Just After Sunset, Page 40

  "The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates" In the summer of 2007, I went to Australia, leased a Harley-Davidson, and drove it from Brisbane to Perth (well...I stuck the bike in the back of a Toyota Land Cruiser for part of the Great Australian Desert, where roads like The Gunbarrel Highway are what I imagine the highways look like in hell). It was a good trip; I had lots of adventures and ate a lot of dust. But getting over the jet-lag after twenty-one hours in the air is a bitch. And I don't sleep on planes. Just can't do it. If the stewardess shows up at my seat with those funky pajamas, I make the sign of the cross and tell her to go away. When I arrived in Oz after the San Francisco to Brisbane leg, I pulled the blinds, crashed out, slept for ten hours, and woke up bright-eyed and ready to go. The only problem was that it was two A.M. local time, nothing on TV, and I'd finished all my reading matter on the plane. Luckily, I had a notebook, and I wrote this story at my little hotel desk. By the time the sun came up, it was done and I was able to sleep for another couple of hours. A story should entertain the writer, too--that's my opinion, we welcome yours.

  "Mute" I read a story in my local newspaper about a high school secretary who embezzled over sixty-five thousand dollars in order to play the lottery. My first question was how her husband felt about that, and I wrote this story to find out. It reminds me of the poison bon-bons I used to sample weekly on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

  "Ayana" The subject of the afterlife, as I have said earlier in these notes, has always been fertile soil for writers who are comfortable with the fantastic. God--in any of His supposed forms--is another subject for which tales of the fantastic were made. And when we ask questions about God, one near the top of every list is why some people live and some die; why some get well and some do not. I asked it myself in the wake of the injuries I suffered in 1999, as the result of an accident that could have easily killed me if my position had been different by only inches (on the other hand, if my position had been different by other inches, I might have escaped completely). If a person lives, we say "It's a miracle." If he or she dies, we say "It was God's will." There is no rational response to miracles, and no way to understand the will of God--who, if He is there at all, may have no more interest in us than I do in the microbes now living on my skin. But miracles do happen, it seems to me; each breath is another one. Reality is thin but not always dark. I didn't want to write about answers, I wanted to write about questions. And suggest that miracles may be a burden as well as a blessing. And maybe it's all bullshit. I like the story, though.

  "A Very Tight Place" Everyone has used one of those roadside porta-potties from time to time, if only at a turnpike rest area in the summertime, when state Highway Departments have to put out extra bathrooms to cope with the increased flow of travelers (I'm smiling as I write this, thinking how marvelously excretory it sounds). Gosh, there's nothing like stepping into one of those dim little roomettes on a hot August afternoon, is there? Toasty-warm, and the smell is divine. In truth, I have never used one without thinking of Poe's "The Premature Burial" and wondering what would happen to me if the shithouse fell over on its door. Especially if no one was around to help me get out. Finally I wrote this story, for the same reason I have written so many rather unpleasant tales, Constant Reader: to pass on what frightens me to you. And I cannot close without telling you what childish fun this tale was. I even grossed myself out.

  Well.

  A little.

  And with that, I bid you a fond farewell, at least for the time being. If the miracles keep happening, we will meet again. In the meantime, thank you for reading my stories. I hope at least one of them keeps you awake for awhile after the lights are out.

  Take care of yourself...and say! Did you maybe leave the oven on? Or forget to turn off the gas under your patio barbecue? What about the lock on the back door? Did you remember to give it a twist? Things like that are so easy to forget, and someone could be slipping in right now. A lunatic, perhaps. One with a knife. So, OCD behavior or not...

  Better go check, don't you think?

  Stephen King

  March 8, 2008

  * Do I know for a fact that quitting the Doxepin was responsible? I do not. Hey, maybe it was the English water.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Willa

  The Gingerbread Girl

  Harvey's Dream

  Rest Stop

  Stationary Bike

  The Things They Left Behind

  Graduation Afternoon

  N.

  The Cat from Hell

  The New York Times at Special Bargain Rates

  Mute

  Ayana

  A Very Tight Place

  Sunset Notes

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