A Pale Existence

A PALE EXISTENCE

Gillian Paige

Published by inGroup Press, a division of inGroup Marketing, LLC. Smashwords Edition.

A PALE EXISTENCE. Copyright © 2010 by Gillian Paige. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including but not limited to recording, photocopying, file transfer, e-mail, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For more information, address inGroup Press.

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First inGroup Press electronic edition published 2010.

ISBN: 9781935725008

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I dedicate this book to Emily, for all of your love and devotion, and for supporting this book since it was just an idea

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PART I

The Journey

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Chapter 1. Amelie

What car do I want to die in?

So many choices. As a city girl I’ve never cared much for cars. Maybe it’s because they’re such a bother in the city. Stop-and-go traffic, expensive garages, parallel parking, car theft—close calls with taxi cabs. I’ve been there. So who can blame me for not being thrilled to be at a car dealership, in my final two or three days on Earth? I wish they had a train that went where we’re going. Instead I have to give twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars to a huge corporation. But that’s what happens when you choose to end your life in a place where no buses choose to go. Somewhere that’s too far to hitchhike—where one would be lucky to glance up into the sky and see an airplane. Or see anything at all.

I don’t see gray cars here, only silver. Silver and dark metallics. Whatever happened to pastels? Of the four of us, Sam has the most bags. Three or four, I think—it was a disaster lugging them into the taxi. The driver wasn’t of much help. I think he was surprised we weren’t going to the airport. I know he was expecting that. I think I overheard him ask Sam what terminal we were going to.

Am I picking one? Sam asks, I assume to me but she may also be talking to Bri, although I don’t know how this could be Bri’s decision.

Oh, I don’t know anything about cars. Of course you don’t. Bri has on her big white sunglasses and her black heels. I don’t know why she’s wearing heels at the car dealership. As if she isn’t tall enough? Hopefully the salesman won’t be too short. I’d hate to be a short car salesman, selling to an Amazonian like Bri.

"Well, it depends which—I suppose you can, though, I’d like some input. I’d like to have some say, after all this is an important car. It’s the last car that we’ll all ever ride in, you know." And that it was. This would be our very last car—the only thing on the planet that can take us to the dark place we’re traveling to.

Bri, why don’t you go flirt with one of the salespeople and get us a discount? Sam’s comment makes me laugh. I give Sam this look that tells her ‘dear, be nice,’ and concurrently ‘keep going, this is fun.’

I’m going to sit down and read. I’m sure they have a little waiting area.

She has a schoolgirl smile. If only she knew how I really feel about her, or how I think I feel about her—or do at times. I think that sometimes I imagine myself as this awful demagogical bitch. And it works, for some reason. Maybe because I’ve seen it in too many new, sassy movies. Or too many old black and whites. And even though these characters—the ones I think I identify with sometimes—were always lonely in the beginning, they always seemed to work things out in the end. Usually.

Strange choice of time to smoke? Bri is gone and Sam is staring at the butt of my cigarette. I only like the thin white kind. I don’t smoke often. God, I don’t even know how it began or why I still do it.

"We have a few days till we reach the Forest, right? Lung Cancer won’t kill me in three days."

Sam smiles in this silly way, maybe how one would smile at birds who they’ve just tossed some seeds at. I can’t help but see some condescension within those curvatures of the mouth. I don’t understand Sam. I don’t understand the way that she is kept together. Sometimes I watch her—and maybe worry about her—the way I would a stack of papers on a bench in the middle of a windy park. I don’t know how this girl doesn’t blow away.

It’s such a gray day, which I suppose is appropriate given the circumstances. Maybe God set the weather for me. He knew that Amelie Windsor would be shopping for her hearse, and so he prepared this army of aluminum, plastic, and rubber. I wonder how all of these metallics would look under a clear blue sky. Instead they look like a nighttime army, all indifferent and none unique enough to justify using the word unique. I suppose there’s no chance of going to a different lot. Time has become increasingly precious in these final few days.

