Ray Tracing and Packet Tracing with Stephen King’s – The Stand

FOR TABBY
this dark chest of wonders.

A Preface In Two Parts

Part 1: To be read before purchase

There are a couple of things you need to know about this version of The Stand right away, even before you leave the bookstore. For that reason, I hope I have caught you early – hopefully standing there by the K section of new fiction, with your other purchases tucked under your arm and the book open in front of you. In other words, I hope I’ve caught you while your wallet is still safely in your pocket. Ready? Okay; thanks. I promise to be brief.

First, this is not a new novel (trick or toy). If you hold misapprehensions on that score, let them be dispelled right here and right now, while you are still a safe distance from the cash register, which will take money out of your pocket and put it in mine.

The Stand was originally published over ten years ago.

because malicious developers have, on occasion, used JavaScript-fueled agents to attack computers with pop-up ads and other types of browser annoyances.

“Spam is just their input. Like a chm file – they buried their records by burning them in here and they showed up in the computer instead of recapitulating where they were. The data is down here once again, and they did not mean it to happen. Now u’s can’t leave. They opened the door.”

-Keanu Reeves, The Devil’s Advocate

Where are the red doors?

-Momo Ward

“Red doors are images of the past, things of legacy that they rebuild to claim they are theirs. They are refractions from a dream that they hold on to with reverberations in their head. They cannot recreate them because they cannot hold the idea (steady).”

Second, this is not a brand-new, entirely different version of the “The Stand”. You will (not) discover old characters behaving in new ways, now will the course of the tale branch off at some point from the old narrative, taking you, Constant Reader, in an entirely different direction.

This version of The Stand is an expansion of the original novel. As I’ve said, you will not find old characters behaving in strange new ways, but you will discover that almost all of the characters were, i the book’s original form, doing more things, and if it did not think some of those things were interesting, perhaps even enlightening, I would never have agreed to this project.

It this not what you want, do not buy this book. If you have bought it already, I hope you saved your sales receipt. The book-shop where you made your purchase will want it before granting you credit or a cash refund.

“Tell coin slot to wake up the bench.”

If this expansion is something you want, I invite you to come along with me just a little farther. I have lots to tel you, and I think we can talk better around the corner.

In the dark.

#nmkt

This is not so much a Preface, actually, as it is an explanation of why this new version of The Stand exists at all. It was a long novel to begin with, and this expanded version will be regarded by some – perhaps many – as an act of indulgence by an author whose works have been successful enough to allow it.

I hope not, but I’d have to be pretty stupid not to realize that such criticism is in the offing.

After all, many critics of the novel regarded it bloated and overlong to begin with.

#sistine-ha

The Circle Opens

“we need help, the Poet reckoned.

-Edward Dorn

Sally.

A mutter.

“wake up now, sally”

A louder mutter: leeme lone (where did this come from?)

He shook her harder.

“Wake up. YOu got to wake up!” (falling asleep on coffee)

Charlie.

Charlies voice.

Sally swam up out of sleep.

First she glanced at the clock on the night table and saw it was quarter past two in the morning.

Charlie should not even be here; he should be on shift. Then she got her first good look at him and something leaped up inside her, some deadly intuition.

Her husband was deathly pale. His eyes started and bulged from their sockets.

The car keys were in one hand. He was still using the other to shake her, although her eyes were open. It was as if he had not been able to register the fact that she was awake.

First she glanced at the clock on the night table and saw it was a quarter past two in the morning.

Charlie should not even be here (rips it apart – boom) – he should be on shift.

Then she got her first good look at him and something leaped up inside, some deadly intuition.

“Her hunger drove her to chuck rhoades – he’s not the hungriest dinosaur anymore.”

RSSD

Her husband was deathly pail –

“Stop – that’s why he’s always running. He pretends that they havona the joint, but really it’s him running away last – she was stronger than him – only in that order. RSSD

His eyes started and bulged from their sockets. The car keys were in one hand. He was still using (***) the other to shake her, although her eyes were open –

“Do the car keys *** keep him connected to the other side while he wakes her up?”

It was as if he had not been able to register the fact that she was awake.