp Emmett and Rosalie are waiting for a train. Emmett tells me everything.
"Apparently Volturi was PIC. He was running the camp illegally. And on PIC property no less." That explains the yellow caution tape. The ones that read 'PIC line: do not cross.'
"He knew about Ali man. Turns out there was a mistake." Emmett has the decency to pause before telling me the bad news. "He sent her back to life, man." I sigh.
The camp is abandoned. Emmett and Rosalie's train is almost here. "I'm sorry, man," Emmett says. He pats me on the back. There train arrives and Emmett and Rosalie get on. I have to drop something off to his dad.
He gives me get his car. His tapes. That damn black hole.
Apparently, Emmet and Rosalie are going back to her family in Alaska or something like it. I'm happy for him. I hope he learns how to throat whistle.
After they leave I sit and wait for a while. I can't stop the tears from coming. Isabella was not who I remembered she was, and although it hurt, nothing could compare to how awful it felt knowing I would never get to see Ali again.
I light a cigarette with a match and toss it to the side. Watch it float up, up into the midnight black sky and settle next to another all too familiar matchstick star. I couldn't stop the tears.
I guess Volturi was right. It's never going to happen if you expect it to.
I begin my journey, really, the next day, after spending the entire night in Emmett's car. I put his tape in the player. It begins to skip out. The voice drones on until it gets so low it sounds monstrous. I grab the tape player from the middle of the front seat and shake it.
It falls out of my hands into the black hole. I stick my hand in to catch it.
The black hole catches me.
Inside, it is dark. Like one would expect a black hole to be. I spin around, with all the other items we lost to the black hole. The map. Ali's lipstick. Two pairs of aviator sunglasses. Isabella's teal painted flowers. Weeds, is more like it. Finally, everything is black.
When I come to, It's as a result of an unfamiliar voice sounding off in front of my face.
"You are one lucky son of a bitch." I open my eyes to blinding white. I remember nothing looked this bright. I hear the steady beep-beep of heart monitors. I feel the I.V in under my skin and the water pulsing through my veins. My lungs burn. I bring my wrists up so that I can see them.
They are delicately wrapped in dressing. Bandages covering the thick, puckered lines. I am alive.
I think of Ali. My parents can be heard in the hallway. My doctor is talking to them. I look to my left. A wall.
I look to my right.
A small, little pixie-girl with short black hair and baby bangs. Her eyes are open wide, staring at me. I recognize the blue. The purple shadow pressing around her big, innocent eyes. She looks at me. I notice her I.V too. We stare at each other for a long while.
The corner of her mouth pulls up. I see bright white teeth. She is not using her fingers to help her.
I see Ali smile for the first time, and it is truly beautiful. I smile back. We both bite our lips.
And I know that she has not forgotten.
I know that she knows that I love her.