Elevation

by Stephen King

You could feel weight, yes—when you were carrying too much, it made you ploddy—but wasn’t it, like time, basically just a human construct? Hands on a clock, numbers on a bathroom scale, weren’t they only ways of trying to measure invisible forces that had visible effects? A feeble effort to corral some greater reality beyond what mere humans thought of as reality? “Let it go, you’ll drive yourself bugshit.”

life is what we make it and acceptance is the key to all our affairs.”

Why feel bad about what you couldn’t change? Why not embrace it?

Not a wind, not even a high, exactly, but an elevation. A sense that you had gone beyond yourself and could go farther still.

Everything leads to this, he thought. To this elevation. If it’s how dying feels, everyone should be glad to go.

SHE GOT BY WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND, the caption read, and below that: Fellow Castle Rocker Scott Carey helps Deirdre McComb to her feet after she took a spill on the wet road just short of the finish line.

He went into the bathroom and stepped on the scale. Its news didn’t surprise him. He was down to 137. It might have been the day’s exertions, but he didn’t actually believe that. What he believed was that by booting his metabolism into a higher gear (and overdrive at the end), he had sped the process up even more. It was starting to look like Zero Day might come weeks earlier than he had anticipated.

“It’s not you,” he said. “Believe me, I’d love nothing more than to hug you. We both deserve it. But it might not be safe.”

When he finished, Myra asked, very timidly, “What does it feel like, Scott? What do you feel like?” Scott thought of how he’d felt running down Hunter’s Hill, when he’d gotten his second wind and the whole world had stood revealed in the usually hidden glory of ordinary things—the leaden, lowering sky, the bunting flapping from the downtown buildings, every precious pebble and cigarette butt and beer can discarded by the side of the road. His own body for once working at top capacity, every cell loaded with oxygen. “Elevated,” he said at last.

Scott thought about calling her and thanking her for saying such kind things, then decided that was a bad idea. It might get them both going. He printed out her note instead, and put it in one of the pockets of the harness. He would take it with him when he went.

“You want to go.” “Yes,” he said. “It’s time.” “It’s cold outside, and you’re covered with sweat.” “It doesn’t matter.”

Gravity is the anchor that pulls us down into our graves. There would be no grave for this man, and no more gravity, either. He had been given a special dispensation.

“Don’t you cry,” he said. “This isn’t a goddam funeral.” She pushed him onto the snowy lawn. The wheels sank eight inches deep and stopped. Not far from the house, but far enough to avoid being caught under one of the eaves. That would be an anticlimax, he thought, and laughed. “What’s the joke, Scott?” “Nothing,” he said. “Everything.”

“I love you, Scott,” she said. “We all do.” “Right back atcha,” he said. “Give your good girl a kiss for me.” “Two,” she promised.

Everyone should have this, he thought, and perhaps, at the end, everyone does. Perhaps in their time of dying, everyone rises.

They watched until the last golden sparks went out, and the night was dark again. Somewhere high above them, Scott Carey continued to gain elevation, rising above the earth’s mortal grip with his face turned toward the stars.