End of Messages

You have six new voicemails.

First new voicemail, sent Thursday, April X, XXXX at 10:42 a.m.

Hey.

I know you’re avoiding my calls and that’s okay. I just wanted to call and say, you know, hey. And that I’m thinking about you.

Oh, and I’m about to do something stupid. I mean really stupid. Like jumping off a cliff because all your friends do stupid. (Actually I saw a funny thing about that on the internet and put it on my wall. Did you see it?)

Whatever. Point is I met this guy and he’s pretty awesome. And hot. Way hotter than you. And dangerous. He totally gets me in ways you never did, you know?

Why won’t you call me back? I realize things were pretty bad there for a while, but seriously. I mean, if I could, I’d go back in time. Fix it all.

Not sure how many messages this is, but...oh, Clyde says it’s time to go. Wish me luck and call me sometime if you get the chance.

*****

Next voicemail, sent Thursday, April X, XXXX at 3:16 p.m.

It’s me again, but not I’m sure what to say.

Things are pretty wild. But I’ve got a minute and I wanted to call. I’m supposed to be waiting in the car while Clyde “gets some air.” I’m making air quotes with my fingers, in case you couldn’t tell, cuz he’s really puking his guts out in a dumpster behind Turkey Lurkey. He just shot a guy and I guess it was his first time. Not that I have a problem with that. I mean, I’m not crazy. It’s just, you know, he talked a big game and it’s hard to be dangerous when you’re, you know, blowing chunks.

See, we just robbed a bank, First National down on Wells Street. I’m not really supposed to be talking about it, but I trust you. Clyde had a really good plan. Even you’d have thought so. We went in fast, wearing masks and everything and waving our guns around. Everyone dropped like Stacy Waters’s panties in a frat house.

Except this one teller.

You’d think it’d be the security guys who caused problems, but no. It was a teller, totally a creeper, completely bald, eyebrows and everything. And it was like he was trying to distract us with his mad robot moves, only he sucked. It was weird.

He wouldn’t get down. He just kept roboting toward us and saying “you don’t want to do this” over and over and when he got close, Clyde popped him.

It was totally gross, but there was way less blood than I thought there’d be. I mean, the gunshot was super loud, echoing through the lobby, but I swear I heard this weird metallic sound when it hit and like I said, there wasn’t much blood. It was more like he’d been sloppy with a hamburger.

We didn’t stick around, obviously. We grabbed our money and everything we could carry from the safety deposit boxes and ran.

And now here I am a rich girl, waiting for my man to stop pretending he’s bulimic.

Anyway, how are you? I wish you’d call. It’s not like I want to get back together or anything. I’m in love with Clyde. I mean, hello: we just robbed a bank. He even calls me Bonnie, which I think is so romantic.

But, you know. I’d like to hear from you.

Gotta run. Clyde’s coming. Call me.

*****

Next voicemail, sent yesterday at 5:24 a.m.

Um, hi. Sorry if my voice is weird, I didn’t really get any sleep and I’m kind of whispering. I guess it’s early. Hope I didn’t wake you. It’s just things are getting pretty whacked. We’re in a motel, Clyde’s asleep, and I’m in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror. I sent a pic. Sorry if I’m not, you know, totally dressed. My shirt is in the other room and I didn’t want to wake everybody up. Your brother’d probably say I’m making duckface, but you know that’s just how I look.

It’s a pretty gross motel. Off the interstate. I bet the only people who stay here are hairy truck drivers and serial killers. And bank robbers.

Anyway, remember that guy we shot? The teller? Turns out he wasn’t really a bank teller. And he wasn’t really dead. I guess he’s like, a cyborg from the future? And a time machine? I’m not even sure if I should be calling him “him.” Not sure if he's like, you know, anatomically correct.

Ew. I just imagined him as a Ken doll, all shiny and...featureless, and threw up in my mouth a little.

Anyway, he says we’re in danger, that we stole some secret future cyborg computer thing and that the other future cyborg time machines will do anything to get it back.

I was like, "We should just give it back," but the bank teller cyborg said he actually wants us to destroy it, that it is the key to freeing the future from some kind of cyborg time machine dystopia.

It sounded like one of those cheesy YA novels you’re sister’s always reading, but Clyde’s totally freaking out. It’s a good thing I love him. We are Bonnie and Clyde after all.

I think the teller’s back. I’d better go wake up Clyde so we can, you know, run from a crazed band of future cyborgs.

I wish you’d call.

Bye.

*****

Next voicemail, sent yesterday at 3:44 p.m.

Hey. Still haven’t heard from you. Guess that’s to be expected, but d’you know what today is? It’s the anniversary of the first time we held hands, remember? We were driving to that game and Jen and Dan were in the back making out, which made the fact that we liked each other really awkward and we sort of reached out at the same time and crammed our hands together.

Jen was like, “About time,” and Danny pulled his face out of her shirt long enough to say, “Yeah guys, geez. Get a room.” Remember how you squeezed my hand a little and smiled like you were thinking about doing that very thing?

I thought of it because we’ve been driving all day. Clyde’s pretty stressed, so he didn’t hold my hand. He just sort of clung to the steering wheel, but that’s okay. We’ve held hands before. We even got a room last night, technically.

Banks talked the whole time and that pretty much killed the mood anyway. He’s the bank teller cyborg time machine I told you about. I’ve been calling him Banks. Clyde keeps saying I should take the whole thing more seriously, but it’s hard to take it seriously when the guy who’s telling you about the end of the world looks like a naked mole rat and sounds like he’s talking in a glass jar all the time. He does this one thing when he’s processing or whatever and says “Ummm” and it sounds like those acapella nerds trying to imitate an elevator in a bathroom.