There’s a muscle car that isn’t awful. I know we’re going to end up with a minivan, or van of some sort. Hopefully not one of those big white ones that electricians drive, which house those people in movies who park near the protagonist’s house and spy on the family. I wonder if anyone will want to decorate it. Actually I wouldn’t mind—not that we really have time to do so, but I wouldn’t vehemently oppose such an idea. I’d never suggest it.

I think I need something with windows on all sides and in the back. If it’s breezy and I feel like opening the windows to get fresh air then I need to be able to do so.

That’s a hot muscle car over there.

Sam’s looking at the one that I just looked at. It’s not bad.

"Yeah, it’s not, you know—."

It’s not entirely terrible. I feel as if I knew some asshole in high school who drove this exact same car but obviously an older model. The more I look at it I get a cold bias against it.

SUV or minivan?

"Oh God—though, an SUV—that might be interesting. You know, non-environmentalist and all, leaving it in the Forest. Letting nature clean itself of man-made destructions. Hmph."

They’re so pompous though.

"You drive one," I have to remind Sam because she contradicts herself all the time. I don’t think she realizes how good my memory is and that I remember everything she says to me. Or maybe she does and just likes to play with me. I think that’s it.

I should’ve just stolen one of the fire trucks.

I laugh at this. How cute it would be to ride into the Forest in a fire truck. How obnoxiously vociferous! We could turn the siren on and ride at a steady fifteen miles per hour.

"Very inconspicuous, I sarcastically add. Monster truck, perhaps?"

I make Sam laugh, which still excites me. I like these giddy infatuations. This is why relationships don’t work for me, because from the moment I meet someone they are given an expiration date. But that’s how passion works, right? Or—that’s how people work. It’s odd—truly—that I love things that are old, but don’t value relationships unless they’re new.

Wouldn’t be conducive to your poetry.

True. My book of poetry. The final book of poetry that I will ever write, over the next three days as we drive into the Forest of the People of the Hell God, hidden in the mountains and forests of West Virginia, a whisper among the regional well-traveled. Sam was the one who found this place. Or maybe I did—after spending too many long nights browsing the Internet, looking at strange websites and odd vacation spots, which after too many drinks became haunted tourist attractions. The Forest—with its juvenile name and odd history—seemed like the best choice for us.

I hope the public doesn’t make a big stink about the whole thing, but I feel as if my methods make the postmortem fanfare unavoidable. Maybe they’ll donate my commission from the book of poetry to a good cause. Right.

"Let’s just do a minivan and get it the fuck over with."

What color?

"Oh God—."

I don’t give a damn what color the minivan is. Although, light blue would be nice.

"Do they have a light blue? A blue bubblegum of some sort, post-chewed—perhaps, that wouldn’t be so awful. I could write in a chewed blueberry bubblegum car, with windows and lots of sunlight."

I’ve seen a couple cute ones, cars, of that color, recently.

That’s really gay. We’re going to take a light blue minivan into the Forest of the People of the Hell God? Shit, they’ll kill us before we even get out of the car.

"Well—the point is suicide, regardless of when—how—it happens. I prefer light blue. You asked me, and I answered."

I wish Sam had a larger chest.

Fine, you’re the one paying for it. Let’s buy it and go pick up this chick.

I’m supposed to meet Allison at a nearby diner in a couple hours, considering the robots working at the car dealership don’t waste half my day with their menial processes. I’m paying cash. No loans, leases, et cetera.

Tell me about her.

"Allison? I assume that Sam is talking about Allison. Delightful. Big fan of mine. She’s the one with the whole husband and child thing—."

Gotcha, Sam interrupts me. You mentioned her once before, I just didn’t know that she was the fourth. Let’s get this blue minivan and get the fuck out of here. Any special vehicle requests?

