"Okay." "Begin." "My name is Nora Elizabeth Jamison Durst." "Date of birth: 11/18/1979." "This is a copy of today's paper." "I hereby indemnify all individuals for the procedure that's about to occur." "I'm of sound mind and body, and I'm acting of my own free will." " That's it." " Stop." "Something wrong?" "Nothing, it" " It's fine." "What did she say?" "She wants you to do it again." "Why do you want me to do it again?" "Because I do not believe you." "Excuse me?" "Excuse me, but you're lying." "You're just..." "You're just saying what we want to hear." "You invited me here, and then you rejected me." "But I sat outside your house all night and I followed you here, so you'd have no choice but to let me get into your machine." "So, I don't give a shit what you want to hear." "And I don't lie." "Can you say your children's names?" " What?" " Your children." "Do you think you can say their names?" "Erin and Jeremy." "I meant in your statement." "Would you like to try again?" "Okay." "My name is Nora Elizabeth Jamison Durst." "I was born on November 18th, 1979." "This is a copy of today's paper, because today is the day I'm leaving to be with them." "I'm leaving to be with my children," "Erin and Jeremy." "I'm ready to go now." "We prefer to give a more thorough orientation, but since we were in the process of moving on, you'll just have to bear with us." "Was that a person?" "It's a fossil." "The person is gone." "Maybe they'll let you keep mine." "As soon as we've administered your saline drip, you will disrobe outside the truck." "Once you are inside, you will see the event chamber at the far end." "You just walk to it." "You may experience nausea or discomfort as you pass by the undulating laser array while it cycles up." "Do not touch the array." "Step inside the event chamber, close the exit port behind you, and turn the latch to the left." "Hard to the left." "It'll stick." "Then pull your knees towards your chest and hold them there." " Okay?" " Okay." "We will be monitoring you from inside there." "Once inside the event chamber, you will be able to hear us and we will be able to hear you." "When you're ready, we will start the ignition sequence." "You will hear three tones." "After the third tone, the chamber will fill up with fluid." "The fluid will have the same consistency as water, but it is not water." "It contains metals that will be irradiated." "Once this occurs, the fluid will solidify." "Do not ingest or breathe in any of the fluid as your lungs would also solidify upon transport." "Can you hold your breath for 30 seconds?" "Yes." "Well... then that's it." "Activity." "Pole dancing." "Um, noun." "Gecko." "Gecko." "Excellent." "Okay, last one." "Man's name." "Antonio." "Antonio." "Perfect." "Okay, here we go." ""Nora Elizabeth Jamison Durst," "Age 417..."" ""...was vaporized by a consortium of international physicists last Tuesday outside Never Never Land." "Miss Durst was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt..."" " Mmm." " "..." "Where she returned after college to squeeze a family..."" ""...her spiffy husband, Doug Durst, and her beloved geese, Jeremy and Erin." "Admired by her coworkers, she was a longtime employee at the Department of the Sudden Diarrhea."" "That's disgusting." ""In her spare time," "Miss Durst enjoyed crosswords, exposing frauds, and pole dancing." "She is survived, at least temporarily, by her terminally ill gecko, Matthew Jamison."" ""As she lives on in our memories, and in the Great Antonio in the sky."" "Mm." ""There will be no funeral or memorial service."" "Mm." "Oh, God bless Matt Libs." "I couldn't ask for a better obituary." "Happy to oblige." "You sending me those things is what got me through" "Hellfire and Damnation." "The horrible Bible camp that Grandma and Pop-Pop used to send me off to in the Adirondacks?" "It wasn't Hellfire and Damnation, it was Camp Holy Spirit." "Potato, pah-ta-toe." "You were so young with the pigtails." " What were you, eight years old?" " Seven." "Do you remember what you said to me when you put me on the bus?" ""Brush your teeth"?" "You said..." "You said that I was the bravest girl on Earth." "And every time you sent me a letter with a new Matt Lib in it, that's who it was addressed to" ""The Bravest Girl on Earth."" "I forgot about that." "You drive me fucking nuts." "But you've always been a great gecko, Matt." "If I was a great gecko, I'd be trying to talk you out of this." "You're great because you're not trying." "I'm scared." "I'll be fine." "Of course you will." "You always are." "I'm scared of what'll happen when I go back to Mary." "And I'm scared of the chemicals they're going to put in my body to try and make me better, and..." "I'm scared it won't work." "I'm scared of dying, Nora." "I'm scared my son will grow up without me, forget my face, forget the sound of my