*___THE___
SECRET
DIARY
___OF___
LAURA
PALMER*


          /As seen by Jennifer Lynch


          Based upon characters created by
          David Lynch and Mark Frost
          for the Television series, 'Twin Peaks'/




Dear Diary,	July 22, 1984


    My name is Laura Palmer, and as of just three short minutes ago, I
officially turned twelve years old! It is July 22, 1984, and I have had
such a good day! You were the last gift I opened and I could hardly wait
to come upstairs and start to tell you all about myself and my family.
You shall be the one I confide in the most. I promise to tell you
everything that happens, everything I feel, everything I desire. And,
every single thing I think. There are some things I can't tell /anyone./
I promise to tell these things to you.
    Anyway, when I came down for breakfast this morning, I saw that Mom
had hung streamers all through the house, and even Dad put on a party
hat and tooted away on a kazoo for a while. I didn't think Donna and I
would ever stop laughing!
    Oh, Donna is my very best friend in the whole world. Her last name
is Hayward, and her father, Dr. Hayward, delivered me twelve years ago
today! I can't believe I finally made it. Mom cried at the table because
she said before I know it I'll be a grown-up woman. Yeah, sure. It's
going to take years for me to even get my period, I just know it. She's
crazy if she thinks I'll be a grown-up in no time, especially if she
keeps giving me stuffed animals for my birthday!
    Today was just the way I wanted it to be, with only Donna and Mom
and Dad there. And Jupiter, my cat, of course. For breakfast we had
apple pancakes, which are my favorite, with lots of maple syrup and
sourdough toast.
    Donna gave me the blouse I saw in the window at Horne's Department
Store, and I know she bought it with her allowances because she was
saving all of them for a long time and wouldn't tell me why. It's the
most beautiful blouse you've ever seen! It is white and silky and has
tiny embroidered roses all over it, but not so many that it looks bad.
It's just perfect. On Donna's birthday, I'm going to get her something
extra special too.
    My cousin Madeline, Maddy for short, is visiting tomorrow for a
whole week. She and Donna and I are going to build a fort in the woods
and camp out if Mom will let us. I know Dad will. He likes the woods as
much as I do. One night I had a dream that Dad moved us to a house deep
in the woods and my bedroom had a big tree outside the window with two
songbirds nesting there.     I'll be back in a minute, Diary, Dad is
calling to me from downstairs. He says he has a surprise! I'll tell you
everything when I get back!

Love, Laura




Dear Diary,	July 22, 1984, later


    You will never ever believe what just happened! I went downstairs
and Dad told Mom and I to get in the car and not to ask any questions
until we got to where we were going. Of course, Mom asked questions the
whole way. I didn't mind because I thought maybe something would slip
out of Dad's mouth, but it didn't. I just kept quiet so that I wouldn't
lose my surprise. When we pulled up to The Broken Circle Stables, I
knew! Daddy bought me a pony! Diary, he is so beautiful, much more
beautiful than I could ever have dreamed. His colors are cinnamon red
and deep brown, and his eyes are big and sweet. Mom couldn't believe it
when she saw it and she started asking Dad how he managed to do it
without anyone knowing. Dad said it would ruin the surprise if she knew,
and he's right.
    Mom nearly had a heart attack when she saw me underneath the pony's
legs to find out if it was a boy or a girl. I barely had to look to find
out that it was a boy. /Like I've never seen one of those before./ Mom
doesn't know her little girl the way she thinks she does, hmmm?
    Back to my pony. I decided his name should be Troy, like the pony in
Mrs. Larkin's photo book. Zippy, who works at the stables, said he would
make a nameplate for me that says TROY in big letters, and he'll hang it
right in front so that everyone will know his name when they see him.
Troy is still too young to ride, but in two months I'll be able to get
on and just race through the fields! Today I walked him and fed him
carrots (Dad brought them with us in the trunk) and a cube of sugar that
Zippy gave me. Troy loved ail of it. Before I left him, I whispered in
his warm, soft ear that I would see him tomorrow and that I would write
all about him, here, in my diary. I can't wait to show him to Donna! I
almost forgot, Maddy will see him too!
    On the way home from the stables Dad said that Troy and I have the
same birthday, because when a pony is given as a gift to someone who
will love him, they share everything. So happy birthday to Troy too!
    I'm glad I don't know where he came from, because this way, it is
almost as if Heaven sent him down just for me.
    Anyway, Diary, tomorrow is a big day and tonight I will sleep very
well, dreaming of Troy and all of the time we shall spend together. I am
the luckiest girl in the world.

Love, Laura


P.S. I hope BOB doesn't come tonight.


Dear Diary,	July 23, 1984


    It is very late at night and I can't sleep. I have had nightmare
after nightmare and have finally chosen to avoid sleeping altogether. I
figure Maddy will be tired from her ride out here and will want to take
a nap tomorrow anyway, so I can sleep then. Maybe if the sky is light
when I sleep, my dreams won't be so dark.
    One of them was just awful. I woke up crying, and I was afraid Mom
would come in if she heard me, and I just want to be alone right now,
and she wouldn't understand that. She always comes in and sings
"Waltzing Matilda" to me when I can't sleep, or like tonight when I have
bad dreams. It's not that I don't want her to sing to me, it is just
that there was this strange man in my dream singing just that song in
Mom's voice, and it frightened me so much I could hardly move.
    In the dream I was walking through the woods out by the Pearl Lakes,
and there was this very strong wind, but only around me. It was hot. The
wind. And about twenty feet away from me there was this man with long
hair and very large, callused hands. They were very rough and he held
them out to me as he sang. His beard didn't blow in the wind because the
wind was only around me. The tips of his thumbs were black like coal and
he wiggled them around in circles as his hands got closer to me. I kept
walking toward him, even though I didn't want to at all because he
frightened me so much.
    He said, "I have your cat," and Jupiter ran behind him and off into
the woods like a little white speck on a piece of black paper. He just
kept singing and I tried to tell him I wanted to go home and I wanted
Jupiter to come with me, but I couldn't talk. Then he lifted his hands
up in the air very, very high, like he was growing bigger and taller
every minute, and as his hands went up, I felt the wind around me stop
and everything went silent. I thought that he was letting me go because
he could read my mind, at least it felt that way. And so when he stopped
the wind with his hands like that, I thought he was letting me free,
letting me go home.
    Then I had to look down because there was this heat between my legs,
not nice warm, but hot. It burned me and so I had to spread my legs open
so they would cool. So that they would stop burning, so so hot. And they
started spreading by themselves like they were going to snap off of my
body, and I thought, I'm going to die this way, and how will anyone
understand that I tried to keep my legs closed, but they burned and I
couldn't. And then the man looked at me and smiled this awful smile, and
in Mom's voice he sang, "You'll come a'waltzing Matilda with me. . ."
And I tried to talk again but I couldn't, and I tried to move but I
couldn't do that either, and he said, /"Laura, you are home."/ And I
woke up.
    Sometimes when I'm dreaming I feel trapped there and so frightened.
But now when I look at what I just wrote, it doesn't seem so scary.
Maybe I'll write down all of my dreams from now on so that I won't have
to be afraid of them.
    One night last year I had such an awful dream that the whole next
day in school, I couldn't work. Donna thought I was going nuts because
every time she said my name or touched my shoulder in class to pass a
note, I jumped. I wasn't going nuts, like Nadine Hurley or anything, but
I was still feeling like I was in a dream. I don't really remember it,
but all I know was in the dream I was in a lot of trouble because I
hadn't passed this weird test where you have to help a certain number of
people across this river in a boat, and I couldn't do it, because I just
wanted to swim or something, and so they sent someone after me, to touch
me in bad, mean ways. I don't remember any more, and I guess it's no loss.
    I'm so tired of waiting to grow up. Someday it will happen and I'll
be the only person who can make me feel bad or good about anything I do.
    I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'm getting pretty tired.

Laura




Dear Diary,	July 23, 1984


    Cousin Maddy will be here any minute. Dad went to pick her up at the
station by himself because Mom wouldn't let him wake me. I slept until
just fifteen minutes ago. No dreams at all, except Mom says she heard me
calling out to her and then I hooted like an owl! I'm so embarrassed.
She said she came into my room and I was half asleep but I . . . hooted
again, and then she says I giggled and rolled over and went back to
sleep. I hope she doesn't tell anyone about this. She always tells
people things like that when we have dinner parties with the Haywards or
something. It always starts. with, "Laura did the sweetest, most odd
thing . . ." And I know it's coming.
    Like one night she said, right in front of everyone, that I had
sleptwalked into the kitchen one night just before she was going to bed.
I took off all my clothes, stuffed them in the stove, and went back to
bed. Now every time I go to the stove at the Haywards' when Donna and I
help with dinner, Mrs. Hayward makes a joke about whether or not I
realize that the stove is a stove and not a washing machine.
    Mom had been drinking the night she told that, so I forgave her. But
if she tells anyone I hooted, I'll just die. I don't suppose there is
ever a time that parents stop being a source of constant embarrassment
to their children. Mine are no exception.
    Maybe if I could stop doing stupid things in my sleep, she wouldn't
have anything to tell people.
    More later.

Laura

(hoot, hoot)




Dear Diary,	July 27, 1984


    I have so much to tell you. These words come to you from the inside
of a fort that Donna and Maddy and I built. Dad and Mom said it was okay
as long as we stayed just out back. We used wood that Ed Hurley gave us,
and Dad hammered everything together. Donna says that if a storm came
up, it would all be over for us, but I have a feeling it would stand, no
matter what happened.
    Maddy is so pretty now. She's sixteen years old and I'm so jealous
of her life! I wish I were sixteen! She has a boyfriend at home that she
already misses, and he called her at the house earlier just to make sure
she got here all right. Dad teased her about how cutesy she was on the
phone, but Maddy didn't mind. Donna thinks that when she has a steady
boyfriend, she'll probably be forty years old and going deaf. I told her
she was crazy because boys already like both of us, we're just too smart
to go out with them. I wonder what it will be like when someone besides
my parents loves me, and if he will call when I travel to make sure that
I'm all right.
    Anyway, earlier we all went to see Troy at the stables and brushed
and fed him. Both Donna and Maddy said they'd never seen such a
beautiful pony in their lives. I wonder what I did to deserve him. Donna
has been wishing for a pony for years too, and her father never bought
her one. I wonder how long Troy will live and if I will cry forever when
he dies.
    Donna just saw what I wrote about Troy's dying, and she says I think
too many sad thoughts, and that if I keep it up, who knows what will
happen. Donna doesn't know everything I know. I can't help but think sad
thoughts sometimes. Sometimes they are the closest things to my mind.
    Mom packed us sandwiches and two thermoses. One filled with milk,
ice-cold. The other with hot chocolate. Maddy won't drink more than one
cup of the hot chocolate 'cause she says it gives her zits. I don't see
a zit on her face anywhere. She started her period three years ago and
says it's just a nightmare. It gives you acne and cramps and you're
tired and angry all the time you have it. Great. Something else to look
forward to. Mom got her period when she was my age, and I only hope that
doesn't mean I'll get mine this year too. Now that Maddy has described
it to me, I'm not at all interested.
    All of us are eating sandwiches and drinking milk, and writing in
our diaries. Maddy's is so big and full! Donna's is more full than mine,
but I'm going to make you bigger than Maddy's is. I like the idea of
keeping my thoughts all in one place, like a brain you can look into. We
hung a flashlight from the top of the fort so that the light comes down
and we can all see. A little bit of light came from the house windows,
but we covered it up because we all agreed that it ruined the feeling of
being out in the woods alone. All of the blankets and food already make
us feel like we're exactly where we are. In the backyard! Maddy says she
brought a pack of cigarettes with her and that later, after Mom and Dad
are asleep, if we want to, we can try one. She says they're stale
because she's had them for months but hasn't touched them because she's
afraid her parents will find out. Maybe I'll try one. Donna says she
doesn't want to, and Maddy and I said we wouldn't pressure her because
real friends don't do that. But I'll bet you I can make Donna smoke one
just by giving her the right look. I just bet you.

More later.


    I'm back.
    We've been laughing so hard all of our stomachs ache from it. Maddy
was describing how she kisses her boyfriend with her tongue, and it made
Donna and me crazy. Donna made a face and said she didn't like the idea
of tongue-kissing, and I pretended to think the same . . . but honestly,
Diary, when I heard how you do it, I got a very strange funny feeling in
my stomach. Different from . . . never mind. I got the feeling that I
might like tongue-kissing and I'm going to try it with a boy I like as
soon as I can. Maddy said she was afraid at first, but she's been doing
it for a year now and she loves it. I told both of them about last month
when I had a fever and went into my parents' bedroom and saw them naked
with Dad on top. I just left the room and Mom came to see me a few
minutes later with some aspirin and 7-Up. She never said a word about
it. Donna says they were definitely having sex, and I already knew that,
but they didn't seem to like it. They just seemed to be moving very
slowly and not even really looking at each other.
    Maddy thinks it was probably "just a quickie." Ugghh. My parents
having sex. What a gross thing. I know that's where I came from but I
don't care if I never see that again. I'm promising right now that if
and when I ever have sex, it will be a lot more fun than that.
    Well, Mom and Dad just came to say good-night to us, and to tell
Donna that her parents called and said she didn't have to go to church
tomorrow so that she can sleep in with us. We were all glad to hear that.
    Dad made us all close our eyes and open our hands, and he stuck a
candy bar in each of them and told us not to tell Mom. Then Mom came in
and handed me a little bag and said don't tell your father. There were
three more candy bars in the bag! Maddy just looked at her candy and
sighed. "Zits," was all she could say. But she tore both of them open
and we all forced both candy bars into our mouths and tried to sing
"Row, Row, Row Your Boat" while our mouths were full. Donna said the
chewed candy looked like something Troy would leave for us, and we all
had to spit it out.
    Maddy told a pretty good story, a scary one, about a family that
goes away for the night and comes home to find people hiding in their
house waiting to kill them all. There was more to it than that, but I'm
not so sure how much I want to remember about it later on. I don't want
to feed my dreams. Donna got out of the fort to pee, and Maddy told me
that she had been having some bad dreams too. She said she didn't want
to talk about them in front of Donna because maybe she wouldn't
understand. She says she's been having dreams of me in the woods. Donna
came back and Maddy wouldn't say any more. /I wonder if Maddy has seen
the long-haired man? Or the wind?/ Maddy writes poems in her diary
because she says that they are sometimes more fun to write than just the
old boring stuff, and just in case anyone ever saw your diary, they
might not understand everything if it was in poems. I'll try that tomorrow.

