June 23, 2155
Norm turned on the recorder. There were dark circles under his eyes, and the stubble on his chin, that was usually tamed, was turning into a full beard now. He glanced into the lens, revealing that his eyes were practically red. "Um. Hi. I know we don't have to use any of these anymore. It's not like Grace is gonna come down and yell at me for not recording my daily life with the Na'vi." Norm looked down with a slightly pained look on his face.
"But Jake and Neytiri suggested that I do another one of these. To you know," Norm started to explain, his mouth open and his hands in motion, although he just ended up shrugging. "Feel better." Soon his fingers were in his mouth, biting his nails. A nervous habit. His com records had always been regulated before this. All facts and findings. Professional and terse. Just what the big wigs wanted at the end of the day, although some excitement may have slipped through every so often. This was different.
Norm rubbed his forehead for a moment. "I came here for a clear mission. To explore Pandora from the inside out. Live in a culture as one of its people. This was…a dream for me. Everything was so beautiful, so perfect. Even with the few side effects and the uncomfortableness that is first meeting Grace." A slight smile graced his face for just a moment. She was another person that he missed. "It was all worth it. Even watching Jake kinda take over. It wasn't that I was jealous…okay maybe I was a little bit. But I was glad for him. Glad to teach him. Despite being a Marine and all he's a nice guy. Might not be the smartest…but he had me for that." For a moment Norm paused, remembering those sessions in the bunker. Those were, maybe, the best days of his life. That was before all hell broke loose.
"So I had a mission. You can review the tapes and you can see that aplenty. Mission. Fun. Cultures and Science, yay," Norm waved his hand in the air as if he was ready to party although his voice was still sullen. "I didn't…I don't look for that kinda thing. Well, I look. Everyone looks. But I look and do nothing beyond that. I appreciate but I don't investigate because I know, no matter who she is she's out of my league." After a moment's pause he added, "Cept maybe Allison Krupkie from back home but she…she was pretty inside...looked like a horrible pig thing, but…anyway. I saw her. And yeah, what wasn't to like? She was beautiful. That was it. She was just another one of those girls who was gorgeous and who obviously wasn't for me because she was going to end up with some hunk. Some…huge marine with biceps that could, I don't know, fold cans with flexing their arms." Norm paused to bite his nails again. Glancing down at his cuticles, he checked to look at them. "It didn't help that she was…so cool. You know she could probably fold cans flexing her bicep. But she never went around doing it. She knew she could, didn't flaunt it. Just relaxed and let everything come to her."
"I half expected her and Jake to run off together or something. Or wheel off, I guess. It would make sense. Sure, Jake was in a wheelchair, but she was that cool that she didn't care about stuff like that. All of the other Marines teased him, and well I guess technically she wasn't a Marine. Ex-Marine. Pilot. Still it would make sense. On his first day, she just went up to him and invited him in her helicopter, which for the record, you have to earn that privilege." Wistfulness passed across Norm's eyes, but it didn't last long. He sniffed quickly, rubbed his nose on his sleeve and stared out into the distance for a moment. Thinking.
"Pretty marry the pretty. It's just a fact. It's evolution. People say that we're advanced beings, which was pretty much proved wrong with all of this, but we're not. We're just slaves to Darwin. Pretty marry the pretty so their babies can marry pretty babies and so that the human race can stay beautiful. That leaves people like me…who aren't pretty. We're the moth that doesn't match the tree trunk behind us," He admitted with a snort.
"That's okay though, I'd come to accept that. That even if I did ever find a girl who wasn't repulsed by me, she'd probably be such a moth too, so why even bother to try and pursue a…a butterfly." Norm made a face as if he smelled something horrible, and shook his head quickly. "Okay enough with the metaphors. I'll just say I knew she was out of my league. I want everyone to know that. Even though no one will probably ever watch this. I knew, that she was out of my league. But I guess that she was different from all of the other girls. She…she didn't care about Darwin," Norm said slowly as if he was trying to figure it out himself. "Oddly enough, she cared about me."
Norm looked down at his fingers before glancing back up in the lens. "Trudy's gone now, but. I guess it isn't fair for her never to be recorded or talked about. Beyond glimpses of her walking in the background of our records or something. Beyond…her doing a million pull ups and me drooling in the background. I'm pretty hopeless." A small chuckle escaped his lips although he quickly pulled it back. "I guess it's right for me to talk about her. It's been a while, and everyone has moved on. Even Neytiri and her mother have finished their mourning for her father. And the tribe has moved on from all that happened too. Found a new place to live. A new life. Not me though." With that Norm's whole body seemed to fade. Even though it had been almost a full year, Norm looked older. Much older, like the rest of the world had experienced a year, and Norm experienced a decade.
Taking a deep breath, he continued, "So I'm gonna talk, and I know secretly Jake and Neytiri hope that this magically makes me feel better about the whole thing. I'm gonna try. Just for them. But…I don't think that they realize that Trudy Chacon…is hard to get over."
Note: I'd love to make this a series if anyone is interested in the progression of Norm and Trudy. In the original script the two were actually together, and I'm excited to explain their back story. At least until the DVD comes out and we find out for sure!