voice." "But most of all, I'm scared that I'll survive." "Because if I do... how can I ever stand in front of a room full of people and convince them that I have the answers when I have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about?" "Do you want to come with me instead?" "I think, dear sister, that defeats the purpose." "What are you going to tell people about me?" "About what happened here?" "Whatever you want me to." "Are you ready?" "Of course she's ready." "She's the bravest girl on Earth." " Give it to me!" " No!" " It's mine!" " You don't need it anymore!" "Give her the blanket." "Two hands like a big girl." "Good deal." "I'm hungry, Mom." "I'm hungry!" " I'm hungry, too!" " No phones at the table." " Yours is out, too." " I'm waiting to hear about the job." " This is important, too." " I want food!" "I want food!" "I want food!" " It's coming, buddy." " I want food!" " Jeremy." "Hey." " I want food!" " I want food!" " Cut it out." "God damn it, I said two hands!" "Dr. Eden over radio:" "Nora, can you hear me?" "Yes." "Your brother is here with us." "Hello, Nora." "Hi, Matt." "I love you." "I love you, too." "We're going to begin, Nora." "I was worried you'd forgotten." "Don't usually get so many so close together." "Love is in the air." "A little extra for your trouble." "Sarah, does the name Kevin mean anything to you?" "No." "Are you sure?" "Because a man calling himself that came by yesterday." "He had a photo." "A photo of you." "Did you tell him anything?" "No, of course not." "But I think he knew I was lying." "Nora?" "Kevin." "Kevin Garvey." "I don't know if you remember me." "I was the chief of police in Mapleton." "We don't know each other really well." "We only talked a couple times, really." "There was this dance, a Christmas dance at the high school." "We just had a really nice conversation." "Yeah." "In the hallway." "I don't expect you to remember." "It was a long time ago." "What are you doing?" "Well, um, I've been kind of wandering around Australia on vacation." "I" " Just kind of getting off the grid." "You know, trying to avoid the touristy stuff." "I like to get a little lost, you know?" "Anyway, I was-- I'm in that little town down the road, and I saw you riding your bike." "And I thought to myself, "Holy shit, I think that's Nora Durst."" "And, so, I found out where you lived." "And here you are." " That's not what happened." " Sorry?" "You showed a picture of me to the nun at the convent." "That's how you found out where I lived." " Why would I have a picture of you?" " I just came from there." " She told me that you asked if I" " Are you married?" "What?" "Are you married or are you seeing somebody?" "I noticed you weren't wearing a wedding ring." "And I saw that they were having a dance in town tonight." "And when I saw you riding your bike, it reminded me... how I had always wished I had asked you to dance." "Anyway, I know it sounds crazy, but I felt a connection." "So, you know, here we are in the middle of nowhere bumping into each other, and I'm only here for the night, and I figured, uh, you know, if I didn't ask you to dance tonight..." "I'll never forgive myself." "You need to leave now." "Okay." "I get it." "A guy you barely remember shows up on your doorstep, asks you to go on a date with him, but..." "I had to try." "Please just go." "I'll be there if you change your mind." "They shut down all of Main Street, so you're not gonna be able to miss it." "It's good to see you, Nora." " Hello?" " Did you tell him?" " Nora?" " Did you tell him?" "I" " I don't understand what you're asking me." "Kevin, fucking Kevin." "He's here." " He found me." " What?" "He's" " He's there in Australia?" "Did you tell him where I was, Laurie?" "No." "No, I didn't." " Because if you did, just say so, and I" " I didn't." "We established boundaries the first time you called me." "Clear boundaries." "I don't tell you about the people here, and I don't tell the people here about you." "I would never betray that, Nora." "Then how did he find me?" "How did he say he found you?" "He said that he was here on vacation and he spotted me." "And then he came to my house, and he knocked on my door, and he acted like we were just casual acquaintances from Mapleton years back, like" " Like we were never together." "Like" " Like none of it happened." "Huh." ""Huh?" What's that mean? "Huh?"" "Well, I'm just surprised, that's all." "It's a very un-Kevin-like thing to do." "Is he crazy?" "Does he seem crazy?" "No." "He seemed happy." "Huh." "Would you please stop fucking saying that?" "Okay." "Why" " Why is he doing this?" "I don't know." "Did he say anything else?" " He asked me to a dance." " A dance?" "I guess there's a dance in town tonight, and he asked me to go." "And you don't want to?" " No." " What do you want?" "Well, I want him to leave me alone." " Then