More later.


    Aha! I told you I could get Donna to try a cigarette. Maddy brought
them out and lit one of them, then she passed it to me to try. I like
blowing smoke out of my mouth. Sort of like a spirit coming out of me, a
dancing, flowing, wispy spirit. Like I was a grown-up woman with people
all around me, just staring like they wanted to be me. Even Donna said I
looked like a mature person when I smoked. I didn't even inhale so I
wonder what it would be like if I did.
    Donna was next, and before she could say no, I just said, "I'm glad
I tried it, and I don't ever have to do it again if I don't want to." So
she took it and made a few puffs of smoke in the fort. She looked good
smoking too, but she got kind of scared and sucked some smoke in and
started coughing really loud, so we put out the cigarette and aired out
the fort real quick in case Mom and Dad woke up. I think I'll buy a pack
of cigarettes someday and just keep them like Maddy does. I'm not going
to get hooked or anything. I'm too careful.
    Well, we're going to bed now and all of us are signing off to our
diaries. Good night to you. I think you and I shall be wonderful
companions.

Love, Laura




Dear Diary,	July 29, 1984


    Here is a poem.

From the light in my window he can see into me
But I cannot see him until he is close
Breathing, with a smile at my window
He comes to take me
Turn me round and round
Come out and play Come play
Lie still Lie still Lie still.

Little rhymes and little songs
Pieces of the forest in my hair and clothes
Sometimes I see him near me
when I know he can't be there
Sometimes I feel him near me
and I know it is something just to bear.

When I call out
No one can hear me
When I whisper, he thinks the message
Is for him only.
My little voice inside my throat
I always think there must be something
That I've done
Or something I can do
But no one no one comes to help,
He says,
A little girl like you.




Dear Diary,	July 30, 1984


    Maddy brought a bunch of clothes with her, and she had me try all of
them on in front of the mirror. She could tell I was feeling depressed
about something . . . I guess. Some of her clothes are very beautiful. I
liked the way they made me feel. Especially the short skirt and the high
heels with this little fluffy white sweater.
    Maddy said I looked like Audrey Horne. She's the daughter of the
man, Benjamin Horne, that my father works for. Benjamin is very very
very rich. Audrey is a pretty girl but she's quiet and sometimes mean.
Her father doesn't pay much attention to her, and that's probably why
she acts that way. He has been very attentive to me, however, all of my
life. Each time there is a party or a get-together at the Great
Northern, Benjamin puts me on his lap or knee and sings to me softly in
my ear. Sometimes I feel very bad for Audrey, because when she sees him
singing to me, it must make her sad because she often runs from the room
and doesn't come back until her mother makes her. Other times I kind of
feel good when she runs off. Like I am the center of attention, and that
I am more special to him than his own daughter. I know that isn't nice
to say, but I'm just being honest.
    To be very honest, I think I like the way I looked in Maddy's
clothes too. Something stirred inside me like a bubble. The way you feel
on a carousel when you're not used to the up and down of it yet. I'll
bet if I dressed this way all the time, things would be very different.
    Maddy and I took a walk later on, but of course, in our jeans and
T-shirts. Twin Peaks doesn't see many high heels and short skirts
without banners all around announcing a dance or festival. We walked to
Easter Park and sat in the gazebo for a while. Maddy said that her life
at home is fine, "except for the sometimes unbelievable nosiness of my
parents." I made sure to quote her exactly there because I thought it
was so well put. She said that there are a lot of things in life, she
thinks, that don't seem right at first, and then you settle into them.
    Maybe that's how I should start thinking. Maybe I should be a better
person and not think so much all the time about what is happening to me.
I hope someday soon I'll be good enough at this to rid myself of all the
things that trouble me so. Things I still cannot even describe other
than in bits and pieces. If I am a better person, and if I try harder
every day, perhaps all of this will work out.

Love, Laura




Someday Growing Up Will Come Easier	July 30, 1984, later


Deep inside are woman's hills about to come up
To see the sky
To see the sun and moon
And the tiny stars in the black of a man's hand

Sometimes in the morning
I'll look across myself
See hills and valleys forming
Think of rivers underground.

Outside me
I am blooming
Inside I am dry

If only I could understand
The reason for my crying
If only I could stop this fear
Of dreaming that I'm dying.




Dear Diary,	August , 1984


    I haven't written for a long time, and for that I am truly sorry.
Maddy left three days ago, and I feel very frightened. inside about
something I do not understand.
    One good thing happened. In the middle of the night last night, I
had the most wonderful sensation inside me. Like something warm in my
chest, and warm between my legs. My whole body went inside out, it
seemed, and I felt like I could just float away. /I think I had one of
those orgasms/ in my sleep. It's so awful and so embarrassing to write,
but kind of nice at the same time.
    Right after it, I had this fantasy that a boy came into my room and
put his hand across my nightgown and touched me softly. He whispered
nice, gentle things, and then said I had to lie very still or he would
leave. Then he pulled me to the end of the bed by my feet, and when my
knees were bent over the end of my mattress, he made me close my eyes
and I felt him open me up, bigger and bigger, and I had to look to see
what was happening, and when I did, he was gone. But I looked at my
stomach and I was pregnant. He was inside me, but small like a baby. I
wish it hadn't ended like that. I don't know why my brain did that. I
liked it better when he was pulling me down gently and taking soft control.

Laura




Dear Diary,	August 7, 1984


    I spent the afternoon with Troy today, cleaning him, and brushing
and feeding him. I was fascinated by how much he seems to understand how
I'm feeling. He nuzzled up against me for a long time while I brushed
his mane and head, and when I sat down in the comer of his stall, he
lowered his head, and I let him breathe all across my neck and face. I
wonder if people fall deeply in love with horses the way I love mine, or
if I am wrong to be thinking or feeling any of these things.
    I wish Donna were here. I really wish Maddy were here. I'm going to
call Donna and see if she can come over for a sleepover or something.
Maybe I could go there. That might even be better. Sometimes my bedroom
is the best place in the world, and other times it is like a place that
closes in and suffocates me.
    I wonder if it's like that when you die . . . suffocating. Or if
it's like they say it is when you're in church. That you float up and up
until Jesus sees you and takes your hand. I'm not sure I want to be near
Jesus when I die. I might make a mistake, even just a small one, and
upset him. I don't know enough about him to know what might make him
mad. Sure, the Bible says he's forgiving and has died for my sins and
loves everyone no matter their faults . . . but people say I am the
perfect daughter, the happiest girl in the world, and one without any
troubles. /And that is not true at all./ So how will I know if Jesus is
really like me? Scared and bad sometimes even though most people might
not know how and when? I'll probably be a gift to Satan if I am not
careful. Sometimes when I have to see Bob, I think I am with Satan
anyway, and that I'll never make it out of the woods in time to be
Laura, good and true and pure, ever again.
    Sometimes I think that life would be so much easier if we didn't
have to think about being boys or girls or men or women or old or young,
fat or thin . . . if we could all just be certain we were the same. We
might be bored, but the danger of life and of living would be gone. . . .
    I'll be back after I call Donna.
    Donna said she wishes we could do something together tonight, but
her family is having "family night" tonight. I guess it's just me and
you, Diary. Maybe we can go out to the woods soon and smoke one of the
cigarettes Maddy left for me. There are four of them, and I hid them
carefully in the bedpost. That's where I hide notes from school I don't
want Mom to find when she's in here cleaning/snooping - you know, mom
stuff. I love her, but she doesn't always understand what I try to tell
her. She'd probably have a heart attack if she knew all of the things
that go on in my head. Anyway, the knob comes off and there is a hole
there. Dad would call it a "cavity." It is about four inches deep and it
is the perfect hiding place. You can't even tell the knob comes off as
long as there is a purse strap or sweater over the post.
    So maybe we can go out, just you and 1, with a flashlight and a
cigarette and just talk to each other. I know you, more than even Donna,
can keep a secret. I could never tell Mom about the sexy stuff I think
about. I'm afraid that if I let it come out of my mouth that God will
hear, or that someone will know how bad I am, and they'll say . . .
/Nobody else ever thinks things like that!/
    I'll bet they don't. I'll bet I'll never get the man I want, because
anytime we try to kiss or fool around, he'll think I'm a crazy person
who is sick and weird. I hope I'm not. I would be so awfully sad if that
were true. How could I stop thinking the way that I do? I can't stop my
mind from wanting to think things like that. The thoughts that make my
body warm, and my chest go up and down, filling with air and letting go,
the way they do in books and movies, but still different, because they
never talk about the fantasies I have.
    I'm going to go downstairs for dinner now. I wish I could fit you in
the bedpost too. For now I will tape you to the wall behind my bulletin
board. I hope you won't fall!

More later, Laura




Well, Diary, 	August 11, 1984


    Here we are. About a mile from home, just before dark. The summer
months seem to make the woods less dangerous until later at night. It is
warm out, and you and I are sitting together leaning at the base of a
great tree. A Douglas fir. Donna's and my favorite. When I look up, it
is like the tree is cradling me.
    I think I'll smoke that cigarette. I brought a soda just so I could
put the ashes and the butt in the can so as not to set the whole town of
T.P. on fire. We call Twin Peaks T.P. in school sometimes. The world
wipes its butt with T.P. Bobby Briggs says that the most. Then he pulls
all the girls' hair and makes burping noises in our faces. He likes us
all, of course. I was in the Double R. one day after school and he came
in just after me and tugged on my hair super hard.
    Norma winked at me and asked if we had set the date for the wedding
yet. She's off her rocker if she thinks I go near him. Any boy I go near
won't be pulling on my hair like that. . . . I think he'd pull on my
hair the way they do in my fantasies. With their whole hand, slowly
making a fist at the back of my head, and pulling me close for a tongue
kiss.
    I wonder if all penises look the way Dad's does. I can still see Mom
trying to cover it with the sheet that night. It sort of reminded me of
something raw. Something that might be okay in a while, or was okay a
while ago, before someone pulled all of the skin off it and got it
looking all pink and weird. Maybe I'll see a nicer one someday. God, I
hope I do. I won't lie there like Mom did. Just like a fish on the dock,
trying to learn how to breathe out of water. Little tiny huffs and
puffs, but nothing else. If I can find the right man, maybe I'll be
comfortable enough to act just the way I think girls should when they
are with someone. Half in control and half . . . I don't know the word.
Maybe I'm getting too nasty. I would just die if anyone saw what I've
written.
    The owls have started hooting. One of them is just above me in the
tree. . . . Something about him is strange. I know it is a boy owl, and
I feel like he's watching me. Each time I look up at him his head moves
like he is quickly turning away from me. I wonder if he knows what I've
been writing. God, I had better start being a very good girl. Right
away. Perhaps he is a bird like in that story I read. This big bird
could swoop down and rest on someone's shoulder, acting very sweet, but
would then read the person's mind. If the person was thinking bad
thoughts, the bird would peck away at the person's eyes and ears so that
there would only be questions of sound and sight in the person's head,
instead of bad and nasty thoughts.
    I dream of flying sometimes. I wonder if birds dream of going to
school or to work sometimes. Having suits and dresses instead of the
feathers we dream of. I would fly right over Twin Peaks and out over the
land beyond it. I'd never come back if I didn't have to.
    I'll write a poem, then head back home.

Inside me there is something
No one knows about
Like a secret
Sometimes it takes over
And I drift back
Deep into darkness.
This secret tells me
I will never grow older
Never laugh with friends
Never be who I should if I ever reveal
Its name.

I cannot tell if it is real
Or if I dream of it
For when it touches me
I drift off
No tears come
No screams
I am wrapped up
In a nightmare of hands
And of fingers
And of small tiny voices in the woods.
So wrong
So beautiful
So bad
So Laura.



    I have to go home. Now. It is too dark. This is not a nice place to
me right now.

Laura




Dear Diary,	August 16, 1984


    Never before in my life have I been so confused. It is five-thirty
exactly in the morning, and I can barely hold this pen I am shaking so
much. I have been in the woods again. Lost. But have been led. I think I
am a very bad person. Tomorrow I will start a new way of living. I will
not think any more bad thoughts. I will not think any more about sex.
Maybe he will stop coming if I try harder to be good. Maybe I could be
like Donna. She is a good person. I am bad.

Laura


P.S. I promise, I promise, I promise to be good!


