“
Sometimes dead is better
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can and tends it.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The soil of a man's heart is stonier, Louis. A man grows what he can, and he tends it. 'Cause what you buy, is what you own. And what you own... always comes home to you.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
May be she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
You learned to accept, or you ended up in a small room writing letters home with Crayolas.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
there is no gain without risk, perhaps no risk without love.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Only children tell the whole truth, you know. That's what makes them children.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Life sucks, then you die
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Death is a mystery, and burial is a secret.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
He’s my cat! He’s not God’s cat! Let God have his own cat! Let God have all the damn old cats He wants, and kill them all! Church is mine!
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
A man who lies about beer makes enemies
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The old sleep poorly. Perhaps they stand watch.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
What's been tried once had been tried once before... and before... and before...
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Dead fields under a November sky, scattered rose petals brown and turning up at the edges, empty pools scummed with algae, rot, decomposition, dust...
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
We either learn to accept or we end up writing letters home with crayons.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
I don’t think children ever forget the lies their parents tell them.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Don’t go beyond, no matter how much you feel you need to, Doctor. The barrier was not made to be broken. Remember this: there is more power here than you know. It is old and always restless. Remember.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
I’m going crazy, Louis thought wonderingly. Wheeeeee!
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Hey police? I just saw the world's oldest, slowest kid climbing into Pleasantview Cemetery. Looked like he was dying to get in. Yeah, looked like a grave matter to me. Kidding? Oh no, I'm in dead earnest. Maybe you ought to dig into it.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Resurrection... ah, there's a word
(that you should put right the fuck out of your mind and you know it).
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Oh, about beer I never lie," Crandall said. "A man who lies about beer makes enemies.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sometimes, dead is bettah" - Jud Crandall, Pet Sematary
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It's like many other things in life, Ellie. You keep on the path and all's well. You get off it and the next thing you know you're lost if you're not lucky.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Cats are the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
He held her and rocked her, believing, rightly or wrongly, that Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument or to a little girl’s tears; that she wept over its cruel unpredictability; and that she wept because of the human being’s wonderful, deadly ability to translate symbols into conclusions that were either fine and noble or blackly terrifying. If all those animals had died and been buried, then Church could die
(any time!)
and be buried; and if that could happen to Church, it could happen to her mother, her father, her baby brother. To herself. Death was a vague idea; the Pet Sematary was real. In the texture of those rude markers were truths which even a child’s hands could feel.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
their respect for the mystery--the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there is no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It was, he supossed, one of the adventages of having married a doctor- you could shove the kid at your husband whenever the kid seemed to be dying.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The soil of a man's heart is stonier [...] A man grows what he can... and he tends it" - Jud Crandall, Chapter 22 (near end) Pet Sematary
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Christ.
No, not Christ. These leavings were made in propitiation of a much older God than the Christian one. People
have called Him different things at different times, but Rachel’s sister gave Him a perfectly good name, I think:
Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, God of dead things left in the ground, God of rotting flowers in drainage ditches,
God of the Mystery.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The grass in the back field was almost waist high, and now there was goldenrod, that late-summer gossip which comes to tattle on autumn every year. But there was no autumn in the air today; the sun was still all August, although calendar August was almost two weeks gone.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It's probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls-as little as one may like to admit it, human experience tends, in a good many ways, to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one's sense of humor begins to reassert itself.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
When it started not to hurt, it started not to matter.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
I don't believe that there's anything new under the sun. Oh, sometimes the glitter they sprinkle over the top of a thing changes, but that's all. What's been tried once had been tried once before...and before...and before.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Oh Christ, he understood more than he wanted to right now. Give me a chance, Louis thought, and I’ll
understand myself right into the nearest mental asylum.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The newest animal Route 5 had used up, it seemed, was my daughter’s beloved pet. We buried Smucky in the pet sematary. My daughter made the grave marker, which read Smucky: He was obediant. (Smucky wasn’t in the least obedient, of course; he was a cat, for heaven’s sake.)
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It’s probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sometimes God dillies and dallies,’ Steve said, ‘and sometimes he just points at you and tells you to hang up your jock.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Oh, about beer I never lie,’ Crandall said. ‘A man who lies about beer makes enemies.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
He bought her six dresses, and I brought her god-damned cat back from the dead, so who loves her more?!