I sit on this one for as long as possible. There’s an ugly maroon car, a four-door one. Why the hell would someone buy a maroon car? Sam’s question. I don’t fucking know.

"Oh God, Sam—how the hell do I know, I don’t even have a driver’s license. Maybe seat warmers? Is that too fancy? A sun roof would be—or is it called a moon roof? I know there’s a distinction, but I don’t know what it is."

"A moon roof and seat warmers and you’re Oh God’ing me," Sam says. Excuse me, bitch.

"Something with plenty of room in the back for those lonely moments," I add and smile the right way at her, and I catch her eye and pull her in and she returns the same look.

You want me to fuck you here? Let’s go find a van, I bet they’re all open.

"Here—in the—?" Are you crazy? I can feel my face and neck getting red and so I turn away quickly.

Right in the dealership. Or we’ll roll underneath one of these cars and I’ll eat you out.

"Sam," shit, shit, I’m blushing. I’m halfway into trying to formulate a new sentence and she’s pulling me by the wrist. Her fingers are coarse, unlike mine, unlike other girls who I’ve been with. There are so many reasons why I love being with her. Why she touches me and my resistance collapses, and I want to dig my fingers through my hair and grind my lower back like—it’s this unbelievable sensation, one of the rare moments that I feel sexy. Not dirty. Sexy.

"Fuck, Sam, you’re going to—." Her hand is already into my jeans and we’re down in-between two minivans. As she chews on the top of my jeans, working down to my bush where she’s probably—I suppose, she said she was going to eat me out, so I assume that’s what’s going to happen—one of the minivans is the light blue that I like. I shouldn’t say that during sex.

So what’s wrong with girl number four?

Her tongue dips in-between my jeans and—fuck, oh fuck if we get caught—I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, we’ll be dead in three days.

"What?"

Girl number four? She waits to respond, doesn’t answer right away. I can see her eyes now, and it’s uncomfortable because I don’t like when girls look at me while hovering over my pussy. It’s just awkward.

I think carefully before answering her. "Tragically average," I manage as she dips her tongue back inside of me.

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Chapter 2. Allison

I feel like such an idiot. I—don’t really know what to expect. Or, I mean, she—well I didn’t expect this diner. That’s for sure. I—like I’ve known about her habits and that she’s peculiar and all and like have talked with her a little but a roadside diner was not expected. I don’t even know what I’m going to say. She’s going to be able to see right through me. She must, right? Somebody who spends every day just reading people and thinking about people in order to write about them—nobody that good at writing, at poetry, is going to be fooled by my sad act. She’s going to know just from this stupid lunch that I’m a journalist trying to latch onto her little suicide publicity stunt in order to sell a book and write about her. She’s going to know that it’s all about money. I think that’s the difference between the people who write for money and the people who write because it’s all they know how to do. It’s like two entirely different species, and I think they can tell the difference between one another. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with this though, with doing it for money. For a Pulitzer. For recognition…I’m sure that Amelie does some of this for recognition. She must think about herself, about the people who are going to read her and praise her, and put her in high school and college syllabi.

The tables are of this oak color with little brown lines—not very noticeable, like a natural brown line, that we’re so used to brown on an oak background that it doesn’t even look brown anymore, it just looks like oak, and we know that it has lines. This reminds me of the furniture at my parents’ house. It was all like this. I like real dark woods, and they had lots of light woods. It seemed kind of cheap, but—well I shouldn’t say that, because the new high-end lofts all have that light oak—or maple, maybe it’s maple—wood with the stainless steel handles and the big refrigerator, like the one we had at my fiancé’s, that—well I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t take anything from that house. I don’t like my new fridge, the black one. I will probably buy a new one eventually. I just don’t know what the hell to do with this one.