Dear Diary,	August 31, 1984


    I have not written to you for ages because I have been trying so
hard to be happy and good and around people all the time so that I am
never alone to think about the wrong things. Today I must write to You,
though, to tell you of the news.
    I got my period. It is not at all what I thought it would be. School
starts next week and now this. I was getting out of bed this morning and
saw the blood. I called for Mom, and she of course made this enormous
deal out of the whole thing. She called Dad when I had told her not to
tell anyone. And now everyone probably knows up at the Great Northern.
All I wanted was some damn pads or something, and she has to go into all
of this stuff about how I am now a woman and everything. Okay. Okay. So
it is kind of special. But this can only make things worse if I am not
careful. I'm in bed now with cramps.
    Mom moved the television into my room, which was nice, and I have a
heating pad on my belly and tons of aspirin on my nightstand. Television
doesn't interest me much, so I am left once again with strange thoughts
of life and of . . . other things. I guess what is coming from me was to
be the life source of some other being. I am glad there is no one inside
me right now. At least not a child.
    Sometimes I think there is someone inside me, but it is another,
stranger part of me. /Sometimes I see her in the mirror./ I don't know
that I ever want to have children of my own. Something happens to
parents, or people who become parents. I think they forget they were
ever children themselves and that things might embarrass or upset their
kids sometimes, but they have just forgotten or decided to ignore that.
Too many bad things happen to me sometimes late at night, so I probably
would not be such a good mother. This makes me sad inside.
    I am glad of one thing. Jupiter is beside me in bed, and he is
purring away softly. Like you, he would never criticize me.

Laura




Dear Diary,	September 1, 1984


    My breasts ache, which is almost silly because they're so tiny. I'll
admit they are bigger than they were last week, and certainly nicer
looking. Always hard at the little pink tips. But God they hurt.
    Mom came in earlier and we actually had a nice talk. I told her I
wished she hadn't told Dad about my period, and she apologized but said
she only did it because she knew how proud he would be of his little
girl's becoming a woman. She changed the water in my heating pad and
rubbed my stomach for a long time. We didn't need to say anything to
each other for a long while, and still I felt like we were talking.
    She crawled into bed with me for about an hour after that and let me
fall asleep on her shoulder. We shared a soda when I woke up, and for
the first time in a long while, I felt like we were really close.
    I hope I can sleep through the night tonight.

Love, Laura




Dear Diary,	September 9, 1984


    I have discovered something about myself. Do you remember the night
I told you I woke up with that wonderful feeling? Well! There is a
special place on my body that lets me feel that as often as I like. A
warm, wonderful place where everything else melts away and I am free to
just feel good. My little secret red button. This is all mine. Finally
something that will take me away along with my fantasies. I can do it in
my bed, very softly with my fingertip, which is so sweet. I can do it in
the bathtub with the water as it pours out of the faucet. (I never knew
a bath could be so enjoyable!) Or in the shower, with a small stream of
water coming from above. I move and jump and sometimes have to grab a
pillow and put it over my head so that it is dark and no one can hear me
making little noises. It is, after all, a secret, and whether this is
right or wrong, I feel very good when it happens and no one need ever
know, except you, dear Diary.
    It has been quite a week with my period coming and all, and now this
sweet-as-honey discovery. Now I am beginning to feel like a woman, and
someday very soon, perhaps I will share this with someone special.
    Good night! Good night! Good night!

Laura


P.S. I hope in my heart that I am not doing something that is wrong by
touching myself. I hope this is something all girls do, and that I won't
be punished for it later.


To the person invading my privacy:	September 15, 1984


    I cannot believe the distrust I feel in my family and friends. I
know for a fact that my diary was taken and read by someone, maybe
several someones. I will not be writing any more in this diary for a
long time, if ever. You have ruined my trust and my feeling of security.
I hate you for that, whoever you are!
    On these pages I have written things sometimes too scary or too
embarrassing even to read again myself. . . . I trust that these pages
are turned only by me, only when I wish. Many things are hurting and
confusing me. I need my private pages, in order to see my mind outside
me, push it away.
    Please stay away from this diary.
    I mean it.

Laura




Dear Diary,	October 3, 1985


    I have decided, over twelve months later, to begin speaking to you
again. I have found a hiding place I will not speak of, in case you are
found outside it and someone nosy wishes to know of its whereabouts.
    I know it was not your fault someone found you and decided to pry,
but it has taken me a long time to feel safe enough to write in your
pages again. Many, many things have happened since you last heard from
me, and many of these things have proven that my thoughts on the world's
being mostly a cruel and sad place are true and have been confirmed as
such.
    I trust no one, and only rarely myself. I struggle most mornings,
afternoons, and evenings with what is right and what is wrong. I do not
understand if I am being punished for something I have done wrong,
something I don't remember, or if this happens to everyone, and I am
just too stupid to understand it.
    First of all, I found out that Dad did not give Troy to me. Benjamin
Horne did. The details are not important, but let's just say I overheard
Audrey arguing with her dad about it, when I was up at the Great
Northern visiting Johnny. Johnny is Audrey's brother, Benjamin's other
child. Johnny is slow. He is older than I am, but has the mentality of a
young child. That's what the doctors say at least.
    Sometimes I think he's just chosen to keep quiet because it is so
much more interesting sometimes to just listen to people instead of
talking to them. He never speaks except to say "Yes" or "Indian." He
loves Indians. He wears a headdress constantly. One made of beautifully
colored feathers and died strips of leather. In his eyes the world is a
strange mix of happiness and pain, and I think I understand Johnny more
than I do a lot of other people. Perhaps I could find a way to spend
more time with him. He is so often left alone.
    I am glad that Troy is my pony, and I love riding him, walking with
him, and just watching him graze. But now I feel awkward about Dad. Like
he is less of an honest man for claiming that Troy was a gift from him.
Maybe Benjamin wanted it that way, I don't know. But no matter what, I
am somehow more intrigued by Benjamin now and feel like I owe him more
than Dad.     Sometimes I think that I would rather not have gotten a
pony of my own at all, because that way I wouldn't have lost any respect
for Dad, and Benjamin would just have been Benjamin. Even worse, Audrey
and I will probably never ever get along now. I am a little sick inside
that I am the one who caused this. Also it gives me a feeling of power.
Why do these things happen to me?

    You know, I think out of all of the men I know in the world, Dr.
Hayward has been the most loving to me. He is unselfish, kind, and
always shows me a gentle smile of inspiration or forgiveness - or
anything that somehow always perfectly fills the gap I feel inside me.
Thirteen years ago, he brought me into the world and held tight to my
small body, for just a moment. In daydreams, I imagine that moment to be
one of the warmest there ever was in my life. I love him for holding me,
that frightened young child fresh to the air and light, and for making
me believe, without even a word, that he would hold me again if I ever
needed him to.
    He reminds me of someone I wouldn't mind seeing every day of my
life. A grandfather sweetness, inside a father's helping hand.

    I'll be back after dinner. There is plenty of more news.

Love, Laura




Dear Diary,	October 3, 1985, later


    Dinner was good tonight. One of my favorite meals, potato pancakes
with creamed-corn topping and vegetables on the side. I'll have to start
changing the way I eat soon, or run the risk of blowing up like a
balloon. Mom made it special for me tonight because she knows I'm still
upset about Jupiter. She and Dad ate chicken instead.
    Jupiter is the other news. Usually he'll go out back and play in the
yard area. It isn't fenced in, but he never wandered. I guess he was too
smart to leave a home that loved him so much and fed him so well. Even
though I didn't write to you often of him, he was one of the most
special things in the world to me, always sweet and gentle. Always loved
me no matter what I looked like or what I had done wrong or right for
the day.
    Often, on nights that I could not sleep, the two of us would play
downstairs with a ball of string, to only the light of the tiny wall
lamp. We would enjoy ice cream in the kitchen afterward. He was a true
vanilla fan. It would be dark in the house, and the two of us prowled
together until sleep found us, hours after we had given up on getting
any at all. I still have a photo Dad took of Jupiter and me on the
living room couch after one of these nights. We hadn't made it back
upstairs to sleep and had fallen asleep on the couch instead.
    I gave the photo of Jupiter to Sheriff Truman so that he could post
it in the station. I hope they find whoever hit Jupiter. I know it was
probably an accident, because a few minutes before it happened, he had
found a small mouse or something. . . . I hadn't paid much attention,
but he raced off with it and was hit out on the road. Mom heard the
noise and called for me to stay where I was until she knew what had
happened. But sometimes Mom and I think the same thoughts, have the same
dreams, and she knows better than to think I'd stay in my room /when I
knew./ So I didn't listen and went out to see him, still breathing for a
few moments afterward, and bleeding from his eyes and tummy.
    I can't believe someone could hit a cat like that, right in the
middle of the day, and not tell someone. Not think to stop and come to
the closest house and report what had happened. Mom heard the car
screech, and Dad says he wishes he had been home because he might have
been able to tell what kind of car it was that hit him, just by the
sound. I doubt it, but it was a nice thought.
    He's buried outside now. A good friend gone, when I so cherish the
few I have. I wish something else would have died instead of Jupiter.
    To be honest with you, as I always am, many people in Twin Peaks
like me. Lots know my name, and especially at school I feel quite
popular. The only problem is that I don't really know any of these
people the way they think they know me. And I think I am safe in saying,
they don't know me at all. Donna knows the most.
    But still I am afraid to tell her of my fantasies and my nightmares,
because sometimes she is good at understanding, and other times she just
giggles, and I don't have the nerve to ask why things like that are
funny to her. So I feel badly again and shut up about it for a long
time. I love Donna very much, but sometimes I worry that she wouldn't be
around me at all if she knew what my insides were like. Black and dark,
and soaked with dreams of big, big men and different ways they might
hold me and take me into their control. A fairy princess who thinks she
has been rescued from the tower, but finds that the man who takes her
away is not there to save her, but instead to go inside her, deep. To
ride her as if she were an animal, to tease her and make her close her
eyes, and listen as he tells her all that he does. Step by step. I hope
that is not a bad thing to think.

Love, Laura




Dear Diary,	October 12, 1985


    I tried a marijuana cigarette the other night. Donna and I had a
sleepover at her place, but her parents went out for the night with mine
to the Great Northern for a party Benjamin was throwing. Donna and I
didn't really want to go, and I especially didn't because of Audrey. I
talked Donna into riding our bikes up to the Book House to meet some new
people. It took me forever to convince her I wouldn't tell anyone, and
that we would be back before our parents. Finally she agreed because
both of us have been terribly bored with all the same faces around all
the time.
    We were barely there a half hour before these guys, Josh and Tim,
and one other one, but I can't remember his name, came up to us. I was
smoking a cigarette that I stole from the reception desk at the Great
Northern one day when I brought Johnny an Indian storybook.
    They thought we were older because one of us was smoking. So Josh
came up with Tim and the other guy. They said they were from Canada, and
there was no doubt about that because they couldn't stop saying "ay."
"Want a better cigarette, ay?" Tim liked Donna right away, which freaked
her out a little because all three of them were like twenty years old.
None of them rocked my boat. They all looked like nice guys. I felt
pretty safe, but not excited . . . you know what I mean?
    Anyway, I said I wanted to try a better cigarette, and Donna and I
followed them out to the back of the Book House to do it. Donna made up
this elaborate story about how we were just visiting Twin Peaks for the
night, and that we had to meet our tour bus in less than an hour. She
said we were on a tour called *Round About the Woods.* I guess they
believed her because they hurried up and lit this thing right up. Josh
said we might not feel it the first time, but Donna and I proved him
wrong. He said we had to "Hold it in, ay?" And we did . . . six times!
Diary, it was amazing. Talk about feeling relaxed and warm and a little
bit . . . sexy.
    I called Donna "Trisha," and she called me "Bernice"! (Just in case
they ever came back and asked for us . . . for any reason. We didn't
want anyone to know.) So, we were absolutely laughing harder than I ever
have before. Every single thing I saw was hysterical. Everything was
blurred and kinda wavy, like I was looking at the world through the
bottom of an empty water glass. There was a warm, summer wind, and the
trees smelled so good.
    Tim brought us a cup of coffee with chocolate mixed in, and all five
of us sat and talked about all sorts of things, like if maybe our
universe was just a tiny little speck of lint that a huge giant hadn't
noticed on his sweater, and someday soon, who knows if this great giant
would just brush us off, or toss us into a washer and drown us all to
death. Donna said maybe our idea of hundreds of years is only a split
second to this giant, and soon something would have to happen, because
how long can someone keep a sweater on?
    We all liked the idea that there might be other little universes or
"balls of lint" on this sweater, and we thought we'd someday like to
meet a few people from these other places, as long as they were nice to
us. We could hear a little bit of music coming out of the Road House,
and I just had to get up and dance a little. I felt better than I had in
ages, just floating in the night air and feeling warm inside.
    Donna even danced with me for a few minutes until she realized we
had to go meet . . . OUR TOUR BUS! We had to lie and say we rented the
bikes from the lost-and-found at the sheriff's station, but I don't
think the guys bought that story at all. They were nice not to say
anything to us about it, if they did know. Maybe it added excitement to
their night, too. Then again, maybe not, because they're older and have
probably had much more exciting nights than that.
    When we were riding home, we kept having to stop because we had such
giggles. Then I got the most outrageous craving for cookies and milk,
like I'd die if I didn't have any, and Donna agreed a hundred percent
that we had to have something sweet. She said there was pie at her
house, but that didn't seem right. So we emptied our pockets and went
into the Cash and Carry for treats. We bought so much junk that we had
to walk our bikes back to Donna's house so that we could each hold a
bag. All the way home we were paranoid just like the guys said we would
be because our eyes were all bloodshot and we wanted to get home before
our parents did.
    We totally lucked out because just when we got into the house, Dr.
Hayward called and said they were going to be a bit longer because
Benjamin was showing slides or something. Thank God! We ran upstairs and
put eye drops in our eyes, then turned on the stereo and ate and danced
and laughed, and we were totally sound asleep when everyone got back.
    I know drugs are bad, but I'm beginning to get the feeling I like
being that way. Kind of bad.

