Twin Peaks - Bookhouse

A bit of fan fiction from a die-hard Twin Peaks fan.

“Ed… Psst, Ed, over here,” Harry whispered sharply through the thick brush. A short distance away, Ed Hurley turned to see his friend and weekend hunting companion Harry Truman pointing up to the top of a small ridge of loose rock a short distance ahead of them. Standing motionless on top of the rock was the silhouette outline of a beautiful 10-point buck, as yet seemingly unaware that it was being stalked.

 

Slowly, quietly, the two men circled around to position themselves down-wind of the animal. Harry made his way over to a well-camouflaged stand of Douglas-Fir trees while Ed climbed down into a small creek bed, noiselessly stepping across a row of stones in the water to a point near the back of the ridge.

 

Peeking out from behind the largest of the trees, Harry caught the buck in the crosshairs of his scope just as the light from the full moon broke out from behind a cloud. Bathed in the soft, blue glow of moonlight the deer looked strangely etheric, Harry thought, like yet another ghostly apparition in the long list of the creepys and the crawlies purportedly said to occupy the woods surrounding Twin Peaks. With the razor-sharp control of an expert marksman, Harry slowly started to squeeze the trigger of his rifle. Supernatural notwithstanding, this buck was his.

 

Then, from somewhere high in the trees above them, an owl made a piercing screech and dove down at them from the darkness of the tree canopy. Instinctively, Harry turned his rifle skyward and squeezed off the shot meant for the deer. Even considering the recklessness of his aim, Harry’s bullet caught a grazing hit across the underside of the owl’s left wing. Unaffected, the owl leveled off about three feet above his head, sailed across the distance between him and the ridge and landed on the rock where the buck had been just seconds before. Dumbfounded, Ed stood up and stared at the owl, then over at Harry. Harry’s anger at the owl for having spooked his kill came boiling to a head and he cocked his rifle for a second shot at the bird. As he raised the gun and got a bead between the two large, black emotionless eyes, Ed called over to him.

 

“Whoa now Harry, that bird ain’t gonna make for much of a meal tonight.”

 

“Maybe not Ed. I’ll tell you something though,” Harry shouted back. “I sure will sleep better on an empty stomach knowin’ it’s pulling up daisies.”

 

“That’s pushin’ up Harry. Pushin’ up daisies,” Ed fired back with a grin.

 

“No, now, Ed, in this case I wasn’t planning on a burial. Way I figure it, I’m gonna blow that old owl out across a field of daisies then leave him for dead. Before he comes to a stop I bet he will have pulled up a few daisies.”

 

Before Ed could raise any more objections, Harry fired at the owl. Strangely, the bullet ricocheted off the rock with a spark, behind where the owl was pearched. After another moment, the owl turned slowly way, raised its wings and launched itself off of the ridge and out of site in the valley below. Ed was first to reach the top of the ridge and to see in the direction it had gone.

 

“Oh my God,” Ed exclaimed as Harry walked up beside him. “Harry… that old owl just plum disappeared.

 

“Where Ed?” Harry asked and then realized he was most likely looking at the answer to his question, a short distance down the hill. Still, it seemed important to have a second set of eyes on this, something to assure him that this was a shared vision and not just his own personal nightmare, a delusion dredged up from a set of circumstances that occurred more than 25 years ago. “In there?” he said.

 

Ed shook his head. “Yeah.”

 

Down the hill before them, nestled in a small clearing between the towering spires of the pines was a ring of Sycamore trees. Glastonbury Grove. Inside the ring, looking very much like a tainted pool of prehistoric tar, a black puddle of burnt engine oil glistened under the moonlight. Harry stared unmoving into gelatinous black goo, remembering a time long ago when he had watched FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper walk into that circle of trees and vanish behind a veil of crimson curtains called the Black Lodge. He had not returned to this spot since the moment he pulled Cooper and Annie Blackburn out of the Grove and drove them back to the relative safety of the Great Northern Hotel in Twin Peaks.

 

While Harry’s mind was reeling through the misty shadows of the past, Ed happened to glance down at the rock ridge where they were standing, the same spot where the owl had landed. Something colorful caught his gaze, something lying there near the tip of his boot. Ed reached down and picked up the tiny object and held it up in the dim light. The cold wind blowing through the trees brushed against the tiny memento and Ed felt it flutter across his fingers.

 

“Well I’ll be dogged. This looks like your work Harry.” Ed held the tiny object up for Harry to see. It was a fly fishing lure.

 

“Green-butt-skunk,” Harry said taking the lure. “It’s the one I wrapped for Cooper.”

Chapter 2

 

“Good morning, Psychiatric Institute of Washington Hospital, Claudia speaking, how may I direct your call?”

 

“Hello Claudia,” said the voice on the line,” this is Annie Blackburn, can I please speak to Dale Cooper?”

