Duma Key

by Stephen King

We were married for twenty-five years, but you know what they say: shit happens.

I should have done that right away but it got too late real early.

They’d take me back into the convalescent home, which was really just hell with a fresh coat of paint.

There is no tyrant as merciless as pain, no despot so cruel as confusion.

He and his wife had relocated to Palm Desert, California, in the last year of the twentieth century, settling in one of those gated communities where there’s one token African-American couple and four token Jewish couples. Children and vegetarians are not allowed. Residents must vote Republican and own small dogs with rhinestone collars, stupid eyes, and names that end in i. Taffi is good, Cassi is better, and something like Rififi is the total shit. Pam’s father had been diagnosed with rectal cancer. It didn’t surprise me. Put a bunch of white assholes together and you’re going to find that going around.

I’d forgotten how quick she was, and how well she read me. Love conveys its own psychic powers, doesn’t it?

“What flavor is he, religiously speaking?” “Baptist.” She looked at me a little defiantly, as though she’d said Cannibal.

If there’s a God, I think He needs to try a little harder.

I reached for the radio and said, “Why don’t we have some music?” “Good idea,” he said. “But no fucking country.”

He was dead and Channel 6 was beating off on the body. He undoubtedly deserved no better, but it was still gruesome.

Artistic types aren’t morning people.

Ahead, the lights of the hospital were twinkling in the dark. There was a Waffle House right next door. It was probably good business for the cardiac unit.

“Why don’t you grab yourself a cup of coffee? It tastes like factory-made shit, but it do prop up a person’s eyelids.”

nictitating malevolently.

Two words I never thought I'd see used together.

And for once in my life I managed to fly north without a stop at fucking Atlanta.

When I made pictures, I fell in love with the world.