More tomorrow, Laura




Dear Diary,	October 20, 1985


    It is a little over one week later and I have more news. Sorry I
haven't written, but it has really been kind of crazy around here . . .
well, here inside me, at least. Home is just the same. Irritating more
than anything else. God, I feel so trapped sometimes, like I have to
wear this permanent grin on my face or else everyone freaks out on me.
    I wonder if pain, the kind that doesn't just happen when your cat is
killed, or when an aunt dies, but the kind that you have to live with .
. . can it ever be a friend? Pain as a shadow or companion. I wonder if
that's possible. . . .
    Anyway, the news is strange. I'm a little nervous about how much
I've enjoyed the danger of it all, but I'll tell you everything and get
it off my chest. Maybe it will be like my dreams, less difficult to
understand if I see it on paper. Here goes.
    Last Friday night, the day before yesterday, Donna and I went back
to the Book House at about four in the afternoon. I guess we went back
hoping Josh and Tim and their friend would be there again, and we could
get high on another funny cigarette. We got sort of dressed up, not too
dressy or crazy because we do know /everyone/ in town practically and we
didn't want it to get back to our parents. But we had on skirts that
were pretty short and a little tighter than most people would approve
of, except boys, of course, and we played with some makeup that Donna's
mom, Mrs. Hayward, had given her as an Easter present because Donna
wanted to try some and her mom wanted her to have her own.
    Anyway, again! We got to the Book House and no one except Big Jake
Morrissey was there. He's the guy who runs the place. I guess I should
tell you about it so you can imagine where I was. It is a coffee house,
mostly for guys - girls are allowed - but it's more like a guys'
hangout. There are books everywhere on the tables and shelves, which
linked all three walls, all the way to the back. It smells like
cigarettes, after-shave, and coffee. There's always coffee brewing. And
this time I was inside, I noticed a picture of the man perfect for my
fantasies! I didn't say anything, of course, but he's just perfect.
Rough and tough, but has puppy-dog eyes and soft skin.
    The picture is of him in jeans and a leather jacket, holding a book
and sitting on his motorcycle, reading. I am in love! So we were the
only ones in the place, and Jake gave us coffee and said that people
would be coming in soon, and it might be wise if we left when they
started to come in, especially dressed like we were. He was half joking,
half serious when he asked us, "Are you girls looking for trouble of a
boy nature?"
    Donna turned all red, and I just told him what I would tell Mom or
Dad if they ever found out. "We're just playing around and pretending.
It's just for fun, not for trouble." He understood, or "bought it,"
rather, and after we finished our coffee we left. On the way out though,
I told Jake that about a week ago, three really nice Canadian boys had
been there and had helped Donna and I fix our flat tires after we had
run over the broken beer-bottle glass that's always out in front of the
Road House. I told him that if he saw them - Josh, Tim, and another guy
with blond hair - that he should tell them we wanted to thank them with
a cup of coffee, or something. Then I told him we'd probably be out
back, just talking, if they showed up. Jake said he'd relay the message
if they came in.
    You guessed it! They showed up. Jake must have told them what I said
because they came out laughing and giving us a hard time for lying to
them before. Donna was pretty quick and smart to say that "we wanted to
make sure that you guys were cool before we told you who we were or
anything."
    They all said we looked really nice, and I found out the third guy's
name was Rick, and all of them are twenty-two! We said our age wasn't
important and wouldn't stop any of us from having fun as long as we were
home by ten. If it was going to be later, we would have to call. Josh
said he had some alcohol, and if there was a place we knew of to build a
small fire or something out in the woods, we could all go out there and
have a little party. By this time it was about five-thirty or so.
    They were in a truck this time instead of on bikes, and so Donna and
I got in the open back and told them to cross Lucky Highway 21 and head
into the woods behind Low Town. We both figured it would be safer there,
and if anything happened, I could just say that I had gotten lost with
Donna, that we had taken a walk or something and lost track of where we
were. It would be okay, I figured, no matter what. These guys seemed
nice enough, so we trusted them a second time.
    We got to a place where there was a stream and hardly any needles on
the ground, so the fire would be a safe idea. Tim and Rick looked for
kindling while Josh opened up this bottle of . . . I guess it was gin
that he had. The only alcohol Donna and I had ever had was a glass of
champagne - one glass, at Dr. Hayward's birthday party last year. This
was brand-new to both of us. Donna seemed excited, but nervous, too. I
was just plain excited and was the first to drink a sip of it after
Josh. We just passed it around . . . until it was empty.
    Donna and I were really messed up almost instantly. Rick kept
saying, "They're toasted, man."
    Both Donna and I had to pee, so we went away from the fire about
thirty feet and crouched down behind a tree. For a moment there, we were
both scared. Real scared. We didn't know how to act, and both of us kept
thinking we were saying stupid things or sounding too young or something.
    When I stood up, my head got light. I thought to myself, "It's too
late now, you're already drunk, you better just enjoy it, and don't
forget to keep watching the time!" Donna agreed that we had just better
go with the flow and stick close together in case we got scared again.
    Tim turned on the truck stereo, and I asked if it would be stupid if
I danced around for a while, 'cause I liked the song. All three said it
was okay, and Donna just sat there staring at the fire for a while. Tim
went and sat really close to her and whispered something in her ear. Her
eyes got real big and she kinda laughed and then relaxed. I guess he
made her feel good or pretty or something. I'll have to remember to ask
her what he whispered to her.
    So I was dancing, and Josh and Rick couldn't stop watching me . . .
and I was feeling pretty comfortable, or confident, or both, but I just
went a little bit crazy and got into a sexier dance. One that I
practiced alone in my room in front of the mirror. I moved my hips
around in circles and let my arms move slow, and sometimes I touched my
hips like it felt good to me to touch myself.
    Dam! Mom's calling me downstairs to do the dishes. I'll be right
back. There's lot's more!

Love, Laura


    Diary, I'm back. Sorry I had to stop.
    So I was dancing, and Donna saw what I was doing and looked at me
like I was crazy. She looked around for a minute and I guess she wanted
to be a part of the attention, too, or something because she looked at
her watch and said, "Let's go skinny-dipping!"
    /That right there should tell you how drunk Donna was/. Everybody
got quiet and just listened to the music for a second, then said, "Yeah,
okay."
    So Donna and I took off our clothes . . . all of them. We almost
left our panties on, but we were afraid they would think we were stupid
little girls. They were all in the stream sitting against the rocks when
we came back to the fire. The stream is probably three and a half feet
deep at its deepest place. So they were sitting there and we set our
clothes down and stood by the fire for a minute. When we moved toward
the water, Josh said, "Stop. There. Just for a minute."
    So we did. And after a minute of us just waiting, he said to Tim and
Rick, "Have you ever in your life seen such a beautiful sight as these
two girls?" They both made noises like they liked it, too. Donna and I
kind of moved a little when we realized they were staring at us like
that . . . that close, you know? Tim said, "Look at the way the fire
makes shadows on their skin." Donna and I looked at each other, then
looked back toward them. They were hard to see because we were so close
to the light and they were in the dark in the stream. Rick just said,
"Please, please come into the water with us." We did.
    It was so amazing. The way they felt when we got close under the
water, soft and slippery, was like I was dreaming. I'd never felt
anything so nice and so close to what I'd fantasized about. All of them
had . . . hard . . . hard . . . I guess I'll call them cocks, because
"penis" sounds like a word you only read in Sex Ed books. So they were
all hard.
    And I said (mainly because I knew Donna was more freaked out than I
was by all of this), I said, "Let's make tonight a play night . . . we
can all go home with that nice feeling of wishing more had happened . .
. ? Donna and I are not going to go all the way with you."
    When it came out of my mouth, I couldn't believe it for a second.
Who was talking? What was I, Laura Palmer - thirteen years old - doing
out here in the woods like this with three naked boys nine years older
than I am?
    They all said okay, but Josh said, "Can we at least touch you, and
maybe get a kiss?" Donna looked at me the same way she did a year ago
when Maddy was talking about kissing. I told them I didn't mind, but if
Donna did, they couldn't force her. Something tells me now, when I look
back, that this was probably the most excited these guys had been, ever.
I don't think they would have done anything bad even if we had asked for
it, because they were just as scared. It was such a personal and strange
night. It was like the woods got us all acting crazy, like the trees and
the fact that it had gotten dark made us forget anything else existed.
It was eight-thirty and we only had about an hour until we would have to
go back home.
    I kneeled down in the stream in front of Josh and got my hair wet.
Then, I looked at him and I said, "You can touch them if you want to.
It's okay." So he was real slow, and he put his hands on my breasts,
which have gotten to be a good size, I think, for my age, and he shook
for a second, like he was amazed. /I felt like I was on top of the
world. I was making this twenty-two-year-old boy go crazy inside!/ He
touched them, then touched just my nipples, and I had a hard time not
saying how good that felt, so I laughed.
    Tim started touching Donna's breasts, and she just watched him
silently as he did it. Rick didn't have anyone to be with so I said,
"You can touch me, too . . . but remember, we all made a deal . . .
right?" He nodded and crawled in the water up to me and put his mouth on
my nipple. I had to close my eyes so that they wouldn't come out of my
head completely. It felt so incredible! I couldn't help but think of the
guy in the photo in the Book House, and even if this sounds weird, I'm
going to say it.
    I had the sexiest thought that he was nursing on me. Like inside me
was all of the warmth and nourishment he would ever need . . . this
older boy, needing me. I felt strong and almost like I was making a
fantasy for them. Josh put his mouth on my other nipple, and Tim and
Donna moved away from us a little in the water and just started talking.
Then Donna got out with Tim and got dressed and just sat by the fire . .
. talking more. I didn't care, or couldn't care. I wasn't going to stop
this until I had to, it felt too good to spoil it.
    I whispered to Josh and Rick that I had a wish that one of them
would kiss me, real soft and slow . . . and that maybe the other could
keep touching me the way they were doing already. Rick said Josh could
kiss me, as long as he got one, too, later, or whatever.
    So Josh leaned to me and got real close, and just before he was
going to kiss me he said, real quiet - "Softly, right?" And I told him
yes. And he said, "Soft and slow. . . ." And he opened his mouth, and I
opened mine, and our tongues started to move together like we were
wanting more and more . . . but it wasn't fast, it was slow . . . so
nice and slow. And Rick was sucking on my nipples and making noises like
he was hungry and getting fed, or like he was eating an ice cream that
was delicious. No matter what he was feeling, believe me, I felt ten
times better than he sounded.
    I went into a dream for I don't know how long while this was
happening, and it was like nothing bad ever happened to me ever.
Everything disappeared and I suddenly didn't care if I never saw Donna,
Mom, Dad, anyone . . . ever again. This warm feeling of being needed,
wanted, and special, like I was a treasure . . . was all I wanted to
feel, forever. I had no age, and there was no time or schoolwork or
troubles or chores or anything to cloud my mind or bring me back to
little Laura. I was ageless, and I was everything these two boys wanted.
I was something from their dreams!
    Rick began to kiss me next, and he was just as gentle and sweet, but
had a different way of kissing. He moved his tongue and lips
differently, and he would stop and bite very softly sometimes on my
lips, like a tease.
    I know I'm going on and on, Diary, but I have to tell someone, and
Donna, even though she was there, really wasn't there the way I was. She
wasn't ready for it or for the way it would make her feel. Not that
there's anything wrong with it, but Donna is still more interested in
being good . . . all the way through. Me, I think that I am being good,
as much as I can, and maybe more than most people, but I've needed to
forget things for a long time now and this was an incredible solution.
    Nothing more than that happened in the stream, except I did touch
both of them between the legs. I was soft to them the way they were with
me, and I thought it was wonderful that they were so hard, and that
their hardness floated in the water . . . something I could only feel
and not see. Just the way I wanted it. I was able to want more, but able
to enjoy what I had.
    Tim and Donna exchanged phone numbers while I was getting dressed,
and the only thing I was at all worried about was that I was really
drunk and starting to feel a little sick to my stomach. I guess Donna
was, too, because Tim said, "Maybe we should help them throw up or
something, so that it doesn't happen when they get home. . . . Donna,
here, is worried, you know, about how she would explain it to her parents."
    I couldn't believe how cool these guys were being to us. They didn't
crack one joke or make us feel like we were nothings next to them. I
know we aren't, but it was nice, especially in the state we were in, not
to hear anything like that. Rick said there was chewing gum in the
truck's glove compartment, and if we wanted some, we could have it. I
tried to picture going home the way I was, tipsy and all dazed. Throwing
up didn't sound like fun, but Tim suggested it might help sober us up,
so Donna and I went off and stuck our fingers down our throats. Up it
came. It was awful, but I did feel better, and Donna said it was easier
for her to walk after that. I said we should probably get going, and
that if they didn't mind, maybe they could drop us like a block from
home, either house? I thought the truck ride, and the fresh air, would
help, too.
    Hang on a second, Diary - Mom wants a kiss good-night.

