Sleeping Beauties

by Stephen King

Wasn’t it a hell of a shame, the way good country got wasted on folks.

Another part of getting older: you forgot what you wanted to remember, and remembered what you wanted to forget.

people loved their pets, often with a degree of openness they couldn’t allow themselves to express toward other people.

“Sorry, hon, it’s too bad, but the book’s gotta burn. Orders direct from General Jesus.”

like most book clubs, though a man or two occasionally showed up, it remained primarily an XX affair.

It seemed that days of disaster were also days of remembering.

Maura wondered if there would have been riots if it had been the other half of the human race who were falling asleep. She thought it unlikely.

The humans poisoned everything. It was their best talent.

Hard right conservatives on talk radio were proclaiming the Aurora virus as proof that God was angry with feminism.

I would submit that women have historically served the same function, restraining men—at least when possible—from their very worst, most abhorrent acts.” He looked around at his audience. The smile had left his face. “But now it seems the coolies are gone, or going. How long before men—soon to be the only sex—fall on each other with their guns and bombs and nuclear weapons? How long before the machine overheats and explodes?”

While people might hope for the best, Lila, closing in on twenty years in a blue uniform, knew that what they believed was the worst. In a terrified world, false news was king.

she sounded as chipper as a squirrel sitting on a pile of fresh acorns.

“That instinct, to doubt what women say, it’s always there. To find some reason not to take their word. Men do it… but we do, too.

Men. There seemed to be no escape from them.

There was nothing like pistols in a man’s belt to make him feel like he had the right-of-way.

“She’s expecting bloodshed, she’s made that much clear. Because she believes that’s the only way men know how to solve their problems.

love is a dangerous word when it comes from men.

“Do you mean the Great Lesbian in the sky?” Evie asked. “A short, heavyset deity wearing a mauve pantsuit and sensible shoes? Isn’t that the image most men get when they think a woman is trying to run their lives?”

“You’ll do the job usually reserved for women. You’ll wait.”

Without men, we make decisions fairly, and with less fuss. We share resources with less argument. There has been very little in the way of violence among the members of our community. Women have irritated me my entire life, but they have nothing on men.” Her personal irony, that her own husband, poor Archie, bounced from life by that early heart attack, was such an equable, sensible man, she did not mention. Exceptions were not the point. The point was the general case. The point was history.

Men promised never to raise another hand to their wives or children often enough, and meant it at the time, but were only able to keep their promises for a month or two, if that. The rage came around again,

Sons killed sons. Sons killed daughters. Sons left guns out where other sons could find them and accidentally shoot themselves or their sisters. Sons burned forests and sons dumped chemicals into the earth as soon as the EPA inspectors left. Sons didn’t call on birthdays. Sons didn’t like to share. Sons hit children, choked girlfriends. Sons figured out they were bigger and never forgot it. Sons didn’t care about the world they left for their sons or for their daughters, although they said they did when the time came to run for office.