 

“One moment please,” Claudia responded as she quickly keyed in the name on her computer. After a moment the screen populated with a complete profile of patient number 053163, Dale Bartholomew Cooper, born April 19^th, 1954, admitted for psychiatric treatment of acute paranoid schizophrenia on October 31^st, 1995. Claudia quickly scrolled down the screen to a field titled “Current patient status” and noted that he was listed as undergoing a treatment of low-level electroshock therapy. “I’m sorry Ms. Blackburn, Dale isn’t available to speak with you at the moment. Can I take a message for you.”

 

Annie fidgeted with the tiny cross on her necklace, turning it over and over between her finger and thumb. “Umm, yeah, if you could,” she paused, thinking. “Tell him Annie called and…” She looked thoughtfully down at the cross. “Tell him I’m sorry I haven’t come to visit him in a while. I hope he’s doing OK.” Annie stood up from the booth where she was sitting at the Double-R Diner and walked across the room, away from the counter where Shelly Johnson was noisily collecting dirty dishes and silverware in a gray plastic tub. “Just,” she paused again, “Just tell him that I’m thinking about him, would you?”

 

“Of course I will Ms. Blackburn. I’m sure it will raise his spirits to know that you called.” After a moment of uncomfortable silence, Claudia asked, “Ms. Blackburn? Was there something else you wanted to say?”

 

Annie gripped the tiny cross in her hand and squeezed it tightly, as if she were trying to draw out some divine message from it that she could relay to Dale. Something, anything that might bring him back to her, back from the dark regions of madness that had transformed him from the kind, thoughtful man she had met and fallen in love with so long ago. A tear fell down he cheek and she fought back a sob by taking a deep, calming breath. “No,” she finally managed to say. “No, thank you, that was all. That I’m thinking about him, that’s all.”

 

“Alright Ms. Blackburn, I’ll make sure he knows.”

 

“Thank you… Claudia. Thank you so much.” Annie wiped another tear from the edge of her eyelid before it fell. “Goodbye,” she said pressing the call end button on her phone.

 

At the nurses’ station, Claudia Benson opened up a notebook and pulled a pen out of a cup on the desk. On a blank sheet of paper she wrote, From Annie Blackburn. Dale, I’m sorry I haven’t visited you in a while and I wanted you to know I’ve been thinking about you. Satisfied, Claudia put the pen back in the cup and pulled the piece of paper with the message on it out of the notebook. It was nearly time to go home for the day so she logged off her workstation and pulled her overcoat off of a hook on the back wall. No sooner had she buttoned the coat around her when her replacement for the evening rounded the entryway at the back of the nurses’ station. “Tag, you’re it,” she said with a wry little laugh.

 

“How are you this evening Miss Claudia,” the woman said as she dropped a backpack down on the floor behind the desk.

 

“I’m doin’ pretty good,” she said, then holding up the note in her hand she added, “other than having to deliver a message to Creepy Cooper before I can go home.”

 

“Lucky you,” the other woman exclaimed.

 

“Lucky me,” she replied as she turned and walked briskly down a long, white corridor leading to the therapy wing of the hospital. Fortuitously, the door leading to the electroshock therapy lab swung open just as she walked up and two orderlies shuffled slowly out into the hall, holding Dale Cooper up between them. Cooper was dressed in pajamas and a long, beige terrycloth robe, somewhat disheveled yet clean and unwrinkled, as if he had simply not had time to notice the aftereffects of jerking around on a table with electrical current arching across his temporal lobes. Cooper’s face was pointed down at the floor and his salt and pepper dark hair was slicked back on his head, all except for a swatch of it that stuck out at an odd angle from his brow.

 

“Mr. Cooper,” she said quietly, “Dale?” Cooper did not raise his head. Not knowing if he had heard her, Claudia spoke to him again, in a slightly louder tone. “Dale, I have a message for you… A message from Annie,” she said smiling. “You remember, Annie Blackburn from Twin Peaks.” Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Cooper cocked his head to one side and stopped walking.

 

Still supporting himself on the arm of one of the orderlies he murmured, “Annie?” His voice was rough and dry. Cooper coughed and then cleared his throat before trying to speak again. “How… is Annie?” As he spoke the words he raised his head up and turned to look at Claudia. The corners of his mouth were curled up in a horribly disquieting grin. Claudia let out an audible gasp and took a step backwards.

 

“Fine,” she managed to say. “She’s fine. She, umm, she asked me to give you this message.” Keeping her distance, Claudia handed the paper to one of the orderlies closest to her and quickly dropped her arm back at her side. Cooper reached up and snatched the paper from the orderly and shoved it into the pocket of his robe. As he did he turned and started walking unsteadily away from her.

 

“Hold on Dale, you’re gonna fall flat on your kester,” one of the orderlies said putting a hand under his armpit for support. As the slow-moving threesome walked away from her to go back to Cooper’s room, Claudia heard Dale tell the men, “I need to brush my teeth.”

The Briggs family marker stood high on a knoll near the center of the Twin Peaks Memorial Cemetery. Garland’s wife and son knew that he would have wanted it that way, as close to the sky as an aviator can be buried and still be under the earth. The headstone was one of a kind, a jutting, polished grey marble obelisk topped with a beautiful bronze jet aircraft that seemed poised to streak off into the wild blue yonder. Embossed into the marble beneath the plane was an inscription that read, “Major Garland R. Briggs, U.S.A.F., January 3^rd, 1938 " September 19^th, 2008, Beloved Husband & Father.” Next to his epitaph was a space reserved for his wife, Betty. Underneath the names, a bronze plaque bore an inscribed poem.

