The Forest of Lost Souls

by Dean Koontz

Our memories from early childhood are far from indelible; they fade until, by our late teens, if not before, they are like yellowed photographs from a previous century.

Nevertheless, rich years of love, laughter, compassion, and kindness can imbue a home with a strange aura of life all its own, a resonant echo that speaks not to the ear but to the heart. There are special places and objects to which those who have a sensitive spirit might be drawn.

“My life passes like a shadow. Yet a little while, and all will be consummated.”

It becomes a center of action, an ocean of money washing up around it. Some saw how they could scoop up buckets of it. This kind of money doesn’t just buy cooperation. It buys souls.”

After all, the river does not race and swell over its banks in anticipation of the storm, and trees don’t char on Monday in consideration of a forest fire on Tuesday.

Don’t say I have to love him no matter what.” “You don’t, Sam. Nor do you have to respect him.” “Yeah, well I don’t.” “But you must honor him.” “Honor him? What’s to honor?” “He’s your father.” “He’s got no honor himself.” “That’s on him. Let it not be true of you. You don’t need to respect him, but you must not disrespect him. Never seek to harm him. Never allow hatred in your heart. By dishonoring him, you would dishonor yourself. Pity him and leave him to his own destruction. That’s already your intuitive reaction, and it’s the right one.”

And what will be cannot be allowed to detract from what is, from the beauty of the music or the flavor of the food, because all she has is the moment; all anyone ever has is the moment, and moments, each in succession, are precious.

Dogs keep their promises, though the promises that people, in turn, make to them are less reliably fulfilled.

Have pity on those who love and are separated, on the lonely, on those who mourn, on those who fear, on all the little animals that live their lives as prey, but pity as well the animals that must kill to survive in this fallen world.

Reyes is ten years older than José and is afflicted with atrial fibrillation. He is on three medications, including a blood thinner, in addition to which something called a “Medtronic cardiac loop recorder” has been surgically implanted in his chest, in the hollow between two ribs; this device monitors his heart 24/7 and transmits the data to Medtronic in Minneapolis, from which it is available to his cardiologist by computer or smartphone. As José described it and as Reyes confirmed, the loop recorder has a five-year battery, can essentially transmit a continuous EKG to Medtronic from anywhere in the country as well as from many locations beyond its borders—and is approximately the size of one of these techno nettles that are stuck to her gear and clothes.

“Life passes like a shadow. Eighteen years is the same as an hour ago.”

Not many years earlier, minions was a serious word; now, like a lot of other words, it’s cartoonish. Wendy has thought a great deal about what is happening to her world. She believes the evolution of minions—and the degradation of language in general—is less because it is associated with characters in an animated-film franchise and more because most of the people in the leadership roles of every profession in this society are simpleminded and sound like cartoon characters every time they use the language—or as though they have stepped out of a bizarre world in a dystopian graphic novel. As a consequence, these cartoonish people are busy shaping a future world as unreal as Batman’s Gotham or Mickey Mouse’s hometown, a world that is therefore sure to fail.

The past was real, I think more real than the present. These days, so many are educated into ignorance, entertained by shallow amusements that drain from them the very substance of themselves, until they seem to have become ghosts long, long before their deaths.