Preface
Ever wonder why a preface is called a preface? Probably not, but I’ll tell you anyway. The word preface means “An introduction to a book, typically stating its subject, scope, or aims.” Fascinating, isn’t it?
The cold air blew past me. I walked through the dark yard in the direction of the black Porsche. The sky was a shade of dark grey, and very few stars lit up the sky. I walked over to the car and got in. The weather was cold,
the car was cold, and the male sitting next to me was cold. A very quiet and solemn boy, I never left his side, and he never left mine. I don’t know why I hung out with these bozos. Most of them were always trying to put their arm around me or something ‘smooth’ like that. Of course, after they did something like that, I started avoiding them. By now, there was only this guy. This guy named Peter. Peter means rock. Did you know that? Fascinating, isn’t it? Peter and I are totally compatible, in an incompatible kind of way. Peter is not in any way interested in me the way other guys are, and I am not in any way interested in him the way other girls are. In fact, we are not particularly interested in each other at all. We rather dislike each other. Well, not each other so much as the people we hang out with. Peter is rather hateful of all the male bozos I used to hang out with, and I am not very fond of the one female he hangs out with: me. Well, technically I’m fine with myself, I just don’t like that I’m Peter’s only friend. Or rather, his only ‘acquaintance.’ Peter and I spend every second of every day together. However, we have not spoken a word to each since the day we met, and the only word we spoke then was, “Hello.” It is not because we are mad at each other or something, we just...don’t like talking. You see, Peter and I live in a parallel universe. We can drive by a simple oak tree and we will suddenly start making an entire novel about something that happened at that tree in our heads. People who think like that hate to be interrupted. So we don’t speak because we are much too busy thinking. Also, although we have never spoken to each other, (other than the hello,) we know everything about each other. We have never told each other about our parallel universes, never said that we had one, never mentioned that we weren’t fond of each other’s hobbies and (my) friends, but we know it is true. When you spend every second of every day with someone for twelve years, and your selves are so similar that they should be one, you know these things about that person. It’s just a given. Peter and I live in a duplex and leave video chat on our computers all night so that we are always ‘together.’ It’s funny, we slightly dislike each other, but we cannot bear to live a second without each other.
Part 1
He came to my bedroom door at 3:00 am and knocked on it. I woke up and looked out to see him standing there. I grabbed my sweater and opened the door. He had already started walking away in the direction of his car. He got in the car and started the engine. I swung the door open and got into the car, too. He started to drive away from the house. I did not ask where we were going,and not just because we never spoke to each other. I simply didn’t need to know. Most ordinary people would open the door, ask why he was at their door at “3:00 am in the frickin’ morning!” and when he told them he wanted to take them with him somewhere, they would ask where they were going. I am not an ordinary person. Neither is Peter. I trust him with all my heart, though I have no particular reason why I should, other than that nothing bad had ever happened other times he took me places at 3:00 in the morning. Or any other time for that matter. He pulled up to a long driveway and stopped the car. He got out and went to get the mail from an old metal mailbox. I stared up the driveway at the haunted-looking mansion at the top, and millions of stories rushed through my head. I’m sure that even more stories than that went through Peter’s head, since he knew more about the place than I did. He got back in the car and drove up a mountain path. The sun was starting to come up at the top of the mountain, and we got out of the car and lay on the soft, dew covered grass and stared up into the dimly lit sky, letting all the dreams and ideas rush through our heads. Eventually, Peter’s watch alarm went off and we headed back home to get ready for school. I got about two hours of sleep that night. Peter had stayed at my house while I worked until 1:00 in the morning on an essay I had forgotten about, and then he had woken me up at 3:00 in the morning to do who knows what.
The halls of the school were completely empty when we got there, which was not surprising, as it was 6:00 am. Peter and I leaned against the walls and made up stories about school kids in our minds. The other students eventually came in and, as usual, ignored us leaning there against the walls, wearing dark black clothes with hair that seemed it should be for a god. At first, the students had been fascinated by us. Then they started to get crushes on us. After that, they started to think we had some kind of mental illness or were seriously whacked or something. Some kid considered that we were vampires, like the ones in the Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer, because we were beautiful, pale, and had compelling traits. Eventually, they just grew tired of us and pretended we didn’t exist. That is, until the new kid arrived. Her name was Sadie Swan. The kid who had thought we were vampires was all obsessed with her because her last name was Swan, and some character in the Twilight books apparently had that last name. Sadie was more interested in Peter and I than that kid. She asked other kids about us, and they would say, “Oh, those are just the Cullens.” They always called us that, either to mess with the Twilight kid’s mind, or because they actually thought that we were vampires or something. “How come you guys never talk to each other?” Sadie asked one day. “We are imaginators,” Peter said. “Imaginators seclude themselves from all the silly needs of normal people and travel to other universes where the whole world is a novel,” he finished. “If you wanted to be left alone, you could have just said it,” Sadie replied. I snickered as she walked away. She had no idea how true Peter’s statement had been. We walked into our classroom when the bell rang. We had the same schedule, which was very convenient with our never-separate plan. Most students spent the whole class period staring at the clock. I did too, except in my mind I was forming a story about the clock stopping and all time freezing, leaving only Peter and I unfrozen. The day went by in a breeze, as it usually did. You might think that always making up stories might get old after a while. You’re very right.
To be continued...
© 2009
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