JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 38 из 425What’s on for the back jrty, Mike? You can play a lot of Scrabble in jrty years, go on a lot of CrosswordCruises, drink a lot of whiskey. But is that enough?
What else are you going to put on your back jrty? I didn’t want to think about that, not then. The next forty years could take care of themselves; I would be happy just to get through New Year’s Day of 1998.
When I felt I had myself under control, I went back into my study, shuffled to the computer with my eyes resolutely on my feet, felt around for the right button, and turned off the machine. You can damage the program shutting down like that without putting it away, but under the circumstances, I hardly thought it mattered. That night I once again dreamed I was walking at twilight on Lane Forty-two, which leads to Sara Laughs; once more I wished on the evening star as the loons cried on the lake, and once more I sensed something in the woods behind me, edging ever closer. It seemed my Christmas holiday was over.
That was a hard, cold winter, lots of snow and in February a flu epidemic that did for an awful lot of Derry’s old folks. It took them the way a hard wind will take old trees after an ice storm. It missed me completely. I hadn’t so much as a case of the sniffles that winter. In March, I flew to Providence and took part in Will Weng’s New England Crossword Challenge. I placed fourth and won fifty bucks. I framed the uncashed check and hung it in the living room. Once upon a time, most of my framed Certificates of Triumph (Jo’s phrase; all the good phrases are Jo’s phrases, it seems to me) went up on my office walls, but by March of 1998, I wasn’t going in there very much. When I wanted to play Scrabble against the computer or do a tourney-level crossword puzzle, I used the Powerbook and sat at the kitchen table. I remember sitting there one day, opening the Powerbook’s main menu, going down to the crossword puzzles… then dropping the cur ’two or three items further, until it had highlighted my old pal, Word What swept over me then wasn’t frustration or impotent, balked (I’d experienced a lot of both since finishing All the yfrom the p), sadness and simple longing. Looking at the Word Six icon was sud-like looking at the pictures of Jo I kept in my wallet. Studying I’d sometimes think that I would sell my immortal soul in order have her back again… and on that day in March, I thought I would soul to be able to write a story again. Go on and try it, then, a voice whispered. Maybe things have changed. Except that nothing had changed, and I knew it. So instead of openword Six, I moved it across to the trash barrel in the lower right.
corner of the screen, and dropped it in. Goodbye, old pal.
What else are you going to put on your back jrty? I didn’t want to think about that, not then. The next forty years could take care of themselves; I would be happy just to get through New Year’s Day of 1998.
When I felt I had myself under control, I went back into my study, shuffled to the computer with my eyes resolutely on my feet, felt around for the right button, and turned off the machine. You can damage the program shutting down like that without putting it away, but under the circumstances, I hardly thought it mattered. That night I once again dreamed I was walking at twilight on Lane Forty-two, which leads to Sara Laughs; once more I wished on the evening star as the loons cried on the lake, and once more I sensed something in the woods behind me, edging ever closer. It seemed my Christmas holiday was over.
That was a hard, cold winter, lots of snow and in February a flu epidemic that did for an awful lot of Derry’s old folks. It took them the way a hard wind will take old trees after an ice storm. It missed me completely. I hadn’t so much as a case of the sniffles that winter. In March, I flew to Providence and took part in Will Weng’s New England Crossword Challenge. I placed fourth and won fifty bucks. I framed the uncashed check and hung it in the living room. Once upon a time, most of my framed Certificates of Triumph (Jo’s phrase; all the good phrases are Jo’s phrases, it seems to me) went up on my office walls, but by March of 1998, I wasn’t going in there very much. When I wanted to play Scrabble against the computer or do a tourney-level crossword puzzle, I used the Powerbook and sat at the kitchen table. I remember sitting there one day, opening the Powerbook’s main menu, going down to the crossword puzzles… then dropping the cur ’two or three items further, until it had highlighted my old pal, Word What swept over me then wasn’t frustration or impotent, balked (I’d experienced a lot of both since finishing All the yfrom the p), sadness and simple longing. Looking at the Word Six icon was sud-like looking at the pictures of Jo I kept in my wallet. Studying I’d sometimes think that I would sell my immortal soul in order have her back again… and on that day in March, I thought I would soul to be able to write a story again. Go on and try it, then, a voice whispered. Maybe things have changed. Except that nothing had changed, and I knew it. So instead of openword Six, I moved it across to the trash barrel in the lower right.
corner of the screen, and dropped it in. Goodbye, old pal.