    Okay, I'm back. Thank God she didn't see you.
    When the boys dropped us off, we hopped out of the back, and Tim
kissed Donna's hand really romantically, and Rick and Josh said they
really enjoyed meeting her. I went to the driver's window, where Josh
was, and I was about to thank him . . . and I guess just say whatever
came out ; . . but he stopped me. (A chill ran down my back.) He put his
finger over my lips and said, "I don't think I'll ever forget you,
Laura." And he smiled and Rick said, "Thanks for trusting us the way you
did." They drove off, and Donna and I almost cried.
    We were a block from Donna's house and we each put an extra piece of
gum in our mouths and rehearsed our story. /We were in the woods, just
talking. We were making up stories and talking about dreams we had, and
. . . the future./
    Donna said she didn't feel like she was lying because that's what
she and Tim *did* do. They kissed a couple of times, and Donna admitted,
right before we walked into her house, that she really liked it.
    I decided we shouldn't explain anything we did while we were out,
unless someone asked. I've seen people overexplain things and it makes
it seem like they're lying or hiding something, which we would be.
    Donna's parents were asleep on the couch when we walked in, and we
snuck past them and up to Donna's room. We brushed our teeth and fixed
our hair a little, and before we went downstairs, we hugged each other.
We didn't say a word. We just hugged. I think it was our way of saying
that it was our secret, and that we were still friends, and that we were
okay. /We were home, and we were okay./
    Donna woke her dad up and said we'd been waiting to wake him because
he looked so peaceful, sleeping there leaning his head on Mrs. Hayward's
shoulder. He offered to drive me home, so I called Mom, and she said she
hadn't even realized the time because she was reading a really good
book. She said Dad was already in bed. She said she'd wait up for me.
    I don't feel guilty about what happened, but I think that's only
because no one was worried, and the boys were so nice. I just can't help
but get sad inside when I realize that it's over. That night is gone,
and I'm Laura again. Thirteen years old, and the apple of my daddy's
eye. Not with anger, but with anticipation, I look forward to being
older, and on my own, with no one but me to answer to.
    God bless Mom and Dad, Troy, Jupiter - rest his soul - and the boys.
Josh, Tim, and Rick. Thank you, God, for giving me those few hours of .
. . BLISS.

More soon, L


P.S. I am feeling like each time I think about tonight I change it a
little bit. The boys get a little bit more rough with me each time. I
get more seductive, and I make them tell me how they feel when they
touch me. I make them tell me what it's like for them. I don't know why
I changed it . . . I loved it the way it was, but when I make it again
in my head, I make them do things a little nastier. I like that feeling,
/I like that they feel more than I do./


Dear Diary,	November 10, 1985


    Last night, for the first time in ages, I slept all the way through
the night. When I woke up, I couldn't even remember the dreams I had
had, or if I even had any. I know they say everyone dreams all the time,
but usually I remember them. Anyway, I was brushing Troy at the stables,
and all of a sudden I got this image in my head of an address: 1400
River Road, 1400 River Road. I had dreamed it. I suddenly felt like I
had to be there. I had to find this place and see what it was. I decided
I would call Mom from the stables and tell her I was going for a ride
with Troy, and I'd be back soon.
    I had a little bit of an idea of where 1400 River Road was, but I
just checked it with Zippy to make sure. He said it wasn't that far
away, but there wasn't much there. I told him I wanted to ride out with
Troy somewhere I hadn't been before. I didn't want to tell him I'd
dreamed about this address and had to find out if it even existed. I was
afraid he'd look at me funny, and besides, I wasn't even sure why I felt
so drawn to it. I guess with all that had been happening, I felt like I
should just keep quiet about it. Keep it secret, like so many other
things. Zippy said to be sure to make a left when the dirt road forks
off, because otherwise I would end up on a paved road, and that would be
bad for Troy's hooves and shoes. I promised, and off we went.
    All sorts of thoughts went through my head, and I even cried a
little because I started to think about Josh and Tim and Rick, and how I
would probably never see them again. I thought about how Donna hadn't
called me today yet, and I was worried she was thinking I was dirty or
bad or something, and I felt a very deep need to talk to her. I hope she
doesn't stop liking me.
    I don't know what I would do if that happened. So, I kept seeing
this address in my head, each time I finished a thought, no matter what
it was, and finally I found myself in front of this very old, abandoned
gas station. I got off Troy and tied him up at the frame that was still
there. The frame that goes around the top of the pumps. The one with the
signs telling you which gas is which. Grass was growing there, and I
just let him graze so I could look around.
    When I walked around Troy, so that I was completely facing the
station, I saw the Log Lady standing very quiet with her log, right
underneath the piece of wood that said 1400 River Road. She smiled at
me, and I realized I had seen her face in my dream. We didn't say
anything to each other for a long time. We just stared, smiling. I
wasn't uncomfortable, but I was pretty curious about what I was there
for, and just as I was thinking this, she spoke to me.
    She said, "I know you're feeling curious about this place and about
me."
    I nodded.
    "A dream told me I was supposed to meet you here, so that we could
spend some time," she said.
    My stomach did a flip and my mouth dropped open.
    "I dream like other people sometimes," she said calmly. "It just
happens."
    I never realized that Margaret, the Log Lady, was so nice. We sat
together on the grass out in the front, and she told me she knew a lot
of things about me, special things. She said I should not worry so
often. If I pay attention to the things around me, these special things
will come.
    She would often touch her log, be silent as she leaned down close to
listen to it. Most times she would smile as if she were amused, pleased.
Other times, she would tell the log that she would not hear about that
now. This was not the time.
    The last time that happened, she turned to me and whispered,
/"Things are not what they seem."/
    She looked away, then turned back with a different look on her face,
as if she were relieved we were still alone. She said she knew I had
been dreaming of being a woman, and that this was good because young
girls always do. Then her words got confusing . . . she said many things
about the Woods, and I tried to listen very carefully, because I trusted
her and thought maybe she knew something that would help me. A lot of it
seemed like gibberish. I remember it, so I'll write it down, but I don't
know what it means. Maybe I'll understand it later. What I did
understand made me feel so good inside, like I wasn't being bad all of
this time, maybe, and that I could keep on hoping for things without
being afraid that I was acting selfishly.
    Here are some of the things she told me. She said that sometimes the
woods are a place to learn about things, and to learn about yourself.
Other times the woods are a place for other creatures to be, and it is
not for us. She said that sometimes people go camping and learn things
they shouldn't. /Children are prey sometimes/ . . . I think that's how
she said it. What else . . . I tried so hard to remember everything. Oh.
She told me that she would be watching, and someday people will find out
that she sees things and remembers them.
    She said that it is important to remember things you see and feel.
/Owls are sometimes big./ There! That was the one I had forgotten
totally. Owls are sometimes big. I hope that doesn't mean my mom talked
about that "Owl Dream" I had. I don't think so, but that's the only way
it makes any sense to me. I hope I'll understand all of this soon.
Either way, we kept sitting together, and I listened to her hum this
song that I had never heard before, but I thought it was very nice. It
made me feel safe, which I think she was trying to make me feel. I feel
sorry for her, that people think she is strange and weird. She isn't at
all.
    I could see in her eyes that something had hurt her, but I didn't
even begin to understand what it was until Mom told me when I got home.
She said that Margaret (the Log Lady) had a husband who was a fire
fighter. He was killed fighting a fire, and Mom said it was awful
because he tripped over a root or something and fell headfirst into hot
coals and burned himself to death, face first. They had just been
married a little while when he died, and since then Margaret has been
very quiet and has kept her pain to herself. Mom also said that she
didn't have her log until after her husband died.
    I didn't know any of this when I was out there at 1400 River Road
with her, but it didn't really matter, I guess. I told her I thought she
was a very nice and special person, and that I was glad I had paid
attention to my dream, because I wouldn't have wanted to miss talking
with her. I told her I hoped she was right about my life having special
things in it, that I will look for them, because I want my life to be good.
    Then I told her something that I hope she never repeats. I didn't
even expect to say it, and to tell you the truth I didn't know where it
came from. I told her that sometimes things happen that no one knows
about. They happen in the woods when it is very dark. I told her that
sometimes I wasn't even sure these things were real, and sometimes I
think they are more real than the sun coming up in the morning, and that
the thought of that frightened me very much. She looked away from me, I
remember, when I finished. I thought I had said something that upset
her. She grabbed her log tight, then looked back at me and said that I
was a very beautiful girl, and that many people would love me in my life.
    I hope many people do love me in my life. Someday someone will
love,me the way the boys did, but even more. I wonder where that person
is right now, and if he is wondering where I am and what I look like,
and when we will finally meet. I wonder if Margaret has ever thought
about sex the way that I do.
    On the way home I tried to hum the song she had hummed to me, but I
couldn't remember it. I felt very good inside when I left 1400 River
Road, and that feeling stayed with me, all through my ride back to the
stables, all the way home with Mom in the car, and even now it is just
as strong. I hope Margaret isn't feeling lonely right now. I hope she is
feeling as happy as I am. I only wish I could have brought her news of
how happy her life would be. It's too bad I had nothing for her.

More later, Laura


P.S. Donna still hasn't called me back.


Listening to the Wood	November 13, 1985



Inside the trees are souls I think
Souls that grow and change
Inside each leaf, so quiet
A memory of moments no one else has seen
But no man ever listens
Takes the time to think
That trees might see what happens
That in the way they rustle
Is a hint they wish to speak.

They might have tried to whisper
In the palm of someone's hand
their memory of the little girl
How there is a new hole inside her
And a new and smaller mouth
But no one believes or cares
That maybe
The tree would know
Something was very wrong
That it wants to talk about the sadness
It has seen so many nights
I think the world
Should walk deep into the woods
Listen very carefully,
To the voices in the leaves.
See the details, the tiny maps
Of footsteps, and sometimes stains
They should see that the leaves
Are shaped like tears
They should study the design in fallen needles
Maybe there are some markings on the ground
That will lead the world
To the one who made
The hole.


    It is late, and he came tonight. I don't know if the Log Lady was
talking about the right Laura Palmer.


Dear Diary,	November 20, 1985


    I had a dream just now that makes me believe I will not be sleeping
tonight.
    I was in a room. It was very empty, and I was feeling badly that it
was empty. I thought it was my fault that nothing was there. I was
crouched in one of the comers of the room, and I was staring at this one
spot at the other end of the room, because I knew something was going to
be there, soon.
    After a minute, I started to get very cold. And I thought that I saw
something, but it disappeared. Then I looked away because I was trying
to find the door that went to another room and out of this one, because
I wanted to see if the furniture was in another room. I felt very bad
about something and I wanted to fix things, so that I could stop feeling
so . . . guilty. I guess that's what I was feeling. Guilt.
    I turned back to look across the room and there was an enormous rat
sitting there. I knew in the dream that it was coming after me, and that
it wanted to bite my foot off. I became so afraid! I saw it come closer
and closer to me and I tried to think of a way to stop it, or a place to
run away, but there wasn't anywhere to go, or anything I could do!
    I know it may sound funny, but it was so frightening. I sat very
still and tried to keep my feet tight against my body so that the rat
couldn't get to my foot. I couldn't stop thinking of how awful it was
going to feel when it closed its jaws around my ankle and bit down. I
didn't want to feel that, and I didn't want the rat to come near me.
Don't come near me! I just kept thinking of how much pain there would
be. . . . And so, in the dream, because I knew all he wanted was my
foot, /I bit my foot off myself./
    When I woke up, I could barely breathe, I was so scared! I can still
see the rat, and I think it was after me because something was wrong
with the room, or I was being punished for something. But I was more
afraid of the rat's teeth and how much it would hurt. . . . So I decided
I would do it. I would hurt myself, before he could. Even though I
didn't understand why the rat wanted to hurt me, I just knew I had to do
it myself, or he would.
    I didn't like that dream at all. Please, Diary, I know it sounds
silly, but don't judge me the way someone might if they heard me tell
them this dream. I hope I never dream like that again. I don't even want
to know what it means, or if I'm sure I even want to remember it. I'll
decide that tomorrow, when the darkness is gone, and things are easier
to see when they come after you.
    It makes me mad that I feel like I can't go and tell Mom about this.
I'm afraid she'll laugh and then maybe tell it to everyone and embarrass
me. I'm so afraid people will laugh at me. I am going to try to be more
like Donna. I'll be good and I'll do everything I'm supposed to do. That
way, there won't be anything anyone can find out and make fun of me for.
There will be nothing they can say I have done wrong.
    I bet that what I did with Donna and the boys is causing this. I
can't even think straight enough to decide if one feeling was worth the
other. Something has to be causing nights like this. I will try to be
better. I will stop doing things that older girls should be doing. I
will not let anyone hurt me, like in the dream. /I'll hurt myself
first./ I know the places that are the most delicate. I'll do the
hurting from now on, as long as all of this stops!!!!
    I wish I could talk to my mommy.

Laura




Dear Diary,	December 16, 1985


    I don't know that I will be writing in you for a while. I have just
had another dream. I must have fallen asleep while I was waiting for the
sun.
    I don't know why, but I kept seeing you appear and disappear on
people's laps. On their seats at the diner, when they went to the
jukebox. On the hood of their cars when they went to go driving. I tried
to take you back, but you kept sliding away. You were going to tell
everyone what was inside you.
    A few people read what was written there and these people turned
into rats. They wanted to take me out the way BOB does. I think that
until I understand more, we shouldn't speak. I don't know why I dreamed
this . . . but I am too afraid to challenge it.
    If this doesn't make the nightmares and the fire and the ropes and
the little silver blades go away . . . Maybe I am supposed to give into
them. Maybe that is what is meant for me. Maybe I just have to be
patient and stop fighting it, and it will go away.
    I hate to say good-bye to a listener as good as you. I feel I must,
though, until I find out if you are somehow talking to people when I
don't know about it.
    Am I going crazy? I can't wait until vacation is over and school
starts again so that I can have something to keep me busy. I look at
other girls that I know, other girls I see, and they all smile, like I
do. Inside are they beginning to lose everything they know? Have they
stopped trusting themselves and everyone around them too? Please don't
let me find out that I am the only one on earth with this pain.