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Eileen, it’s just Mercurochrome,
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Ellie wept for the very intractability of death, its imperviousness to argument.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It came to seem to Louis that God, in His infinite wisdom, seemed much more generous when it came to doling out pain.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The silence was a comfortable one, as if they had known each other for a long time. This was a feeling about which Louis had read in books, but which he had never experienced until now.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The days are passing so quickly. This is the only time of year when I want to slow time down. I spend the entire year trying to get here as fast as I can, then once I'm here I want to slam on the brakes. I'm beginning to have those moments when the feel of autumn is so strong it drowns out everything else. Lately it's been making me think about the perfect soundtrack for a Halloween party.
The top of any Halloween music list as to be the theme song from the movie Halloween; right on its heels is "Pet Sematary" by the Ramones. For some reason I've always equated the old Van Morrison song "Moondance" with Halloween, too. I love that song. "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus is an October classic, as well as anything by Type O Negative. And Midnight Syndicate. If you've never heard anything by Midnight Syndicate, look them up right this moment. If you distilled the raw essence of every spooky story you ever heard, you would have Midnight Syndicate. I have a friend who swears by them, believing them to be a vital element of any Halloween party. To finish off the list you must have "The Lyre of Orpheus" by Nick Cave and "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle.
”
”
Damien Echols (Life After Death)
“
A veces, las víctimas de una larga enfermedad se convierten en seres ariscos y tiránicos. La imagen del enfermo sufrido y santo es falsa.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sometimes God dillies and dallies, and sometimes he just points at you and tells you to hang up your jock.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It takes the average human seven minutes to go to sleep, but according to Hand’s Human Physiology, it takes the same average human fifteen to twenty minutes to wake up.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Rachel would call the vet this morning, they would get Church fixed, and that would put this whole nonsense of Pet Semataries(it was funny how that misspelling got into your head and began to seem right) and death fears behind them.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Home,” Rachel said softly, still looking at the house.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
What you bought, you owned, and what you owned eventually came home to you.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
You only stop meltin the snow under where you're layin when you're dead.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
When a good animal gets run down in the road, a kid never forgets.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
At home he was reading Pet Sematary, but reading that in public was like leaving the house in your underwear.
”
”
Mark Haddon (A Spot of Bother)
“
Louis struggled with his temper and went silently back to the wagon.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Maybe she’ll learn something about what death really is, which is where the pain stops and the good memories begin. Not the end of life but the end of pain.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
You sure?” Steve asked. “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy, you know.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It was blurred in his memory, it had the melting, cotton-candy texture of dreams or of waking actions performed under a light haze of drugs.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
-the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there is no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (Rarely, thank god) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien turblence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seamed nearly psychotic.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
..но всяка жена, която поне малко познава живота, ще потвърди, че никога не е надниквала в мъжкото сърце. Почвата в сърцето на мъжа е по-камениста, Луис - също като земята в старото гробище на микмаките - скалите са току под пръстта. Мъжът засажда каквото може... и се грижи за него.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Let them be anything but the creatures which leap and crawl and slither and shamble in the world between. Let there be God, let there be Sunday morning, let there be smiling Episcopalian ministers in shining white surplices... but let there not be these dark and draggling horrors on the nightside of the universe.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The graves and monuments were in rough rows. Somewhere there would be a caretaker’s building, and in it would be a map of Pleasantview’s twenty or so acres, neatly and sanely divided into quadrants, each quadrant showing the occupied graves and the unsold plots. Real estate for sale. One-room apartments. Sleepers.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sus gritos resonaban en las paredes de aquella casa, en la que ahora solo la muerte vivía y andaba. Con los ojos desorbitados, la cara lívida, el pelo erizado, Louis gritaba. Los sonidos que salían de su garganta congestionada eran como las campanas del infierno, unos gritos terribles que marcaban la pérdida no del amor, sino de la razón.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Now, sitting on his bed in the grip of this numbing hangover, rainwater spilling its lazy courses down the window beside him, his grief came for him fully, like some gray matron from Ward Nine in purgatory. It came and dissolved him, unmanned him, took away whatever defenses remained, and he put his face in his hands and cried, rocking back and forth on his bed, thinking he would do anything to have a second chance, anything at all.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
God, in His infinite wisdom, seemed much more generous when it came to doling out pain.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
I don’t want Church to ever be dead! He’s my cat! He’s not God’s cat! Let God have His own cat!
