"And that's the end of the story," said the stranger.
"What? That's it?" asked an incredulous Clark. "But what happened to Edward?"
"Some say that, inspired by the mis-read word on the placard, he set off to the arctic to do ice sculptures of Lana Lang until the end of time."
"Leaving Smallville to trek off to the arctic? What sort of idiot would do that?"
"Others say that he spent the rest of eternity wandering the realities telling his story to anyone who'd listen."
"But who'd be stupid enough to listen to that?" asked Clark (which was a rhetorical question but Clark didn't realize it). Then a thought struck Clark and he tried to use his X-ray vision to look through the stranger's cloak, but to no avail. Feeling a drop of rain hitting his hair (which made him smile - his hair looked even cooler wet) Clark attempted to put his thought into words: "Wait a minute, all of this time and I've not seen your hands. Surely you're not ..."
The stranger smiled at Clark. "Clark, your ability to add two and two together and come up with five is indeed formidable. Of all the origins that people have tried to attribute to me throughout the years that is certainly the most outlandish."
Clark smiled at the stranger. It was nice to be called formidable."So, tell me about some of the other realities," requested Clark. "Some that aren't made up. No offence, but I can't really relate to Edward Scissorhands."
"And it's no surprise, young Clark. For Edward was an outsider, who tried so hard to fit in, but never could. What could you possibly have in common with him? I could tell you about all sorts of amazing realities, Clark. One where you're a genetic follow-up to Stitch, another where you and Lex fall out when you destroy his comic collection, another where Superman, not Clark, wears the glasses, and then there's that weird reality where Clark Kent's a pervert who spies on Lana Lang through his telescope and uses his X-ray vision to look in the girls' locker room ... oh, wait a minute..."
But Clark was not listening to the stranger anymore, for his mind was filled with the tale of Edward, and how he'd inadvertently caused Lana Lang's death . And then he remembered the film where Edward stayed young forever while his sweetheart just grew older. And then he realized that he was more like Edward than he thought, and that he could never be with Lana, for he loved her too much and he could not bear to see her die or even grow old (for growing old was also, technically speaking, dying - just in a very prolonged drawn-out manner).
And with the realization that Lana could never be his, Clark felt a coldness within, a coldness he'd never felt before, and, because misery loves company, he wanted to share that coldness with the rest of Smallville, so that they could feel just a fraction of the desolation which he felt inside. As the rain started to fall faster, he turned his head up to the heavens, opened his mouth wide, and blew as as far and as hard as he could unleashing the icyness within him.
Above him, and above Smallville itself, the rain water momentarily stopped falling, propelled upwards by Clark's icy breath, and turned crystalline. Before long, thick snow was falling down all around and Clark just looked up, wide-mouthed, at this metaphor for the way his heart felt.
Lana looked at Pete. She could do worse for a boyfriend, she thought. He had to be better than the freaks she usually ended up with. Of course she really wanted Clark, but then again Pete accentuated her incredible good looks far, far better. Just the thought of this made her smile, a smile so wide and beautiful that Pete was lost in it. He didn't even notice when the snow started falling.
Lana saw the snow, the first snow to ever fall in Smallville, and squealed in delight. Then she started dancing, just like Winona Ryder in that film she couldn't remember the name of, and then she looked at Pete and laughed at the confused, bemused, bewitched expression on his face. He hadn't even noticed the snow, and at that moment she realized that he must really love her and smiled some more.
She walked up to Pete and their lips met and the rest is history.
Eventually Clark could blow no more and he sat down exhausted on the thick snow beneath him. It was then that he noticed the stranger had gone, not even leaving any footprints in the snow. The only thing he'd left behind was a snow angel ... with very large wings.