Laura




Dear Diary,	April 23, 1986


    It has been a long time since I've written. School is fine but I
find it almost too easy. There is not enough to keep my mind from
wandering to boys, or fantasies. Donna and I have had several fights
this year because she says I'm acting strangely to her, and that I'm not
being the friend that I was. I hate crying, so why does it come so
easily lately? I am only trying to be good, and to keep busy, and not to
do too much talking or daydreaming because I thought that bothered
people and made bad things happen to me.
    Now Donna is mad because I won't tell her what I'm really feeling,
because I'm afraid! I can't tell her I'm afraid because she would make
me tell her why. I can never ever tell. I haven't even touched myself
where I know I can to make myself feel good. I'm afraid, because that is
about sex, and I decided I wouldn't think about that anymore . . . which
is so hard!!!
    I hate myself, and I hate my life! Dad has been busy all the time
lately with Benjamin and his work there at the Great Northern, and I am
starting to feel the way Audrey must when her father spends more time
and attention with me than he does with her. Now it is happening in the
reverse, and I am just trying to be good and make it stop, and it is
only getting harder for me to sleep or even eat! I don't want to feel
this way anymore. If I do, I know something awful will happen.
    I dreamed last night that I had dug a hole in the backyard for a
well, because I was trying to help us with water, and I thought a well
would be a nice thing to build for the family. Mom loved the idea and
smiled very big. But when she went outside, later in the dream, I was
burying myself in the hole, trying to kill myself. She realized I had
lied to her, and this made her very upset. She ran out to stop me, and I
screamed that I didn't want to wake up in the middle of the night with
leaves all over me anymore. I wanted to be a tree so that I could listen
for trouble in the woods. And I was buried all of a sudden. But I was
inside something that wasn't a dirt hole.
    Mom came to my room right after to ask if I was all right, and I
told her I was fine. I was just having nightmares about the woods is
all. The look on her face went from sadness to hopefulness. Then,
unfortunately, she began something I didn't need to hear at all! She
started telling me about the birds and the bees, and about birth control
and babies, and all of this ridiculous stuff about how my dreams were
just a part of my changing body, and maybe I just needed some questions
answered.
    The whole time she talked to me, I was thinking of something else.
    I had to think of flowers and of smiling faces and anything . . .
big trucks filled with lumber, of birds, of Donna Donna Donna . . . good
things only. Don't listen, couldn't listen to that voice saying all of
the things that were like little keys to the doors and rooms I wasn't
supposed to be in! How could this happen? She didn't stop for almost an
hour, and I almost had to hold my hand down. . . . I wanted to hit her,
smack that smiling, helpful face and scream, "How do you do it! What has
happened to that part of me!"
    Do you want to know the part that frightens me most? The only thing
people think about me right now is that I am going through my
adolescence! Everyone still sees the smiling Laura Palmer. The girl with
perfect grades and perfect hair and perfect little fingers that want to
sometimes, late at night, go into the mirror to strangle the daydreaming
troublemaker I see in the reflection!
    Today I will go to see Donna and I'll talk to her. I'll talk the
best I can. I have no schoolwork left to do, and I've already finished
two extra-credit projects. I made the honor roll, and the junior debate
team. I pray all of the time, but have never felt worse in my life. I am
starting to think that a few moments of good, in the middle of miles and
ages of bad, is better than no good at all. I hope Donna still wants to
be my friend.
    If I can, I will tell you what happens with Donna.

Soon, Laura




Something just came to me . . .	April 24, 1986



A memory of skipping
I was small, looking up at him
Before he told me to lie down
Or to say things
Before he told me
That opening my mouth was bad
That we had a secret
Before he began to turn me inside out
With his dirty claws
Before I sat on the tiny hill
We used to skip
Hold hands
Talk about what we saw
He told me what to see
But I didn't see it
I have been blind
I think
Ever since the skipping stopped.


    I want to be left alone like other people are. I want to learn about
this soft white suit I wear the way everyone else does.
    I want to forget the things that suddenly come to me. . . .
Something very bad is happening. . . . Why is it happening to me?
    I think it is real. I think it is real!
    After I see Donna, maybe I can tell you about what I am remembering.
I had forgotten so much . . . but I can't tell if I am better off
knowing or not really knowing at all.
    Please still be my friend, Donna, please!

L




Dear Diary,	June 21, 1986


    I spent the day with Donna yesterday. For a long time she wouldn't
even really say anything to me. When I started crying, I ran out of her
house and just kept running. I was so glad when she came after me, and
she was crying too. I told her as much as I could. That I was worried
about being good because I had been having bad dreams, very bad dreams,
and I wasn't just kidding her when I said I wasn't sleeping at all. I
told her I wished we could talk about the night with the guys at the
stream, but it always seems like she hates me or something, or I'll have
an awful dream and think that what happened was bad. I told her I needed
to hear what she thought about that night. I needed to know if she
thinks we should be punished for it, or if I should, because I did more
than she did. . . . I just needed to know!
    Donna told me that she was afraid I wasn't talking to her because I
was mad that she hadn't gone as far with the guys as I had, and that I
didn't like her anymore because of it! I asked her how she could think
that when we had such a nice hug when the evening was over, and I still
remember that hug as one of the clearest, nicest parts of the whole
night! I told her I was just very confused, and I told her I didn't know
half the time whether I should be enjoying it as much as I was, or if I
should have been feeling bad.
    Donna said the only reason she got out of the water was that she
wasn't sure what she felt right doing, even though all of the boys were
nice. And then she cried and looked at me, very strange, and said
something that really made me feel weird. She said that another reason
she didn't get more into it was that she was afraid to because I seemed
too good at it right away, and she didn't know what she should be doing,
or how to do it. She wanted to know if it just came naturally to me, or
if I had been seeing a boy and hadn't told her.
    I couldn't answer her for a long time. I don't think I knew the
answer. What did she mean, good at it? I told her I remembered feeling
sexy, and very happy that they liked me and wanted me, but half of that,
if not more, was the boys' doing, not mine. Plus we were drunk that
night, and it just felt so good to do things I had wondered about for so
long. . . . She stopped me there and said that she thought about boys
like that too. I asked her how she thought of them, like what they were
doing when she dreamed of them, and she said they were taking her
dancing, or seeing her at school and letting her ride in their cars. She
said she was thinking about being with older boys who treated her like
she was a princess, and at night they would come into this big,
beautiful bed and lie next to her, and they would talk and kiss, and
sometimes they would make love.
    She said she didn't really like going that far because it seemed too
rough for the rest of the daydream. She thinks about sex, though, she
said. But it is the kind of sex that goes really slow like in soap
operas. She said she sees it in slow motion and she can hear music
playing, and they roll around, she and this boy, very slow, until it
fades out of her head. She said she hoped that my fantasies were as sexy
as hers are.
    Oh, God, Diary, everything was fine until we talked about that! I
just had to tell her that my fantasies were exactly the same as hers,
and that we should never have argued, and I said I was sorry if I hurt
her feelings. I should have been more open with her, and that I was only
worried that she had begun to hate me for going so far that night. She
said she thought I was very brave, and that if it felt good to me, then
I should think of it as a good thing. /But what about the fantasies she
has!/ I was about to die when I heard how pure and sweet and gentle they
were. Why doesn't she think the things I do! I was so hoping we had the
same thoughts. . . . I was depending on it.
    I know she was telling the truth because of how she told me, and by
how embarrassed she got when she talked about this boy getting into bed
with her. She is so pure, I just can't believe it. I think that the
times that I have to go into the woods at night have poisoned me.
    I would be like Donna, I'll bet, if I were still just skipping
through the trees, instead of . . . what happens now. But . . . I would
never ever ever wish for what happens now! I wish for things that make
me feel sexy and playful, things that don't take me to do all the work,
things like someone else trying to please me, instead of me always
trying to make everyone else happy.
    I wish there was a place you could go where someone would answer all
of your questions, and tell you if you were doing the right thing or
not. How am I supposed to know when I can't even talk about things
really? I just keep saying the same things again and again. I am running
in circles, and it is time that I stop.
    Donna and I are friends still, and I still love her, but things feel
different to me. I can't think the way she does, or even try to anymore.
I will think what I feel, and I will try to make people see things the
way I do. I wish I had a marijuana cigarette right now. It feels like I
haven't laughed for years and years and years.
    Thank you for listening.

Laura




Dear Diary,	June 22, 1986


    I am just going to write and not think too hard about it and maybe I
can remember more. I just woke up; it is 4:12 A.M.
    I don't remember when it started, but he has always had long hair.
He knows everything about me and knows how to frighten me more than any
of the dreams I have already told you about.
    He first started to play with me. We would chase each other through
the woods, and he would always find me . . . but I could never find him.
He would come up from behind me and grab my shoulders and ask me my
name. I would tell him it was Laura Palmer, and he would let go and turn
me around and laugh.
    When I think about it, he wasn't playing the way he should have
been. He was being very mean to me, and he was scaring me all the time.
I think he likes it when I am frightened. He makes me feel that way
every time he takes me with him. He likes to embarrass me by pulling
down my panties and putting his fingers inside, deep. When he knows it
hurts me, he pulls them out and smells his hand. He always tells me I
smell like bad things. He screams out loud into the trees that I smell,
and that I am dirty, and he doesn't know why he even likes me. He says
if I didn't beg him to come all of the time, he would never come back.
    /I never beg him to come. Never. I wish him far away from here. I
swear it./
    When I started to get older, he would tell me things about myself
that I didn't know. I don't think he was telling the truth. I think he
was lying to me and making it up as he went along. He always knew
exactly what scared me, and just the things to say to make me cry. Then
he would take my neck . . . and squeeze. He squeezed my neck hard until
I stopped crying. He would let go just before I would faint . . . I
think I was fainting . . . sometimes that still happens. Everything goes
tingly and dark, and my head spins inside and I can't see anything, and
I have to stop crying or he'll keep squeezing.
    Sometimes he says, "What's this down here? . . . What's this down
here, Laura Palmer?" He always says my whole name like he won't get
close to me like that, but he will every other way. Sometimes I would
come home bleeding. I would bleed and I couldn't tell anyone, so I would
sit up all night in my bathroom, all alone, and wait for it to stop
coming out. Sometimes he would cut me between my legs, and other times
he would cut me inside my mouth. Always tiny little cuts, hundreds of
tiny little cuts. I had to use a flashlight in the bathroom or else my
parents might wake up and see the light, and I'd be in worse trouble then.
    Some nights he would make me sticky. Rub himself very fast, and he
would say that I had to hold the sticky in my hands, close my eyes, and
recite this little poem while I licked my hands clean.
    I only remember a little. This hasn't happened for a long time, the
sticky. He made me say:

The little bitch
Is awfully sorry
The little bitch
Drinks you up


(I can't remember more, except the last line.)

In this seed is death indeed.


    He wants me to like it, when he is with me. He wants me to say that
I am dirty and that I have an odor. I should be thrown into the river so
that I will be clean.
    I am so careful to smell clean, all the time. I always wash between
my legs, and I always go to sleep in fresh panties, in case he makes me
come with him. I always worry he will come for me, and I won't have
clean panties. He says I'm lucky he even stays to spend time around me.
He says that he is the only man who will ever want to touch me.
    He comes to the window, and I see him. I always see him, and he is
always smiling like we are going to have a good time together. I am so
close to calling my parents for help, but I am afraid of what would
happen. I can't let anyone know about him. If I keep seeing him, he
might get tired of me and go away. Maybe if I stopped fighting him, he
would not like to visit me anymore. If I weren't afraid. If I could just
not feel afraid . . .
    I have never thought about him like this ever before.
    I hope that if there is a God, he will understand that I am trying
to keep clean, and if this is a test that he is giving me, I'll find a
way to pass it. I bet it is a test. I bet God wants me to prove that I
can take orders, or maybe that I am not afraid to die and come be with
him. Maybe BOB knows God, and that is why he always knows what I am
feeling inside. God must be telling him what to do to me. God wants me
not to be afraid, maybe, of being dirty. If I'm not afraid, he'll take
me to heaven.
    I hope so.

