Different Seasons - Stephen King [260]
Oh, he knew what I had meant to ask; I saw it in his grey eyes.
Where do all these things come from? I had meant to ask. Oh, I know well enough where you come from, Stevens; that accent isn't Dimension X, it's pure Brooklyn. But where do you go? What has put that timeless look in your eyes and stamped it on your face? And, Stevens-- where are we RIGHT THIS SECOND?
But he was waiting for my question.
I opened my mouth. And the question that came out was: 'Are there many more rooms upstairs?'
'Oh, yes, sir,' he said, his eyes never leaving mine. 'A great many. A man could become lost In fact, men have become lost. Sometimes it seems to me that they go on for miles. Rooms and corridors.'
'And entrances and exits?'
His eyebrows went up slightly. 'Oh yes. Entrances and exits.' He waited, but I had asked enough, I thought -I had come to the very edge of something that would, perhaps, drive me mad.
"Thank you, Stevens.'
'Of course, sir.' He held out my coat and I slipped into it.
'There will be more tales?'
'Here, sir, there are always more tales.'
That evening was some time ago, and my memory has not improved between then and now (when a man reaches my age, the opposite is much more likely to be true), but I remember with perfect clarity the stab of fear that went through me when Stevens swung the oaken door wide-the cold certainty that I would see that alien landscape, cracked and hellish in the bloody light of those double suns, which might set and bring on an unspeakable darkness of an hour's duration, or ten hours, or ten thousand years. I cannot explain it, but I tell you that world exists-I am as sure of that as Emlyn McCarron was sure that the severed head of Sandra Stansfield went on breathing. I thought for that one timeless second that the door would open and
Stevens would thrust me out into that world and I would then hear that door slam shut behind me forever.
Instead, I saw 35th Street and a radio-cab standing at the curb, exhaling plumes of exhaust. I felt an utter, almost debilitating relief.
'Yes, always more tales,' Stevens repeated. 'Goodnight, sir.' Always more tales.
Indeed there have been. And, one day soon, perhaps I'll tell you another.
The End
Table of Contents
RITA HAYWORTH AND SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION
APT PUPIL
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
15
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
THE BODY
1
2
3
5
7
8
9
10
13
14
15
16
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
THE BREATHING METHOD
1: The Club
2: The Breathing Method
3: The Club