 

"High Flight"

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth

And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;

Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth

of sun-split clouds, " and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of " wheeled and soared and swung

High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,

I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung

My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue

I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.

Where never lark, or even eagle flew "

And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

 

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

 

Raindrops tapped softly on the metal and stone of the monument and trickled down in tiny rivulets to pool in the thick, green grass below. After a moment the quiet, overcast gloom was illuminated by the bright beam from a set of headlights turning in the direction of the grave. The light shimmered across the raindrops like tiny diamonds and then winked out as the car came to a stop on a gravel path a short distance away. Bobby Briggs opened the driver’s side door and stepped out on the gravel path. Shutting the door behind him he walked around the car and opened the passenger door. Gently, Bobby took hold of his mother’s arm, helping her to stand. “Thank you Bobby,” she said gripping his arm tightly. It took her a moment to straighten up to a standing position and she took hold of the doorframe with her free hand to steady herself. “Take it slow, Mom,” Bobby said. “This rain has got everything slick as glass around here.” Bobby reached under his arm and pulled out an umbrella. Opening  it above his mother’s head the pair walked slowly away from the car and past  a row of headstones that lead up the hill to Garland’s grave. As they walked through the damp grass, Bobby managed a quick glance at an all-too-familiar headstone a short distance away. Laura Palmer. “My God,” Bobby thought to himself, “so long ago.” The stone was overgrown now, entangled with a thick matte of grass and weeds, attended to, only on occasion, when Sarah Palmer could bring herself to face Laura’s demise. Even after all this time had passed, Sarah was still given to fits of hysterics. Friends had stopped bringing her out here, fearing that her failing health had worsened to a point that she could no longer stand the stress. Now suffering from advanced stage lung cancer it was easier for her to stay home spending hour after hour paging through old family photo albums, remembering a time when her baby girl was the center of her life.

 

“Bobby?” His mother’s voice broke through his momentary reverie and Bobby realized he had stopped walking and was standing, staring at Laura’s grave. “Sorry Mom. I guess, even now, she’s still on my mind sometimes.” Betty glanced over at Laura’s grave and she knowingly patted Bobby on his shoulder. “Hard to believe you kids were just in high school then. It doesn’t seem possible that all that time has passed.” She wrapped both hands around her son’s arm and rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Now you’re a wonderful husband with two little girls of your own. You and Shelly seem so happy together.”

 

Bobby looked down at his mother and a slight smile formed on his face. “We are Mom. Shelly is the best thing that ever happened to me. My girls too. Between her, them, you and Dad, somehow, you all managed to make an honest man out of me. C’mon Mom, let’s go up and say “hi” to Dad.”

A small private jet descended from the dull overcast and touched down in a spray of mist as the tires kicked up water from the rain soaked runway. After slowing, the plane veered from the runway and taxied to a stop near a corrugated metal building that functioned as a terminal for the Twin Peaks Municipal Airport. As the jet turbines started winding down, the hatch on the side of the fuselage was pushed open from the inside and John Wheeler stepped out holding the collar of his leather flight jacket up against the heavy rain. Momentarily retreating to the plane, he retrieved an umbrella from an overhead storage compartment and popped it open through the hatch as he stepped down on the tarmac. After taking a moment to close the hatch he walked briskly across the asphalt to the relative dryness of an awning that extended a short way out above the entrance of the terminal. He vigorously shook off the umbrella , folded it up and then went inside the building.

 

The terminal interior reminded John more of a hardware store than an airport. Directly across from the entryway where he now stood was a window with a sign above it that read “Aircraft Parts & Service.” To his left, down a short hallway was the lobby. Tucking the folded umbrella under one arm he ran a free hand across his damp hair and walked to the lobby. There, seated on a large, well-worn vinyl couch looking at an equally well-worn copy of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition from 2002, was Jerry Horne.

 

“Jerry!” Wheeler exclaimed, “Hello old friend.”

 

“John Justice Wheeler, as I live and breathe,” Jerry announced as he tossed the magazine aside and stood to shake John’s hand. The handshake seemed a bit too formal to Jerry and soon became an embrace as he clapped Wheeler on the back. “Damn it has been way too long. Last time I saw you was what, like, 199…”

 

“1991 I believe it was, Jerry,” John interrupted. “A long time ago to be sure.”

 

“Hell yeah, that’s ancient history buddy!” Jerry said shaking his head. “

Author's Note

I've been revisiting Twin Peaks recently with my family on DVD and this little experiment has shown a bit of promise in that it has broken down the wall of my seemingly long-term case of writer's block. This is just the beginning of what I hope will be some serious story-telling.

Reviews

[Ruth Lonsdale]

I loved it!! Your vocabulary was so amazing and I can't wait to read some more!!