Stephen King - Song of Susannah

“Not yet. Tell me what-”

“I’m Gan, or possessed by Gan, I don’t know which, maybe there’s no difference.” King began to cry. His tears were silent and horrible. “But it’s not Dis, I turned aside from Dis, I repudiate Dis, and that should be enough but it’s not, ka is never satisfied, greedy old ka, that’s what she said, isn’t it? What Susan Delgado said before you killed her, or I killed her, or Gan killed her. ’Greedy old ka, how I hate it.’ Regardless of who killed her, I made her say that, I, for I hate it, so I do. I buck against ka’s goad, and will until the day I go into the clearing at the end of the path.”

Roland sat at the table, white at the sound of Susan’s name.

“And still ka comes to me, comes from me, I translate it, am made to translate it, ka flows out of my navel like a ribbon. I am not ka, I am not the ribbon, it’s just what comes through me and I hate it I hate it! The chickens were full of spiders, do you understand that, full of spiders! ”

“Stop your snivelment,” Roland said (with a remarkable lack of sympathy, to Eddie’s way of thinking), and King stilled.

The gunslinger sat thinking, then raised his head.

“Why did you stop writing the story when I came to the Western Sea?”

“Are you dumb? Because I don’t want to be Gan! I turned aside from Dis, I should be able to turn aside from Gan, as well. I love my wife. I love my kids. I love to write stories, but I don’t want to write your story. I’m always afraid. He looks for me. The Eye of the King.”

“But not since you stopped,” Roland said.

“No, since then he looks for me not, he sees me not.”

“Nevertheless, you must go on.”

King’s face twisted, as if in pain, then smoothed out into the previous look of sleep.

Roland raised his mutilated right hand. “When you do, you’ll start with how I lost my fingers. Do you remember?”

“Lobstrosities,” King said. “Bit them off.”

“And how do you know that?”

King smiled a little and made a gentle wissshhh ing sound. “The wind blows,” said he.

“Gan bore the world and moved on,” Roland replied. “Is that what you mean to say?”

“Aye, and the world would have fallen into the abyss if not for the great turtle. Instead of falling, it landed on his back.”

“So we’re told, and we all say thank ya. Start with the lobstrosities biting off my fingers.”

“Dad-a-jum, dad-ajingers, goddam lobsters bit off your fingers,” King said, and actually laughed.

“Yes."

"Would have saved me a lot of trouble if you’d died, Roland son of Steven.”

“I know. Eddie and my other friends, as well.” A ghost of a smile touched the corners of the gunslinger’s mouth. “Then, after the lobstrosities-”

“Eddie comes, Eddie comes,” King interrupted, and made a dreamy little flapping gesture with his right hand, as if to say he knew all that and Roland shouldn’t waste his time. “The Prisoner the Pusher the Lady of Shadows. The butcher the baker the candle-mistaker.” He smiled. “That’s how my son Joe says it. When?”

Roland blinked, caught by surprise.

“When, when, when? ” King raised his hand and Eddie watched with surprise as the toaster, the waffle maker, and the drainer full of clean dishes rose and floated in the sunshine.

“Are you asking me when you should start again?”

“Yes, yes, yes! ” A knife rose out of the floating dish drainer and flew the length of the room. There it stuck, quivering, in the wall. Then everything settled back into place again.

Roland said, “Listen for the song of the Turtle, the cry of the Bear.”

“Song of Turtle, cry of Bear. Maturin from the Patrick O’Brian novels. Shardik from the Richard Adams novel.”

“Yes. If you say so.”

“Guardians of the Beam.”

“Yes.”

“Of my Beam.”

Roland looked at him fixedly. “Do you say so?”

“Yes.”

“Then let it be so. When you hear the song of the Turtle or the cry of the Bear, then you must start again.”

“When I open my eye to your world, he sees me.” A pause. “ It. ”

“ I know. We’ll try to protect you at those times, just as we intend to protect the rose.”

King smiled. “I love the rose."

"Have you seen it?” Eddie asked.

“Indeed I have, in New York. Up the street from the U.N. Plaza Hotel. It used to be in the deli. Tom and Jerry’s. In the back. Now it’s in the vacant lot where the deli was.”

“You’ll tell our story until you’re tired,” Roland said. “When you can’t tell any more, when the Turtle’s song and the Bear’s cry grow faint in your ears, then will you rest. And when you can begin again, you will begin again. You-”

“Roland?”

“Sai King?”

“I’ll do as you say. I’ll listen for the song of the Turtle and each time I hear it, I’ll go on with the tale. If 1 live. But you must listen, too. For her song.”

“Whose?”

“Susannah’s. The baby will kill her if you aren’t quick. And your ears must be sharp.”

Eddie looked at Roland, frightened. Roland nodded. It was time to go.

“Listen to me, sai King. We’re well-met in Bridgton, but now we must leave you.”

“Good,” King said, and he spoke with such unfeigned relief that Eddie almost laughed.

“You will stay here, right where you are, for ten minutes. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’ll wake up. You’ll feel very well. You won’t remember that we were here, except in the very deepest depths of your mind.”

“In the mudholes.”

“The mudholes, do ya. On top, you’ll think you had a nap. A wonderful, refreshing nap. You’ll get your son and go to where you’re supposed to go. You’ll feel fine. You’ll go on with your life. You’ll write many stories, but every one will be to some greater or lesser degree about this story. Do you understand?”

“Yar,” King said, and he sounded so much like Roland when Roland was gruff and tired that Eddie’s back pricked up in gooseflesh again. “Because what’s seen can’t be unseen. What’s known can’t be unknown.” He paused. “Save perhaps in death.”

“Aye, perhaps. Every time you hear the song of the Turtle-if that’s what it sounds like to you-you’ll start on our story again. The only real story you have to tell. And we’ll try to protect you.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know, but we’ll try-”

“It’s not that. I’m afraid of not being able to finish.” His voice lowered. “I’m afraid the Tower will fall and I’ll be held to blame.”

“That is up to ka, not you,” Roland said. “Or me. I’ve satisfied myself on that point. And now-” He nodded to Eddie, and stood up.

“Wait,” King said.

Roland looked at him, eyebrows raised.

“I am allowed mail privileges, but only once.”

Sounds like a guy in a POW camp, Eddie mused. And aloud: “Who allows you mail privileges, Steve-O?”

King’s brow wrinkled. “Gan?” he asked. “Is it Gan?” Then, like the sun breaking through on a foggy morning, his brow smoothed out and he smiled. “I think it’s me! ” he said. “I can send a letter to myself… perhaps even a small package… but only once.” His smile broadened into an engaging grin. “All of this… sort of like a fairy-tale, isn’t it?”

“Yes indeed,” Eddie said, thinking of the glass palace they’d come to straddling the Interstate in Kansas.

“What would you do?” Roland asked. “To whom would you send mail?”