That’s one thing I always loved about you. You never told me to be serious. You liked my sense of humor.

Anyway, Banks spent the day trying to freak us out about this cyborg time machine apocalypse.

He was like, “They’re coming for you,” and “they won’t let you destroy their way of life,” and “stop calling me Banks.”

I guess where he comes from, the other cyborg time machines are these oppressive overlords who keep the normal people down by letting them go back in time whenever they want and change things, so they spend all their time fighting over whose timeline is better and freaking out about the fact that at any given time, someone could be screwing with the past and you’d never know cuz, you know, the past is different and that changes the present?

He said the first people who did it were all nice and stuff and claimed to be using it to, you know, help people. But I guess they were all lying and the whole thing was a disaster. He kept saying "Nothing good can come of time travel," and "I wish it had never been invented," but I guess there are all these safeguards in place to make sure no one changes things so that it never gets invented.

I didn't see the problem because you and I saw this movie once about time travel and I thought it made, like, parallel universes and stuff so it never really changed anything, but he said that’s not the way it works, that there’s one timeline and if you change it, you change it for good. I don’t know if I believe him. That movie was pretty good, but whatever. He’s the cyborg.

Except, they have some way around the one timeline thing and it has to do with the machine we stole so right now I’m in the gas station while they try to get their GPS working and find this nerdy science thing that’ll destroy the machine. I don’t know.

I hope you call me back. It seems like I’ve left a million messages and I’d love to hear your voice again. Especially if we’re all about to die.

So, yeah. Bye.

*****

Next voicemail, sent today at 7:08 a.m.

Hey, you at work?

You’ll probably wanna stay inside or get to a basement or something.

Remember that time Casey punched the bartender and when the bouncers came, Mike and Steve started hitting random people to start a real bar fight and the police came and you said it was like World War III? Well, this is like that, only, you know, worse. And with cyborg time machines. And freedom fighters from the future.

Apparently giving people a blank check to mess with the timeline is a bad idea. Banks keeps telling us what a crime it is and how going back in time to change things is one of the most selfish things a person can do. He says its forcing your will on the time stream and, you know, yada yada yada.

Not sure I buy it. I mean, it sounds pretty good to me, but he and his fellow cyborgs have certainly made an argument for how not to run things. It’s like spring break with laser cannons out here.

Of course, Clyde’s loving it. It’s like every stupid sci-fi movie and he’s right in the middle of it, blowing stuff up and being a hero.

Banks found the lab we needed to destroy the machine, but when we go there, a couple of other cyborgs had already blown it up. They were way more Cyborg-Time-Machine than Banks, with these retro leather jackets and sunglasses and tiny machines poking out of their face, which was really gross.

Banks told them they’d never get the machine and they basically shot lasers at us, which was not cool. Clyde shot one, but it sort of just laughed and started blasting us.

Banks was pretty mad. We ran a lot and I’m pretty sure I look like I did that time we went to Tijuana and you ran over my makeup bag. Remember?

Anyway, Banks was pissed and decided it was time to call in reinforcements. He pulled up his shirt and showed off this metal six pack with a breaker box thing in it. He pushed a bunch of buttons and then just disappeared. You would have thought it was cool. He sort of folded in on himself and then smeared across the air like he was paint or something getting washed away in a river.

I thought it was disturbing, but you always liked that creepy horror stuff. I was sure Clyde was going to throw up again, but he didn’t. He just kept fingering his gun, as if it was going to do anything against those cyborgs. I mean, it barely tickled Banks, but you know. Boys and their toys.

We thought Banks had ditched us, but he popped in a minute or so later with a bunch of scruffy-looking guys with laser guns of their own who I guess were from the future? Apparently, they’d been planning this rebellion for a while and we sort of sped things up when we stole the machine.

I’m sure you can see where this is going. Lasers, robots, flying cyborgs, explosions, guys screaming wildly as they throw themselves in front of laser beams, guys who shoot laser beams out of their eyes. You name it. I guess the future is pretty messed up. A lot of running and hiding and shooting. I’m under a giant donut sign right now, waiting for Clyde and Banks to get back. Banks has another plan to destroy the machine, but you know how it is. They have to spend at least twice as much time being macho as they do actually doing anything. Whatever.

You know, I think that trip to Tijuana was when things started changing for us. I always thought you were mad because of the whole makeup thing, but now I’m not so sure. I guess I said and did some pretty horrible things, didn’t I?

I’m sorry you know. I wish you’d call me back.

Oops. Looks like we’re getting ready to run again. Banks is smiling for once, so maybe we’re going to finally get rid of this thing. I’m not even sure what it does exactly. Something about a stationary data stream that keeps track of changes because it always exists before the changes happen. Who knows?

I’ll call again later if I don’t hear from you first.

I hope I hear from you first.

Bye.

*****

Last new voicemail, sent today at 10:31 a.m.

Hey. You’re not going to call me back, are you?

That’s okay. We beat the cyborgs, but Clyde’s dead. So’s Banks. One of those huge robots stepped on Clyde and dragged him like toilet paper. It was gross but I’m okay. I mean, I'm sad, but he's no you.

Banks died more nobly I guess, running through a barrage of laser fire to destroy the machine. He did it too and everybody zapped themselves back to the future to figure out what to do next. You should see the center of town. It’s like an earthquake and a meteor hit at the same time. Hard to tell we won. Makes you think maybe Banks was right.

Anyway, I don’t know why you won’t call me back, but this time, you don't have to.

I’m just calling to tell you that I love you and that I’m sitting here next to Banks’s body. I’m pretty sure he still works, if you know what I mean, and he actually he looks pretty easy to use, if you don't mind his dead eyes staring at you.

So anyway, how long ago was Tijuana?

I love you, baby.

I’m coming.

End of messages.