why are you calling me?" " What?" "Well, I can't make him leave you alone." "I'm half a world away, so why did you call me?" "I called you because I thought you told him where I was." "Come on, you know I didn't tell him that." "You called me because you wanted me to say it's okay to go to the dance." "I do not want to go to the fucking dance!" "Gotcha." "But if you did, it's okay." "Jesus Christ, Laurie." "Same time next week?" "Where are your beads?" " Excuse me?" " Your beads." "You need beads." " Here, take one of mine." " No, thank you." "You came." "It's a wedding." "I know." "You told me it was a dance." "People are dancing." " Were you even invited?" " Yeah, of course I was." "Um... that's Eddie." "He can take a tractor apart, put it back together blindfolded." "Allegedly." "And that's Aggie." "She was in the Army." "She left." "Too many rules." "I bumped into them at the hotel bar." "They told me if I didn't come, they'd be angry with me." "How did you find me, Kevin?" "I'm on vacation in Australia." "I saw you ride by on your bike." "This is the middle of nowhere." "Why would you come here on vacation?" "My father came Down Under a while back and told me it was an amazing place, so I just wanted to see for myself." "So, you're saying you've never been here before." "This is your first time in Australia." "Uh-huh." "You're really gonna keep this up?" "Keep what up?" "So, you and me, we only talked that one time at that Christmas dance in Mapleton." " Yeah." " Mm-hmm." "What about the courthouse?" "We got our divorces on the same day and ran into each other." "I asked you to go to Miami." " You asked me to go to Miami?" " Miami." "Yes." "But we were strangers?" "Yes." "And you're giving me a hard time about inviting you to a dance?" "It's a wedding." "You must have me confused with someone else." "Because if you asked me to go to Miami with you," "I definitely would've gone." "I love Miami." "So" " So, you never left?" "You've been a cop in Mapleton all this time?" "Uh-huh." "Then you knew my brother, Matt Jamison." "I was hoping you were gonna come to the funeral." "We said our goodbyes in person." "It was a beautiful service." "Over 400 people came." "Mary gave the eulogy." "She really loved him." "There was a lot to love." "How are Jill and Tom?" "You remember my kids' names?" "Yeah." "I remember." "It's a little creepy, but I am impressed." "Jill's great." "She married a great guy." "They have a daughter together." "Penelope." "About a year old now." "And I'm a fucking grandpa." "Tommy's marriage didn't work out so great." "But he landed on his feet, like he always does." " What about you?" " Me?" "Did you ever get married again?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I'm still holding a candle for you." "I find that hard to believe." "My mom died when I was nine." "My dad never remarried, so..." "People hold candles, Nora." " How is your dad?" " He's fantastic." "Jesus!" " He's 91 and he's still kicking." " He must be immortal." "Oh, runs in the family, right?" " I'm not immortal." " Oh?" "Says who?" "My cardiologist." "I had a condition." "It was undiagnosed my whole life." "A couple years back, I had a heart attack." "A pretty-- pretty bad one." "But if they hadn't diagnosed the condition, then I wouldn't have known I had had it, and blah, blah, blah, so..." "They just cut me open, put in a pacemaker." " Really?" " Yeah, really." "Wanna see my scar?" "She came!" "You said she wouldn't come." "Oh, I'm just as surprised as you are." " Oops." " Aggie, this is Nora." " Nora, this is Aggie." " Congratulations." " He didn't think you were coming." " Yeah, you mentioned that." "Nice of you to get all dressed up for my wedding." "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was a wedding." "I'm just fucking with you." "She's very serious." "Yeah." "Wouldn't have it any other way." "All right, that's enough chitchat." "Did you write your messages?" "I gave mine to the nun." "Hi." "What about you, sweetheart?" "Want to write a message of love to send out to the world?" "No, thank you." "And she's a romantic, too." "All right, let's get these over with!" "Where the fuck's Eddie?" "What did you tell her about us?" "I told her I had a crush on a girl and I wanted to chase after her, but I didn't know what to say." "All right, everyone, settle down." "I'm talking now!" "Oi!" "Listen up, fuckwits!" "All right, dearest family, beloved friends, and Russell." "Oi!" "Eddie and I just wanna thank you all for being here on our special day to drink our alcohol free of charge." "Sweetheart, I am so happy that we're gonna spend the rest of our lives together." "And now that you've married me, I have a confession." "I think I might be pregnant." " No!" " Not to worry, love." " It's yours, probably." " Oh!" "All right, let's get to the ooey-gooey." "We have