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 was a rhythm to our lives during those three years. Maybe not a good rhythm, not the sort you’d want to dance to, but one I could count on.

Dad hugged me and kissed my cheek and walked back down the hill. I watched him appear in each pool of streetlight, then disappear again. Sometimes I did still resent him for his lost years, because they were my lost years, too. Mostly I was just glad he was back.

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.