The Langoliers

by Stephen King

Brian dismissed it. Dinah’s earlier thought suddenly struck home to him with chilly intensity—who the fuck was flying the plane?

For just a moment he thought that this was what the first boarders of the Mary Celeste must have felt like, coming upon a totally abandoned ship where all the sail was neatly laid on, where the captain’s table had been set for dinner, where all ropes were neatly coiled and some sailor’s pipe was still smoldering away the last of its tobacco on the foredeck…

Things here seemed wrong, even wronger than they looked… and that was scary, because he didn’t know how things could be wronger than that.

You Americans are too foolish not to love.

“I thought it was really brave,” she said, looking up at him with eyes which suggested she believed Albert Kaussner must shit diamonds from a platinum asshole. “I mean incredible.”

It looks good to you because it’s never going to fly again, that’s all. It’s like glimpsing a beautiful woman for just a moment in the back seat of a limousine—she looks even more beautiful than she really is because you know she’s not yours, can never be yours.

Brian realized that they were unzipping more than the world—they were opening all the depths of forever.

“What do we know?” “Why, what happens to today when it becomes yesterday, what happens to the present when it becomes the past. It waits—dead and empty and deserted. It waits for them. It waits for the time-keepers of eternity, always running along behind, cleaning up the mess in the most efficient way possible… by eating it.”

Why shouldn’t it be beautiful? This is the place where life—all life, maybe—begins. The place where life is freshly minted every second of every day; the cradle of creation and the wellspring of time. No langoliers allowed beyond this point.