Fairy Tale

by Stephen King

I wish I had looked longer, but I don’t blame myself. You never know where the trapdoors are in your life, do you?

“There’s always someone at fault,” Dad said. “Which is not the same as blame.”

The seat was dusty, from which I deduced that Mr. Bowditch hadn’t been working his puzzle for quite some time. Maybe he’d given up. I know I would have; a lot of what was left to be assembled was plain old blue sky without even a single cloud to break the monotony. I’m talking about this at more length than it deserves, maybe… but then again maybe not. There was something sad about it. I couldn’t express the reason for that sadness then, but I’m older now and think I can. It was about the jigsaw, but it was also the antique TV and the Hall of Old Reading Matter. It was about an elderly man’s solitary pursuits, and the dust—on the folding chair, on the books and magazines—suggested that even those were winding down.

“Something about presents. You said a brave man helps but a coward gives presents.”

“Time is the water, Charlie. Life is just the bridge it flows under.”

she could make it up the porch steps (sometimes with a little help from me). Best of all, she was good for a few games of chase-the-monkey-and-make-him-squeak at night. Still, I never expected her to outlive Mr. Bowditch, but she did. 7 Then came what the poets and musicians call a caesura. Radar

Here is something I learned in Empis: good people shine brighter in dark times.

Sometimes we look because we have to remember.

“There’s pain in that word, wouldn’t you agree? Such pain in every almost.”

Eris’s face was a blank, but her eyes were on fire. She lowered them,

There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your peril. That water is poison.

In the whole history of the world—all the worlds—not knowing never changed a single mistake.

“When there is love, scars are as pretty as dimples. I love you, Leah.”

It was very beautiful, as broken things sometimes are.