As if Twin Peaks fans need any convincing that the 7-hour audiobook version of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer narrated by Sheryl Lee is a day 1 purchase, Audible today released three preview clips including the very first diary entry and a disturbing poem by a 12-year-old Laura Palmer.
UPDATE: A fourth preview has been added below thanks to AV Club.
Pre-order the audiobook for $17.46 on Amazon, or get a discount ($14.95) with an Audible membership. New to Audible? Even better! You can get the audiobook for free with a 30-day Audible trial.
It’s also available on iTunes US and iTunes Canada.
For those outside the U.S., it’s available as an MP3 CD (Amazon) as well.
July 22, 1984
Dear Diary,
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.
July 29, 1984
Dear Diary,
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.
June 21, 1986
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.
August 6, 1986 – 4:47 AM
Dear Diary,
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.