Really Stephen? REALLY????

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I’ve read a lot of long books- Epic novels or ‘big books’ were a thing for awhile and at that time I was a voracious reader.

Some of those Epic novels were great reads, but others seemed like they were running up the word count. Those Epics  were expensive and carrying them around was a pain.

Anyway  by the time I had read ” The Stand ” by Stephen King ( I was about 14 when it came out )  I had aleady read Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities and  The Brothers Karamazov.

The Brothers Karamazov isn’t an epic sized novel, but it’s not an easy read for a Junior High kid, so it took me a while to get through it.

However, I remember two things about my first read through of ” The Stand. ”

I faintly remember a news story about a woman who was reading The Stand at a bus stop ( or somewhere out in public ) when somebody attacked her. I’m not sure if she hit her attacker with the book, or fought him off but I remember her saying she was in the Zone and when the attack happened she went into fight mode.

The second thing I remember was when I came to the part of the book where Trashie nukes Las Vegas- I was mad. I almost stopped reading The Stand because I’m reading along and on this journey with the characters all the way to when Larry and Ralph are about to be crucified and then a nuclear bomb goes off.

Seriously!!!!

They get nuked? That was the wrap up?

Years later I read that Stephen King ‘nuked’ the first half of The Stand because he had painted himself into a corner ( he didn’t know how to end the book ) and the fact that he didn’t outline his novels made everything worse.

So he nuked the first half of his book. In modern day terms, he deleted Vegas and everyone in it.

To this day, when think about my reaction I can see myself holding the book open and shaking it and yelling, ” hello, story where did you go?”

The Stand is not one of my favorite King books. It’s considered King’s masterpiece but I felt cheated when I read it as a kid and I never got passed that feeling.

Photo By Pumpkin Empress-AI

Bailey’s Eyes

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Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #264

They had been together for twenty-five years when…Fletcher Ware who was eating lunch with his friends at work in the staff break room with Gary and Amy and Ed when realized that he didn’t know what color his wife’s eyes were.

Without having to check for confirmation,  Fletcher knew that Amy from accounting had blue eyes, that Gary from IT had brown eyes and that Ed Farmer had a glass eye that almost matched his green eye perfectly but not quite.

That aside, Fletcher was a little horrified when he thought and thought about it and he could not remember what color Bailey’s eyes were. A husband should know what color his wife of twenty five  years had.

A cold bead of sweat ran down the side of his face.

He remembered to swallow his noodles and he remembered to smile at the joke Gary had just finished telling, but at that exact moment, Fletcher was in a panic.

Fletcher made himself calm down. Was it dementia? Alzheimer’s?  Was he having a stroke?

What color were Bailey’s eyes!

Okay. Amy and Ed were flirting and Gary was talking about his kid’s soccer game. Fletcher reached over to his phone and casually flipped through the screens until he came to his photo album.

He looked over at the next table and there was Tracy from sales talking to Marie from the warehouse.

He tried to slow his breathing.

He found the pictures he and Bailey took at the fairgrounds last weekend. In one  she was biting into a caramel apple and the man next to her was biting on the other side of the apple- he pulled his phone over and held it up.

Who in the Hell was that guy?

Fletcher  hit the flip icon on his camera and a face filled the screen.

He just didn’t know whose face it was filling up the screen but Fletcher wondered if that guy knew what color Bailey’s eyes were.

 

 

Where She Stops

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RDP Tuesday: GALIVANT

Spooky Halloween carnival game booths with haunted clown and zombie themes at night

WP AI Artwork

The scariest thing at a carnival has NEVER been the side shows, the stomach twisting rides, or the way the sounds carry late at night.

The most macabre thing at the carnival has always been the carousel and the sound of it’s gears twisted and groaning and it’s weird atonal music.

Even movies, books and artwork don’t always show the figures or mounts or menagerie figures as being user friendly.

Get on the wrong carousel and you meet your death, a demon, a ghost. They can be seated next to you, they might be watching you from the midway but they are watching you and you know that once the ride stops, you’re doomed.

Of course I love Carousels.

When I was little, I took my my decision making very seriously. I never just ran on and jumped on the prettiest horse. I would zip around and touch each one and sometimes the animal that grabbed my fancy was a tiger or a lion.

Then I would climb up hope against hope that something would happen and when we stopped, me and my ride would find ourselves at a haunted Carnival where the only thing thicker then the fog that clung to the trees was the smell of cotton candy and peanuts.

Haunted carousel labeled “The Phantom Carousel” with ghostly riders and carnival rides

Spooky Movies

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Instead of listing my top 10 favorite Halloween Movies for this prompt, I’ve decided to add new movies I’ve watched got on my watchlists-

Journal Prompt#7  Make a top 10 Halloween movie list.

Over the weekend I watched three horror films that I added to my Summerween viewing fun.

Right now I’m heavily into Folk Horror movies because they’re slow burn stories and I love those kinds of books and movies.

These three movies fall into that category and I enjoyed them because of  of the Human Centric threat that is posed in each movie:

A Tale of Two Sisters:

(streaming)

-

There’s a scene called ‘ the dinner scene ” which was my favorite part of the movie. In this scene the rug is being pulled out from under your feet and you don’t realize it until the end of the movie- you don’t know that this was the point when you were being shown reality has gone bye-bye. I thought the way it was written was super clever and it haunted you AFTER the movie ended. I think it’s great when a movie does that.

Hokum:

(streaming)

Straight up ghost story that happens in a hotel after all the guests except one  have left because it’s the end of the season. It’s not like the ” Shining. ” in case you’re wondering.

The main character started off as a jerk and I was sort of hoping he’d get it but as the movie went on I actually started to feel sorry for him and by the end I was rooting for him all the way.

Calls:

( APPLE tv )

This is a tv movie that is in the strictest form a Radio play- not an audio book because there is more then one voice.  Each segment is a stand alone episode but they are all going to the same place. That being said, the stories are emotionally exhausting. I got caught up in the loops and pulled into the drama of it all. It was wonderful.