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
There was a big old St. Bernard went rabid downstate a couple of years ago and killed four people.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
-El fondo del corazón humano es aún más árido, Louis -susurró el muchacho-. El hombre siembra sólo aquello que puede. Y lo cuida.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
She could have made the devil swear off drinking. Thank Christ she never asked me to do it.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
His mind swirled, and somewhere deep inside, away from the action, he wondered if he had always been within touching distance of such mad irrationalities; if everyone was.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sin duda se equivoca quien piense que existe un límite para el horror que puede experimentar la mente humana.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Was die Leute nicht bedenken, ist, dass sie erst ihre eigene Unsicherheit anzweifeln sollten, bevor sie an ihrem Herzen zweifeln.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Cause what you buy, is what you own. And what you own... always comes home to you.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
The soil of a man's heart is stonier
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
When you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union - each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an air-liner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you tread lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to really know another.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
That lesson suggests that in the end, we can only find peace in our human lives by accepting the will of the universe. That may sound like corny, new-age crap, but the alternative looks to me like a darkness too awful for such mortal creatures as us to bear.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Louis volvió a Bangor por el
puente Chamberlain y se instaló en el motel Howard Johnson, en la carretera de Odlin, cerca del
aeropuerto y del cementerio Pleasantview donde estaba enterrado su hijo. Se inscribió con el nombre de
Dee Dee Ramone y pagó en efectivo.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sus gritos resonaban en las paredes de aquella casa, en la que ahora sólo la muerte vivía y andaba. Los sonidos que salían de su garganta congestionada eran como las campanas del infierno, unos gritos terribles que marcaban la pérdida no del amor, sino de la razón.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Se encontró con el cuadro de su mujer -a la que un día él llevara una rosa entre los dientes- tendida en medio del pasillo, muerta.
Louis se acercó a ella. "Hola, amor mío -pensó-, has vuelto a casa".
De pronto, la vio, la vio realmente, y Louis Creed se puso a gritar.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
No one knows for sure what the Mayan pyramids are for-navigation and chronography, some say, like Stonehenge-but we know damn well what the Egyptian pyramids were and are . . . great monuments to death, the world's biggest gravestones. Here Lies Ramses II, He Was Obedient . . .
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Sometimes people have to do things that just seem right. That seem right in their hearts, I mean. And if they do those things and then end up not feeling right, full of questions and sort of like they got indigestion, only inside their heads instead of in their guts, they think they made a mistake
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
When other girls had tea parties on the playground, I brought out my secondhand Ouija board and attempted to raise the dead. While my classmates gave book reports on The Wind In The Willows or Charlotte’s Web, I did mine on tattered, paperback copies of Stephen King novels that I’d borrowed from my grandmother. Instead of Sweet Valley High, I read books about zombies and vampires. Eventually, my third grade teacher called my mother in to discuss her growing concerns over my behavior, and my mom nodded blithely, but failed to see what the problem was. When Mrs. Johnson handed her my recent book report on Pet Sematary,, my mom wrinkled her forehead with concern and disapproval. "Oh, I see,"she said disappointingly, as she turned to me. "You spelled ‘cemetery’ wrong.” Then I explained that Stephen King had spelled it that way on purpose, and she nodded, saying, “Ah. Well, good enough for me.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Let's Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir)
“
The graves in the Pet Sematary mimed the most ancient religious symbol of all: diminishing circles indicating a spiral leading down, not to a point, but to infinity; order from chaos or chaos from order, depending on which way your mind worked. It was a symbol the Egyptians had chiseled on the tombs of the Pharaohs, a symbol the Phoenicians had drawn on the barrows of their fallen kings; it was found on cave walls in ancient Mycenae; the guild-kings of Stonehenge had created it as a clock to time the universe; it appeared in the Judeo-Christian Bible as the whirlwind from which God had spoken to Job.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Faith is a great thing, and really religious people would like us to believe that faith and knowing are the same thing, but I don't believe that myself. Because there are too many different ideas on the subject. What we know is this: When we die, one of two things happens. Either our souls and thoughts somehow survive the experience of dying or they don't. If they do, that opens up every possibility you could think of. If they don't, it's just blotto. The end.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Now, in death, he looked to Louis like the old Church. The mouth, so small and bloody, filled with needle-sharp cat’s teeth, was frozen in a shooter’s snarl. The dead eyes seemed furious. It was as if, after the short and placid stupidity of his life as a neuter, Church had rediscovered his real nature in dying. ‘Yeah,
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Louis stared at her, nonplussed. He more than half suspected that one of the things which had kept their marriage together when it seemed as if each year brought the news that two or three of their friends' marriages had collapsed was their respect of the mystery--the half-grasped but never spoken idea that maybe, when you got right down to the place where the cheese binds, there was no such thing as marriage, no such thing as union, that each soul stood alone and ultimately defied rationality. That was the mystery. And no matter how well you thought you knew your partner, you occasionally ran into blank walls or fell into pits. And sometimes (rarely, thank God) you ran into a full-fledged pocket of alien strangeness, something like the clear-air turbulence that can buffet an airliner for no reason at all. An attitude or belief which you had never suspected, one so peculiar (at least to you) that it seemed nearly psychotic. And then you trod lightly, if you valued your marriage and your peace of mind; you tried to remember that anger at such a discovery was the province of fools who really believed it was possible for one mind to know another.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It seemed to go on almost eternally- he would near climax, and the hand in the sponge-glove would slow, almost stop. Then it didn't stop but squeezed, loosened, squeezed again, until he came so strongly that he felt his eardrums bulge.