L




Dear Diary,	July 25, 1986


    I have been trying very hard not to be afraid.
    I am seeing a boy I told you about once before. I didn't like him
then, but now I think he is just right for me. He reminds me very much
of the boy on the wall of the Book House. He dresses the same way, but
he does not have a motorcycle. I am fourteen now. I didn't let anyone
celebrate my birthday. I made Mom promise she wouldn't plan anything. I
told her at the kitchen table the day before that I had a lot of
thinking to do about my life. I just wanted to spend my birthday alone.
I wanted to walk alone, and maybe take Troy out for a ride: I made sure
she knew I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I just needed to spend
some time alone. She fussed for a while and kept asking me why I
couldn't spend the following day by myself. I finally told her that I
was feeling confused and I wanted to come home on the night of my
birthday with everything sorted out. I wasn't going to go far, I
promised her that. I just wanted to go. I promised her that next year
and the following year, sweet sixteen, I will have a party of one kind
or another.
    So I spent my birthday alone. I went out to where I go with BOB. It
was light out, and everything seemed like an awful dream, until I saw a
piece of rope lying at the back of the base of his favorite tree. I got
a chill, but forced it away. I tried to look carefully at the tree, to
find something that would explain why he picked this place, this tree.
There was nothing. I made sure I was alone before I did what I had planned.
    I looked very carefully, and when I knew I was alone, I pulled a
marijuana cigarette from my pocket. I made Bobby get one for me. He
wanted to share but I told him he couldn't. We could do some together
later, maybe. I smoked it very slowly and started thinking about sex.
About men, all kinds of them, inside me.
    I tried to think of things that BOB would like. I pulled a pair of
my panties out of my pocket and rubbed them on the tree. I wore them
just before I left to come here, so I knew the smell of me would be
strong. . . . I'm not afraid anymore either that I smell bad. I know I
don't. I think I smell like a girl should.
    When I put my panties to my own nose and breathe in, I imagine a
girl in front of me, and how a man would want to touch her. Get up
close. BOB calls it pussy. I want to touch, can you hear me, BOB! When I
smell it, I am not afraid, I told myself. I said it out loud many times
while I was there, smoking and thinking of all sorts of ways I could
touch Bobby. . . . Things I would like to make him do. I thought every
thought I could that would call BOB to come. I think he was there, but
he was hiding.
    So I got very stoned, all by myself, and pushed myself onto the
dirt, sliding onto the leaves and pine needles on the ground, and I
looked up into the great tree. I wanted the tree to watch me, memorize
the face of the new little girl who came to lie down. The old one is
gone. She had to go off. I only use her voice sometimes; it is so much
easier to get what I want when I say it sweetly, and like a little girl.
I took off my clothes and began to touch my breasts, lick my fingers,
and then rub my nipples with the wetness. I made circles the way the
boys do with their tongues. I made noises when it felt good. I cried out
when I pinched them hard and made them pink.
    The wind began to come up, and I felt it move over my bare chest,
and I remember saying, "Ohh, whoever that is, I like that. . . . Yes. .
. . I like that very much. . . ." I felt myself get a little wet inside
my panties . . . so I undressed completely and I talked to BOB out loud,
while I touched my secret button. I said, "BOB . . . Bobby . . . Laura
has a sweet muffin here for you. . . . Nice and clean and . . . mmmmmmm
. . . I'll bet it tastes good too. . . . Come out, BOB . . . come out
and play. . . ." The wind picked up, but I never saw BOB.
    I came like I never have before. My body just couldn't stop, and I
had to grab on to the tree, peel off bark in one place, grab again, dig
in with my nails . . . and then it slowed. I was so warm with the
marijuana and my little show for the woods that I almost took a nap,
there, lying naked. But I couldn't do that. I won this one. He hadn't
shown up. Night or day doesn't count. I showed him I wasn't afraid. I
touched myself under his tree. I called to him and made him the fool.
I'm going to pass this test . . . you'll see. If BOB wants nasty, all I
need is a little time. /I can be the bad girl he wants./
    On the way out of the woods, I was nearly killed as an owl swooped
down out of nowhere. I could feel the power in his wings as he shot by
me. I thought of the Log Lady. Something she has said:
    "Many things are not what they seem."
    This used to seem frightening to me. This place, the slightest
thought of touching myself, and teasing myself, frightened me. No more.
No, this place I visited is not what it seemed. I see now that it is, a
place of darkness, but I love it. /I welcome it./ I will not fight it,
even when it slips deep inside and cuts me. I have found light and
pleasure inside this horror. I am not done with my plan.
    I'll be back, BOB. I'll be back to open and close around you like
you thought I never would. I'll be back.

Laura




Dear Diary,	August 3, 1986


    Just to fill you in, I did spend the rest of the day with Troy at
the stables. Being around him relaxed me, and I went home later that
evening feeling very strong, very new inside. I did not entertain any
thoughts of being bad, or wrong, by doing this. I was going to stop
being hurt and taunted by this man. A man I know only by his first name.
I do not know where he lives, or where he comes from. But I will get him
back. There's no fun in a game of torture if the victim is screaming for
more.
    That was almost two weeks ago . . . no, maybe a week. I am very deep
in concentration lately. Seeing Bobby Briggs is fun. He is anywhere I
want him to be, with anything I want him to bring. Just yesterday, I
decided he had waited too long to be with me the way he wanted. 1, too,
was tired of the process of petting and going home feeling like a cork
had been stuck inside me, that it had trapped everything I so wished to
let go. But I had to let him think I was the fourteen-year-old I appear
to be. . . .
    Mom and Dad left for the entire afternoon, and I told them I'd be
out for almost as long as they would be, but that I wanted to help with
supper that night, so I would be home no later than six-thirty. Mom's
face shined at the sound of such words. I have to keep my parents happy.
I have to keep loving them, like their little girl should. I have to
support what I have not chosen, but have, quite simply, been given. Two
lives. /Two very different lives./
    The naughtier Laura had a date with Bobby Briggs in Low Town. He
said he knew of an abandoned barn out where no one would find us. I
liked the idea that I would have him alone someplace where I could go
kinda crazy on him. I was nervous, for a bit, because I suddenly
realized that this was not the BOB I hated, but the young Bobby who
swaggered up to smiling Laura Palmer and asked if she would be his. No
matter, I'd play him like he needed me to. I knew he was aware that I
had never made love with a boy before. . . . I knew it would be
different with someone who took care. . . . I knew it might pull me back
to thirteen years old, when I learned to love a man's hands in a stream
late at night and cried because he was gone so soon afterward. I
couldn't let that come up. I knew I had to be strong. I could have BOB
watching me right now . . . at any moment. I couldn't fall in love . . .
certainly not out loud.
    Bobby was charming and I could tell he was nervous because he
couldn't get his words out very well, and the blanket he brought on the
back of his bike wasn't opening as he tried, diligently, to spread it.
    This made him very nervous, because I was balancing a bottle of
vodka, a small one for two, and a marijuana cigarette (some smoke) in
between my fingers, and I didn't have as good a grasp as I would have
liked, and I had to fall to my knees to avoid breaking anything.
    He felt very bad, but I turned it around so that he had been more of
a hero than a dunce. He was neither, but I allowed him to lift me to my
feet and steady me with his arms. I could think only of how I just
wanted to take a drink and do some smoke so I could relax. Things come
much easier for me when I am loose, and feeling confident. One of the
reasons I most enjoy Bobby is that he can get me smoke anytime I want .
. . he can have a friend buy us alcohol, anytime I want. I like the way
that feels, that kind of devotion. I enjoy the way he moves, little tiny
waves inside him, when I lean in close and say, "I can't wait, but let's
take our time." His immediate smile and his readiness to let me take
over first.
    I, after all, was for the first time beginning a sexual experience
with interest, and affection. A little control of my own. I knew he
would take over, once he felt I'd let him. But for now, if he was to
keep bringing me little treats all the time, I wanted him to feel it was
worth it . . . that he hadn't chosen a dead fish, like I promised I
would never be.
    An hour later, after taking my time with his lips, and occasionally
feeding him the smoke, or vodka, I was ready, and I told him to lie back
and imagine whatever he wished. I told him to build a dream inside his
head, and to let his imagination follow me. It was just for him, we both
knew that. I put him, hard, into my mouth, and had a picture in my head
of BOB's hand as he did himself . . . as he put my hand on it . . . and
then I was back in the barn. I slowed it down, found the rhythm he
liked, and I kept my tongue moving inside and I went up and down him,
following the noises he made, the whines . . . listening with delicacy,
making sure I kept him where he wanted to be. This time was not about
teasing him in and out of his pleasure. He came the way I dream men do .
. . with suddenness after a long internal climb, sitting upright with a
look of amazement and awe . . . gratification. A smile.
    We spent another hour or so buried in each other, until it had to
happen and he slipped inside. I opened my eyes and saw him as his eyes
fell closed. I forced the memory of wanting this . . . away. Feeling
like that would be so easy, and yet, I could not become weak.
    We moved together, and I found it easier to handle, easier to really
enjoy, with my eyes closed. I could move with him, roll around to the
top, place his hands where I love to feel them. He is so good to me,
without any words. I wanted him to know how wonderful it felt, locked
there inside, never wanting to leave, just wanting more and more of me!
We rolled and pushed and pulled at each other and came apart hours
later, when it was impossible that we do more.
    I felt truly satisfied, like years of taunting and emotional pulling
and pushing had been set free. The steel bar I imagined holding me
upright was /flexing,/ turning to flesh, and melting. The tension and
the anxiousness I felt for so long, about how it would be when someone
really wanted me. Not because they wanted me to weep or to die slowly of
a sadness I could not name. Someone who cared how it felt to me, wanted
to make sure it was nice. I felt like I should feel, like all girls
should feel . . . but I could not forget that there were other worlds to
think of. Other moments. Rude awakenings at the darkest hours of night.
A man in my window, smiling . . . offering a challenge by waving a black
glove. I lay there wondering if he would come soon, or if by my simply
deciding he no longer frightened me, he was somehow eliminated.
    I couldn't rely on dreams like that. And suddenly, there was a
terrible problem. A terrible and sad problem that I had to face without
the emotion I so wanted to give! From Bobby's mouth came, slowly, small
words of love, then confessions. Soon after, promises of loyalty and
happiness forever.
    Laura, Laura, I can't let you hear this. Just watch his lips move,
do not listen, I told myself, over and over. But Bobby meant it. He was,
after all, the boy who had admired me for years, who had tugged on my
ponytails for as long as I wore them, and soon after made a point to
pass me at least once a day in the hallways at school, or to catch my
eye in class. Smile, as if it were an unexpected sight.
    I knew he had planned this. But the Laura who loved him back, the
young girl who so desperately hoped he would come after her, when the
time was right, cannot come out to play. She is inside resting. Deep
inside, cradled in the braver half. The one that finds this Bobby boy
satisfying, yes, but not interesting beyond that. There is no strength
in him . . . no challenge. I'll keep him with me, save him for her, when
it is safe for her to come back. But these words of love are too real,
too innocent. This boy, so young, is merely a messenger to the Laura
that is living here now.
    I was forced to do something cruel. Something that would make him,
perhaps, rethink the entire idea of Laura. He had to see her as
something he never thought existed. I had to laugh at him. Hard. Laugh
until his eyes lost their light. I had to shoot him down, couldn't let
him be so appealing to the same young Laura that BOB wants. The one I'm
sure he's waiting for. To save myself, I had to laugh in the face of a
boy, who now may never be so honest again.
    I had to do it! Why does it hurt so badly to protect myself? Where
was this love when I was on my knees begging for it? Dammit. I know I
hurt him. . . . I hope someday he will understand why. I would never
crush someone the way I was crushed. Had I been the one laughed at, I
don't know that I would ever stand as straight again - never approach
someone with even the smallest compliment, because the memory of
laughter would still ring in my ears.
    I am ashamed and confused again by the things that happen to me. Is
this a trick that BOB is playing on me? Another test? Ruining my chance
at love with the right boy, by forcing me to humiliate him, the way I
have been and have now turned cold and bitter because of its scars? . .
. Will Bobby pick himself up and see that I did not mean it? Or have I
been tricked into spoiling a romance I could have been protected by at
least during the day?
    What does life want from me? What have I done, and what do I do
now?! I only wanted to stop the pain, not to begin spreading it myself.
    I'm thinking . . . I'm thinking.     Everything that had to be done
has been done. If this is something BOB did, then it will only cause him
an amazing victory if I show any regret . . . any . . . /remorse./ I
cannot care. I must believe Bobby will come back, tail wagging. If he
does not, I shall master the whistle he responds to. Let the boy earn my
attention outside the barn lust, outside the kisses I give out only when
I feel like it, never just because. I'll become a professional at not
feeling anything.
    I'll find a way to do it. I can't give up. I don't even believe half
the time that what I'm living is real. I am lost. Lost. But a stronger,
more manipulating Laura is rearing her head, and opening herself to
threats and games played only in the dark.
    When I find out who he is, I'll make him known to everyone!

To a New Strength, Laura




Dear Diary,	August 3, 1986


    It is a little after ten P.M. on the evening of the disaster with
Bobby Briggs. I am surprised to say that he phoned not fifteen minutes
ago, and . . . somehow, in a mass of words that were sounding more
rehearsed than heartfelt, he apologized for being too quick to recite
such oaths of love when maybe I didn't find that attractive in a boy.
That maybe I wanted someone who had to be broken a bit, before it all
came out. . . . He told me he meant what he had said, but was wrong to
say it so quickly.
    The whole thing sounded like it had been picked word for word out of
the dictionary or thesaurus, and I couldn't help but wish for a moment
that I was dead. Here he is apologizing for something I, and I'm certain
girls everywhere, even outside of the Peaks, dream of hearing a boy say.
He's chosen his words carefully, tried to prove he is still, hours after
his orgasm, in love. Another miracle . . . and what do I do? I am forced
to keep silent on the phone, to stifle words of love, from my own heart,
simply out of the fear that this is all part of a grand scheme to drive
me, no brakes in the fast lane, down the road of insanity.
    I am trapped inside a part of me I hate. A hard, masculine part of
myself that has surfaced to fight, after small memories and scars come
out of me with a suddenness that is sobering as well as horrifying - and
I fight to save the Laura I wish I could be again. The one everyone
thinks is still around. Me in a sundress, hair in the wind, and a smile
engraved into my cheeks by the sharp fear that a man may visit me at any
moment this evening and try to kill me.

L




Dear Diary,
 	
August 4, 1986
3:30 A.M.


