Friday, November 20, 2020

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Cort.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 5.



Bravo, Roland! Cort cried in his mind, and Roland seemed to feel the swat of that hard, callused hand. He winced.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 5.



He considered it as he sat stupidly on the sand in front of the closed door with his wounded hand in his lap. The first faint traceries had appeared above his elbow now. The infection would reach his heart soon enough, no doubt about that.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Door.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 4.



The gunslinger walked slowly back to the other side of what wasn't there, already thinking it had been a hallucination to start with, a -

He stopped.

At one moment he had been looking west at an uninterrupted view of a gray, rolling wave, and then his view was interrupted by the thickness of the door. He could see its keyplate, which also looked like gold, with the latch protruding from it like a stubby metal tongue. Roland moved his head an inch to the north and the door was gone. Moved it back to where it had been and it was there again. It did not appear; it was just there.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Door.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 4.



Open it then. It's not locked. You know it's not locked.

Instead he tottered gracelessly to his feet and walked above the door and around to the other side.

There was no other side.

Only the dark gray strand, stretching back and back. Only the waves, the shells, the high-tide line, the marks of his own approach - bootprints and holes that had been made by his elbows. He looked again and his eyes widened a little. The door wasn't here, but its shadow was.

He started to put out his right hand - oh, it was so slow learning its new place in what was left of his life - dropped it, and raised his left instead. He groped, feeling for hard resistance.

If I feel it I'll knock on nothing, the gunslinger thought. That would be an interesting thing to do before dying!

His hand encountered thin air far past the place where the door - even if invisible - should have been.

Nothing to knock on.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Door.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 4.



It stood six and a half feet high and appeared to be made of solid ironwood, although the nearest ironwood tree must grow seven hundred miles or more from here. The doorknob looked as if it were made of gold, and it was filigreed with a design which the gunslinger finally recognized: it was the grinning face of the baboon.

There was no keyhole in the knob, above it, or below it.

The door had hinges, but they were fastened to nothing - or so it seems, the gunslinger thought. This is a mystery, a most marvellous mystery, but does it really matter? You are dying. Your own mystery - the only one that really matters to any man or woman in the end - approaches.

All the same, it did seem to matter.

This door. This door where no door should be. It simply stood there on the gray strand twenty feet above the high-tide line, seemingly as eternal as the sea itself, now casting the slanted shadow of thickness toward the east as the sun westered.

Written upon it in black letters two-thirds of the way up, written in the high speech, there were two words:

THE PRISONER

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain and the Door.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 4.



He kept his eyes on whatever it was that stood on the strand ahead. When his hair fell in his eyes he brushed it aside. It seemed to grow no closer. The sun reached the roof of the sky, where it seemed to remain far too long. Roland imagined he was in the desert again, somewhere between the last outlander's hut

(the musical fruit the more you eat the more you toot)

and the way-station where the boy

(your Isaac)

had awaited his coming.

His knees buckled, straightened, buckled, straightened again. When his hair fell in his eyes once more he did not bother to push it back; did not have the strength to push it back. He looked at the object, which now cast a narrow shadow back toward the upland, and kept walking.

He could make it out now, fever or no fever.

It was a door.

Less than a quarter of a mile from it, Roland's knees buckled again and this time he could not stiffen their hinges. He fell, his right hand dragged across gritty sand and shells, the stumps of his fingers screamed as fresh scabs were scored away. The stumps began to bleed again.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 4.



The red lines of infection were more pronounced now; they had marched upward from his right wrist halfway to his elbow.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 3.



He buckled on his gunbelts, tied them - this was a process which took so long that before he was done the first faint light of dawn had brightened to the day's actual prologue - and then tried to stand up. He was not convinced he could do it until it was done.

Holding to the Joshua tree with his left hand, he scooped up the not-quite-empty waterskin with his right arm and slung it over his shoulder. Then his purse. When he straightened, the faintness washed over him again and he put his head down, waiting, willing.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 3.



When the faintness had passed, he looked at his hand. It was infected, all right - a tell-tale red swelling that spread up the palm and to the wrist. It stopped there, but already he could see the faint beginnings of other red lines, which would lead eventually to his heart and kill him. He felt hot, feverish.

Friday, November 13, 2020

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Roland Deschain.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three.
The Prisoner.
Chapter 1. The Door. 2.



The palm of his hand was a dull red. Not a good sign.

I jerk-off left-handed, he thought, at least that's something.

Stephen King's The Dark Tower: Cort.

The Dark Tower II. The Drawing of the Three. The Prisoner. Chapter 1. The Door. 5. Bravo, Roland! Cort cried in his mind, and Roland ...