"My God," he said shakily when he could speak again. "Where did you learn that?"
"Girl scouts," she said primly
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
Well, cats live as long as dogs,” he said, “mostly, anyway.” This was a lie, and he knew it. Cats lived violent lives and often died bloody deaths, always just below the usual range of human sight. Here was Church, dozing in the sun (or appearing to), Church who slept peacefully on his daughter’s bed every night, Church who had been so cute as a kitten, all tangled up in a ball of string. And yet Louis had seen him stalk a bird with a broken wing, his green eyes sparkling with curiosity and—yes, Louis would have sworn it—cold delight. He rarely killed what he stalked, but there had been one notable exception—a large rat, probably caught in the alley between their apartment house and the next. Church had really put the blocks to that baby. It had been so bloody and gore-flecked that Rachel, then in her sixth month with Gage, had had to run into the bathroom and vomit. Violent lives, violent deaths. A dog got them and ripped them open instead of just chasing them like the bumbling, easily fooled dogs in the TV cartoons, or another tom got them, or a poisoned bait, or a passing car. Cats were the gangsters of the animal world, living outside the law and often dying there. There were a great many of them who never grew old by the fire.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
It's probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls--as little as one may like to admit it, human experience tends, in a good many ways, to support the idea that when the nightmare grows back enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything. And the most terrifying question of all ,may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one's sense of humor beings to reassert itself.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
He was the one, however, with whom no one wanted his or her picture taken, the one to whom no one wanted to introduce his son or daughter. Louis and Gage knew him; they had met him and faced him down in New England, some time ago. He was waiting to choke you on a marble, to smother you with a dry-cleaning bag, to sizzle you into eternity with a fast and lethal boggie of electricity—Available at Your Nearest Switchplate or Vacant Light Socket Right Now. There was death in a quarter bag of peanuts, an aspirated piece of steak, the next pack of cigarettes. He was around all the time, he monitored all the checkpoints between the mortal and the eternal. Dirty needles, poison beetles, downed live wires, forest fires. Whirling roller skates that shot nurdy little kids into busy intersections. When you got into the bathtub to take a shower, Oz got right in there too—Shower with a Friend. When you got on an airplane, Oz took your boarding pass. He was in the water you drank, the food you ate. Who’s out there? you howled into the dark when you were frightened and all alone, and it was his answer that came back: Don’t be afraid, it’s just me. Hi, howaya? You got cancer of the bowel, what a bummer, so solly, Cholly! Septicemia! Leukemia! Atherosclerosis! Coronary thrombosis! Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis! Hey-ho, let’s go! Junkie in a doorway with a knife. Phone call in the middle of the night. Blood cooking in battery acid on some exit ramp in North Carolina. Big handfuls of pills, munch em up. That peculiar blue cast of the fingernails following asphyxiation—in its final grim struggle to survive the brain takes all the oxygen that is left, even that in those living cells under the nails. Hi, folks, my name’s Oz the Gweat and Tewwible, but you can call me Oz if you want—hell, we’re old friends by now. Just stopped by to whop you with a little congestive heart failure or a cranial blood clot or something; can’t stay, got to see a woman about a breach birth, then I’ve got a little smoke-inhalation job to do in Omaha. And that thin voice is crying, “I love you, Tigger! I love you! I believe in you, Tigger! I will always love you and believe in you, and I will stay young, and the only Oz to ever live in my heart will be that gentle faker from Nebraska! I love you . . .” We cruise . . . my son and I . . . because the essence of it isn’t war or sex but only that sickening, noble, hopeless battle against Oz the Gweat and Tewwible. He and I, in our white van under this bright Florida sky, we cruise. And the red flasher is hooded, but it is there if we need it . . . and none need know but us because the soil of a man’s heart is stonier; a man grows what he can . . . and tends it.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
There was death in a
quarter bag of peanuts, an
aspirated piece of steak, the
next pack of cigarettes. He was
around all the time, he
monitored all the checkpoints
between the mortal and the
eternal. Dirty needles, poison
beetles, downed live wires,
forest fires. Whirling roller
skates that shot nurdy little
kids into busy intersections.