I really need to write a book. That’s where it’s at. I don’t think that I’m bad at being a journalist, but I want to be one of those journalists who writes books, because I think I have a lot of interesting things to put out there. I mean like this, well—if this works out, with Amelie, I’ll have a lot to write about. I don’t want to be a one-time writer though. I want to write about wild things like this, and I need to write this story before I write about my life story. Or not my life story, really, but about what happened to me not long before this trip. It wasn’t long, really—after I lost my fiancé and my baby—when I wrote to Amelie Windsor. I didn’t know I’d be going on a suicide trip at that point. I just needed to write her. She was there—not when I lost my fiancé and child, but she was part of that night, even though she doesn’t know who I am. Who I really am.

What put me here, at this table with its loopy orange seats and oak tables, waiting for a crazy poet who is leading a pilgrimage of death? God, if you’re up there, let me get this book. I remember that Faulkner quote about writing. Kill your darlings. I found it after I moved into my new place. Once my life fell apart and I was browsing online message boards for writers, looking for inspiration. Looking for a Pulitzer. This was before Amelie told me about the trip. I still don’t know why I agreed. I don’t even know if the book will be worth it, but somewhere—deep within me—I can feel the seeds of success being planted.

This is the first time I’ve seen Amelie in person and she looks like a hipster vampire. I can’t think of any other way to describe her. She’s walking towards me in the diner. She has no expression, no emotion, but she doesn’t walk like a zombie though, she’s walking like she’s about to come kill me and then turn around and walk right back out of the diner, which may just happen if she realizes who I really am. She’s pale, shit, very pale, you’d think she was locked up in her house all day. I guess maybe she is, I don’t know, or it’s bad genetics. I wonder what it would be like if she tried to go tanning. I shouldn’t say bad, not everyone can get tan, some people are just very pale to begin with.

Once I start something I can’t stop—in fact I think it’s hard enough for other people to stop me let alone for me to stop myself. So I can’t get up and walk away, even if I want to. And this is not about becoming stronger, because that’s not why I’m here. I’m here because I have to be. Because I lost my child and my life, and I need to quickly re-route otherwise I run the risk of settling for something short of what I’ve always wanted, always aspired towards. My brain is like a calculator operated by a crazy sort of logic. But it knows what I’m capable of. And it knows my limits. This is not beyond me.

Allison, she doesn’t even really look at me, or take her sunglasses off. Now she does, that she’s fully seated. She speaks a little higher-pitched than I would have expected. It’s more feminine. We’ve only had email transactions. I kind of expected her to have a deeper voice, or a British accent, even though she isn’t British, which is kind of weird. She has that look to her. If she were to tell people she was English and do an accent I bet they’d believe it. I don’t think her body fits her voice.

"Hi Amelie." I don’t know if I should shake her hand or not. If that’s expected. The circumstances are so strange. I offer a goofy handshake and now she’s pausing at me like I just spilled a drink all over myself, and I feel like an idiot, and finally now she’s shaking my hand but it’s in a sad sort of way. I’m sorry, I guess morbid self-loathing poets don’t shake hands.

You look just as I’d expected.

I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. I think it’s an insult, but I can’t be sure. I don’t know why she’d be insulting me, I mean I just met her for the first time and I’ve agreed to this stupid trip and all.

"You too, I mean I’ve seen you of course. Your picture. Since you’re famous and all."

The other girls are in the car. They weren’t hungry, and I don’t imagine we’ll be long here. She mentioned in the emails that there would be four of us total. So, I briefly told you about the—?

I’m waiting for her to finish the sentence but she looks at me as if she’s already finished, which makes for an awkward few seconds.

"Uh, yes, a little bit. We’re going to the Forest of the People of the Hell God?"

She smiles at me in this weird way, I don’t know what the fuck is on her mind. Oh—what the fuck did I get myself in to?

This is about group suicide, not the Forest. We’re going to—. You’re familiar with my poetry.

She waits again and looks at me, I didn’t think it sounded like a question.

"Of course."

I’m composing a final masterpiece, of sorts. I’ve—, and for the first time since she sat down I can see some vulnerability, "I’m