The Long Walk

by Stephen King

She stood there for a moment and he had a sense of her being very light, as if even the light puffs of breeze blowing this morning might send her sailing away like a dandelion gone to seed.

Garraty thought that memories were like a line drawn in the dirt. The further back you went the scuffier and harder to see that line got. Until finally there was nothing but smooth sand and the black hole of nothingness that you came out of.

“The reason all of this is so horrible,” McVries said, “is because it’s just trivial. You know? We’ve sold ourselves and traded our souls on trivialities.

Go ahead and tell yourself it’s a straight game.” Thin color had come into Stebbins’s cheeks. “Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once.”