    It comes to me now that I have decided to play along. After
repeating it to myself for ages it seems, I finally feel a sense of
resolve with my joining him for the sole purpose of battle. To join the
darkness, and perhaps cling to the bit of light remaining inside me, and
use it as the strength it should always have been.
    Ah, the fairness of life. That special moment when a hand flies up
whether visible or verbal, screaming, STOP, she is dying! This child is
dying without a safety feature everyone else seems to wrestle with, as
if it were an inconvenience.
    I searched carefully and have found a space inside me that says that
it is almost too late, mine are not the eyes of a girl fifteen, but the
eyes of someone who has been afraid to look around herself and to
question the simplest of things. My mind, it continues, is not the mind
of a young girl who imagines life to be a series of warm sweaters, while
the cold spell passes by.
    It warns me that the mind in which I live belongs to someone who
knows too much of life and how it ends most often without warning. How
it deals us blows, dares us to dream when in fact there is no use.
Manages to leave out that there is a plan etched in the planet for me.
This mind knows.
    The reality that there is no choosing a day's events, or even a
moment's when before you've even opened your eyes to see light for the
very first time, someone of a great evil and stealth chooses you. Spins
a bottle of sorts and giggles at the power in a simple game of selection.

Laura




Dear Diary,
 	
August 6, 1986
4:47 A.M.


    I cannot let myself sleep because I have to see BOB when he comes
through the window. I have to be ready.
    I have thought a great deal about my life. I am aging without my own
permission. I believe when he comes to take me, I will either leave home
and return harmed although satisfied by the brutal death of an enemy, or
I will never return. And in death admit silently I knew not of my
visitor's strength nor of his will.
    For now I am half-numb, half-raw. A girl who still manages to rise
each morning and exit the place I lately must be reminded is called
home. As if nothing were less noticeable than the trail of blood left
behind me as I go.
    I do not doubt that BOB is aware of my every movement. That this
horror who calls himself a man sits up high when the sun shines or
perhaps curls up below. No matter. He watches me with eyes that burrow
inside, seeing each speck of doubt, sensing each palpitation of my heart
when a boy passes, each embrace from a mother who knows nothing of how
far away her daughter's bedroom has become.
    I try each day to memorize the face that looks back at me in the
mirror. I hold tight to it. I imagine I'll be in flight when I compare
it to my remains that I often dream soon will be found.
    I have such an anger and an urge to charge at the sky, to call the
wind a liar for never showing itself. An urge to scream at the two who
allowed my birth. Cries for help to anyone who will hear them. To scream
into the street that there is a lack of miracles in Mother Nature
herself. /Her divinity is a lie./
    In a forest of trees again and again, I have been brought down.
Surgery of a strange and indescribable nature takes place. Blood is let.
This Mother Nature has not done away with this evil, nor has it opened
its wood to allow a scream to escape. Instead, it cradles this man and
keeps him safe from discovery, safe from daylight. He knows the planet
will not betray him. This light will come, and stay, leave only to
return on schedule. He has a promise. The universe's habit, conveniently
requiring a twelve-hour fix of the two extremes.
    His time is the evening, the hour during which rescue is least
possible, and when most with pure hopes and dreams and memories of
swinging on swing sets are fast asleep. Their eyes moving quickly under
their lids. /Seeing nothing./
    Never is there a noise that stirs even those who sleep in the next
room. Never does the world lean a bit for me, cast a vote, and cause an
eye to open . . . See the man . . . see the way his eyes are frozen in
the image of my face in a scream. No explanation for WHY he has chosen
me, or even if he has a final plan.
    I can only wait. Hold my tired eyes open with the energy of a dare.
A fight to see who in fact is the darkest. Who, when forced to see the
other side, will in fact survive?
    I sit awaiting his arrival, kept awake by the notion that I shall
grow accustomed to the dark far easier than he to the light.

Laura




Dear Diary,	September 10, 1986


    Enclosed please find my mind and its memory. As well, a
characteristic the enemy lack in excess - conscience. "Guilt" is simply
a word he uses to silence me. He has no regard for mortality, no concern
for danger.
    How could such an intruder fear death, or the possibility of
imprisonment, and still manage to come so consistently up the side of my
home, using my window as if it were familiar to him?
    He mocks me entering dressed in the clothes of one who could be a
best friend. A neighbor. A traveling salesman who casually invites
himself in, goes as far as to request coffee, regular, before dissolving
into the daydream he sometimes is?
    Does he expect to sit down and chat before taking the house's only
child from her room and treating her like an experiment?
    I am either dreaming him to life, and slowly killing myself, or he
has told my parents of his visits and has offered, in return for their
own safety, that these visits will continue without possibility of
interruption. They would simply go unnoticed. Junk mail, somewhere in
the house. I imagine that they would have to hear me as I am led out. Is
it possible they do not care?

L




Dear Diary,
 	
September 11, 1986
2:20 A.M.


    I cannot tell you how much it upsets me that I am no threat to him.
    He is too safe with the idea that he will always gain entrance to my
home and exit painlessly and without sound. In the dark he knows he will
find a grip around my wrist strong enough to silence me, and to carry
me, like a child drags a doll, to a place where he knows no one will
find me. He knows this because the place is miles from any source of
light other than that which pours sometimes, so clearly in my memory,
from his lips and eyes - the very light stolen from within me. The girl
who, ever since she can remember, made a patient effort to tolerate, and
keep secret the very man who wishes to steal her innocence, never
allowing her to mature, never permitting the joys of maturity. The time
this little girl has dreamed of ever since she knew how to skip, and
run, and smile at even the slightest breeze, the way it tickled her so.
Unselfishly, she gave and gave of herself, emptying the delicate basket
inside her, of her soul.
    I hope to call him to my window soon. I fear he is waiting for me to
tire of these all-night writing sessions. These moments where I lapse in
and out of the part of me who plans to open the window this time and
give my hand willingly. The part of me that doubts anything really
exists at all and that therefore there is nothing at all to fear outside
that window, and so am willing to venture to the usual spot, without
struggle. I who swears a noise or powerful slap at the back of the head
will not cause even the slightest change in footsteps. The part of me
that has rehearsed its cries for more and more incisions, more
insertions, more insults and threats, and has planned to continue them
until his appetite, before insatiable, grows smaller. The animal frozen
solid in front of his shotgun barrel, begging to fill that space on his
wall.
    Remove the thrill. Program yourself. There will be pain, but none
worse than before. Hold tight on the image of home and of bed and of the
warm smell of him as you rinse and rinse and rinse. Home awaits you as
it always has.
    Play with him as he plays with you. Accept that you ate bad and
dirty and cheap and should be thrown to the wolves as scrap meat, and
must never bear children, for who knows the faces they would be locked
behind from birth until death. . . . Remember to ignore. Leave an
opening large enough inside to take on his body weight in hatred and
methods of reduction that only apply to the emotional portions of
oneself, the most vital and irreplaceable of all.
    Believe that he is only intrigued by the fear he breeds, the lack of
interest you display in life when he leaves you back at your home. How
he pretends to ring the doorbell, mocks you, your life, your hopes, your
most private insecurities, watches as you struggle with the sense that
you are unworthy to even enter the house in which you took your first
steps, feel as he watches you catch a tear before it has left your eye -
/look for him and he is gone./
    As if it were a religion, I have chanted inspirations to myself, for
days now I have whined, and taunted, and almost wished him to arrive,
and he has not. I have an incredible headache from trying to think of
his weaknesses, when in fact, I couldn't begin to know them. Perhaps I
am wrong altogether about his lust only for the fear in his particular
victim . . . I must say honestly, I am tired of making light of the
situation and believe that if I do not sleep soon, I shall begin seeing
BOB everywhere. This, need I mention, would not be good for me at present.
    I am lonely here, and find myself thinking about Bobby, who I know
would hold me in his arms the way I can't imagine anyone else doing.

Be careful, Laura




Dear Diary,	October 1, 1986


    I'm sorry I haven't written, but so much has happened. Tonight as I
began to undress for bed Bobby Briggs came to my window. A beautiful,
dreamy sight that sent me reeling. He says there is a party we couldn't
miss out at the end of Sparkwood. A friend of his, Leo - who I think
I've heard of before in the air of gossip that I often hunt down - is
throwing a party. I warned him, I had only thought seriously of curling
up with him, and confessed that I was missing more sleep than I need to
be sociable.
    He promised me there would be no problem in the alertness
department, as he had a new treat for me to try that sometimes negates
the need for sleep entirely.
    I'm out the window, Diary. Shhhh!
    I'll tell all the moment I return. I'm hiding you . . . beware of
BOB . . . he is sometimes tardy.

Laura



P.S. It just struck me that BOB's name is
a warning in itself . . .
    B. BEWARE
    0. OF
    B. BOB


Dear Diary,	October 3, 1986


    I don't know where to begin! I returned home the following
afternoon, without a single gripe from the watchdogs, Mom and Dad. I was
halfway down the side of the house when I realized I was heading way out
of upper town, to a party filled with people at least six to ten years
my senior . . . and I was thinking I'd be back by sunrise? Never! Not to
mention that Bobby had some "Go Fast" for me somewhere . . . at least I
thought that to be the situation before we arrived at Leo's . . . I'm
guilty of the understatement of the year with that one.
    But anyway, I must first brag about the tangled web I did weave, and
how not a stitch was out of place or questioned when I arrived back home
at nearly six P.M. the following day! Need I say, I have now crossed
over into a dimension of intense sleep deprivation? Three days and four
nights . . . and taking into consideration the treat I was given as a
door prize before leaving, I could be up until next month, painlessly
dropping pound after pound . . . (six and a half since the last day I
slept). I find that no matter what drug, if any, I have inside me, the
less I sleep, the less I eat.
    The note said something simple and to the point. Skip it if it bores
you, but I guess I gained a sense of satisfaction and joy out of pulling
the wool over the "folks'" (as Bobby says) eyes. Mom, it is just about
five A.M. and I have tried again and again to get back to sleep. After
almost two solid hours of fair tries, I was suddenly reminded of the
clearing I spent the other afternoon in. Troy so enjoyed the grazing
there, and I think a blanket and a book will set the stage for the
distance I guess I need to feel. Not from you, Mom! I could hear you
taking that personally, but don't. I just mean away from people. Just a
few hours with my pony, Troy, and maybe a nap over Nancy Drew or
something? Please don't worry, I'll call before six if I'm not already
home by then.

Love, Laura



    I spent the night at the most outrageous party ever, and Mom sat
quietly at home, imagining me wrapped in the words of a good book,
sinking softly into a blanket on the grass. I'll need to make sure Troy
gets a ride tonight . . . somehow . . . shit. I hadn't thought of him
until now . . . I hope Zippy doesn't phone to suggest he take Troy out .
. . damn. I'll be right back. I'm going to ring the stables right away.
    So! Bobby had borrowed his uncle's truck for the night, and as, long
as we stayed off the 21 we weren't running the risk of getting pulled
over . . . Bobby without a license . . . me no sleep, and an enormous
lie, in my book, to my parents . . . ? Can you imagine?
    Off we went, music playing surprisingly loud and clear for the age
of the truck . . . it made me feel like it all worked. The way the trees
were blowing, the speed of the truck, the music, my nerves as I began to
undress into my birthday gift, sent via AIR MAIL from Cousin Maddy. Did
I even tell you, I talked to her for almost an hour last week? Well,
this dress is to die for, skin tight, and it came with an insert in the
breast area that allowed you, if you so desired, to lift your breasts
upwards, instead of leaving them flat the way some dresses do. Bobby
nearly killed us, when he missed a tree by a quarter inch. He said it
would have been worth it to die, with my eyes "transfixed on a bosom as
sweet as yours." Doesn't that sound like a country song or something . .
. transfixed on a bosom as sweet as yours . . . ?
    Bobby took me off to the side of the truck before we went into the
house. He kissed me, and then said it was important that I knew that
Leo, from a straw's distance, is a great guy, funny and can hold his own
in a chat. Then he shook his head in a drastic "N.O." I wanted to know
what the hell that meant, I mean what if I did what he said N.O. to?
Bobby turned around just when we got in the doorway, and he said,
"Tonight it's not important, I'm pretty sure you'll hang with me . . .
just don't ever fuck the guy. He's into some weird shit, that Leo, man .
. ." I nodded and was suddenly, unmistakably intrigued by the phrase,
"weird shit" and its sexual context. Bobby went to grab me a beer, I
guess, and Leo came up to me. Shit . . . it was there, right away.
    Both of us knew it, and he said, "Laura Palmer . . . how 'bout that?
Last time I saw you, Old Dwayne Milford was giving you a plaque or
something . . . some prize you won . . . ?" I had to interrupt him -
    /"Finest Performance/Five Consecutive Years."/
    He asked if I had proof of performance quality, and I assured him
proof was in abundance but I was about to fall asleep and die of thirst
at the same time. He called to Bobby, which I was grateful for, seeing
as how I was entering a bedroom, post warning and all.
    (Hang on, I gotta do a couple lines . . . I'm coming down and I'm
about to tell you some incredible stuff - hang on.) So I'm in this room
with Leo and Bobby, and just as we're about to pass the straw, the door
to a bathroom opens. A bathroom off the bedroom . . . and Ronnette
Pulaski walked out of it, looking like she had given up junk food, and
had started taking pretty good care of everything on her body except her
nose. She was pretty high, and just by the way Leo nodded his head
toward her and said a quick hey led me to believe this was a regular
kind of thing.
    You want to hear something freaky . . . It didn't become completely
clear to me until now, but when I went down to the spot BOB takes me . .
. and I was saying that sometimes I smelled my panties and wanted to put
my face between the legs of a girl and taste her . . . /(God, sometimes
it feels right to say, other times I can't)?/ Well I had actually just
for that moment thought of Ronnette, just because she was the only girl
aside from Donna that I had seen naked . . . we were in an assembly
together about two years ago, maybe more, and we were the only two
costume changes in the middle of the program we changed clothes . . .
and kind of smiled at one another I guess I was attracted to her somehow
. . . by the way her eyes appeared sad, but cold. I liked her