gathered your notes and attached them to these beautiful birds." "And now we are going to set them free so they can fly off to every corner of the world, spreading those messages of love to people everywhere." "Aw!" "All right, Sister." "Release the birds!" "What did you write?" "That's for me to know and some lonely Eskimo to find out." "Isn't that romantic, eh?" "Yeah, let's hear it for the love birds!" "Whoo!" "See, if only life was just about love." "But it's about temptation." "It's about failure." "It's about weakness." "You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Sister?" "It's about sin, yeah." "And everybody here knows I've made my fair share of mistakes, but there is a very big difference between a sin and a mistake." "Because a mistake is just fucking up, hmm?" "But a sin-- hoo-hoo." "A sin is when you know something is wrong and you do it anyway." "So, Aggie, my darling wife, my sun and my stars," "I look forward to a lifetime of fucking up with you." "But I hereby swear I will never sin again." "Aw!" "Now bring out that fucking goat!" "Yeah!" "Hello!" "In biblical times, a goat was designated to be driven into the desert with the sins of the community upon it." "So let these beads represent our sins." "Unburden yourselves, friends." "Then Russell will drive the scapegoat deep into the bush, far from here, so we can start over untainted by our past mistakes." "At least they didn't sacrifice it." "Have you ever seen somebody sacrifice a goat?" "No." "That'd be weird." "Three, four." " One, two, three, four." " Al, don't count, don't say four, 'cause I'm gonna be on you." "How did you find me, Kevin?" "I'm on vacation in Australia." "I can't do this." "Why not?" "Because it's not true." "Evening." " Sarah." " What did you do with my birds?" "I let them go just like I always do." "What's wrong?" "What's wrong is that they didn't come back." "Did you give them the seed that I gave you?" "Yes, of course." "And" " And you didn't feed them right before you let them go, did you?" "No, of course not." "I did everything the same." " Then where are they?" " I don't know." "Those birds are trained to do one thing, just one thing, and that's to come home, so you must've done something different." "Maybe they're delivering the messages of love." "It's great that your newlyweds believe that a bird with a range of 50 miles is gonna carry their stupid poetry to Timbuktu, but don't sell that bullshit to me." "I'm not trying to sell you anything." "It's just a nicer story." "Who was that man?" "What man?" "The man I just saw leaving." "You mean Father Brian." "He's the only man permitted in the convent." "Does Father Brian ride a motorcycle?" " No." " Well, this man did." "And he was climbing a ladder down from that room right up there." "Oh, well, that's strange." "Is that your room?" "It might be." "But I certainly haven't seen any men on ladders." "You just had sex with him." " Oh, no, I didn't." " You did." " Did not." " Then swear to God." "All right." "I swear to God." "You're a fucking liar!" "I saw you dancing with that man." "That man you said you didn't know." "I'll pray for the safe return of your birds." "Don't waste your breath." "Oh, God." "Oh, God." "Ah!" "Oh, shh, shh, shh..." "I know." "Okay." "Shh." "Hey, you hungry?" "Hey!" "Eat this, you idiot." "Here." "Come on." "_" "_" "_" "_" "You wanna know how I found you, Nora?" "You want the truth?" "When Matt told me you were gone, I didn't believe him." "Or I couldn't." "I just" " I had this feeling that you were still alive... and that I would see you again." "And then-- then Matt died and you weren't even at the funeral." "And that should've convinced me, but I couldn't believe the last time I saw you or talked to you was in that fucking hotel room that night I burned his fucking book." "I was so sure you were still alive, even though everyone else in the world said that you were fucking dead." "God, I..." "I had to do something about it." "So I decided that I was gonna look for you." "I was gonna start right where I lost you." "Every year, I have two weeks of vacation, and every year, I come to fucking Australia and I show your picture to everybody I meet." ""Do you know this woman?" "Have you ever seen her before?"" "And they all just look at me and they shake their heads and they say," ""Oh, I'm sorry."" "Everybody's so fucking sorry." "But I couldn't stop." "Every year, I would say to myself," ""I can't do this." "I'm not doing this." "Never again."" "But every year, I would come back." "Because..." "Because I couldn't stop." "And a couple days ago..." "I showed your picture to that nun... and I saw it in her eyes." "She recognized you." "She knew you." "And when I saw you..." "I couldn't believe it." "There you were." "And I was so..." "Oh, but I didn't know what to say or where to start, and so I just thought, "Oh, fuck it." "I'll erase it." "Just erase it all and maybe that would give us another chance."" "But you were right." "It's not true." "That's how I found you, Nora." "I..." "I refused to believe you were gone." "You want some tea?" "What?" "I was gonna make a cup of tea." "You want some?" "Okay." "You want one?" "No." "I quit." "Heart." "So, that part is true?" "Mm-hmm." "That part is true." "What else is true?" "Everything I said about Matt's funeral." "Everything I told you about Jill and Tommy... my father." "Did you move back to Mapleton?" "No." "Still in Jarden." "In our house." "Anyone still call it Miracle?" "Not so much." "How are the Murphys?" "Uh, Michael's pretty much running the church now." "I see Erika there every once in a while." "She's great." "And John and Laurie still live next door." "I talk to Laurie sometimes." " What?" " Every once in a while." "Just when I need to." " She knows you're here?" " Don't be mad at her." "She's my therapist." "She wasn't allowed to tell you." "Why didn't you tell me?" "Because you were right, Kevin." "What you said in the hotel, the last time we saw each other." "I needed to be with my kids." "Oh, no, I didn't mean that" "You meant it, and you were right, Kevin." "There were always gonna be bulletproof vests, hugs from holy men... tattoos to cover up." "But those were just ways to deal with what I lost." "I needed a way to get them back." "I knew there was a chance it would kill me, but I made my peace with that." "And I said goodbye to my brother... and I climbed right in." "And then you changed your mind." "No." "I didn't change my mind." "I went through." "I was in the parking lot, naked... curled up like a baby." "It was the same parking lot I'd just been in, except there were no trucks... no people, no nothing." "It was cold, so I started to walk." "I walked by empty houses... abandoned buildings." "And I found a store, so I went in and there were clothes there-- clothes hanging on racks-- so I got dressed and I got back to walking." "I walked long enough to convince myself that I was the only thing alive in that place." "And then night came, and I saw lights, so I went to them." "It was a house, and there was a man and a women there." "They were kind and they told me... the man told me that seven years earlier, he was in a supermarket and every single person disappeared except for him." "And the women told me that she lost her husband, her three daughters, and all eight of her grandchildren." "And that's when I understood." "Over here, we lost some of them." "But over there, they lost all of us." "So, I went and did what I came there to do." "I went to find my kids." "Planes don't really fly over there." "They have enough resources, just not enough pilots." "So, I found a boat that would take me." "No boats go directly from Australia to New York, so it took me a long time to get there." "A long time." "But I finally did." "And I walked through Mapleton." "I walked through the town where I grew up... where my parents died, and Matt." "Where you and I met." "Most of the houses were overgrown with weeds, but the streetlights still turned on at night, and that made me feel less stupid about expecting them to still be there." "Still there in the very same house where I lost them." "When I got there, I stood behind a tree across the street and I waited because I was too scared to go up and knock." "And then, after a while, the door opened." "At first, I didn't recognize them." "A tall teenage boy... with curly hair... and a girl, maybe 11." "They were my children." "And then my husband came out, and he was with a woman." "She was pretty." "She was pretty, and they were all smiling." "They were... happy." "And I understood that here in this place, they were the lucky ones." "In a world full of orphans, they still had each other." "And I was a ghost." "I was a ghost who had no place there." "And that, Kevin, is when I changed my mind." "The physicists who sent me through told me the first person to use the machine was the guy who invented it." "His name was Dr. Van Eeghen." "I'm pretty sure they were making fun of me, but they said when I went over that I should look him up, so I did." "That took a long time, too." "But I found him and I asked him to make another machine because he already knew how." "And he asked me if I had come all that way, why in God's name did I wanna go back?" "And I told him it's because I didn't belong there." "So, he built it." "And I came back through." "I came back here." "Did I... think about you?" "Did I wanna call you?" "Did I wanna be with you, Kevin?" "Of course I did." "But so much time had passed." "It was too late." "And I knew that if I told you what happened... that you would never believe me." "I believe you." "You do?" "Why wouldn't I believe you?" "You're here." "I'm here."