When you got into the
bathtub to take a shower, Oz
got right in there too—Shower
with a Friend. When you got
on an airplane, Oz took your
boarding pass. He was in the
water you drank, the food you
ate. Who’s out there? you
howled into the dark when
you were frightened and all
alone, and it was his answer
that came back: Don’t be
afraid, it’s just me. Hi,
howaya? You got cancer of the
bowel, what a bummer, so
solly, Cholly! Septicemia!
Leukemia! Atherosclerosis!
Coronary thrombosis!
Encephalitis! Osteomyelitis!
Hey-ho, let’
s go! Junkie in a
doorway with a knife. Phone
call in the middle of the night.
Blood cooking in battery acid
on some exit ramp in North
Carolina. Big handfuls of pills,
munch em up. That peculiar
blue cast of the fingernails
following asphyxiation—in its
final grim struggle to survive
the brain takes all the oxygen
that is left, even that in those
living cells under the nails. Hi,
folks, my name’s Oz the
Gweat and Tewwible, but you
can call me Oz if you want—
hell, we’re old friends by now.
Just stopped by to whop you
with a little congestive heart
failure or a cranial blood clot
or something; can’t stay, got to
see a woman about a breach
birth, then I’ve got a little
smoke-inhalation job to do in
Omaha.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet sematary)
“
Here are some people who have written books, telling what they did and why they did those things: John Dean. Henry Kissinger. Adolf Hitler. Caryl Chessman. Jeb Magruder. Napoleon. Talleyrand. Disraeli. Robert Zimmerman, also known as Bob Dylan. Locke. Charlton Heston. Errol Flynn. The Ayatollah Khomeini. Gandhi. Charles Olson. Charles Colson. A Victorian Gentleman. Dr. X. Most people also believe that God has written a Book, or Books, telling what He did and why—at least to a degree—He did those things, and since most of these people also believe that humans were made in the image of God, then He also may be regarded as a person… or, more properly, as a Person. Here are some people who have not written books, telling what they did… and what they saw: The man who buried Hitler. The man who performed the autopsy on John Wilkes Booth. The man who embalmed Elvis Presley. The man who embalmed—badly, most undertakers say—Pope John XXIII. The twoscore undertakers who cleaned up Jonestown, carrying body bags, spearing paper cups with those spikes custodians carry in city parks, waving away the flies.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)
“
La muerte podía estar en una bolsa de cacahuetes, en un trozo de carne que se te atravesara, en el siguiente paquete de cigarrillos. Siempre te andaba rondando, de guardia en todas las estaciones de control entre lo mortal y lo eterno. Agujas infectadas, insectos venenosos, cables mal aislados, incendios forestales. Patines que lanzaban a intrépidos chiquillos a cruces muy transitados. Cada vez que te metes en la bañera para darte una ducha, Oz te acompaña: ducha para dos.
Cada vez que subes a un avión, Oz lleva tu misma tarjeta de embarque. Está en el agua que bebes y en la comida que comes. «¿Quién anda ahí?», gritas en la oscuridad cuando estás solo y asustado, y es él quien te responde: Tranquilo, soy yo. Eh, ¿cómo va eso? Tienes un cáncer en el vientre, qué lata, chico, sí que lo siento. ¡Cólera! ¡Septicemia! ¡Leucemia! ¡Arteriosclerosis! ¡Trombosis coronaria! ¡Encefalitis! ¡Osteomielitis! ¡Ajajá, vamos allá!
Un chorizo en un portal, con una navaja en la mano. Una llamada telefónica a medianoche. Sangre que hierve con ácido de la batería en una rampa de salida de una autopista de Carolina del Norte. Puñados de píldoras: anda, traga. Ese tono azulado de las uñas que sigue a la muerte por asfixia; en su último esfuerzo por aferrarse a la vida, el cerebro absorbe todo el oxígeno que queda en el cuerpo, incluso el de las células vivas que están debajo de las uñas.
Hola, chicos, me llamo Oz el Ggande y Teggible, pero podéis llamarme Oz a secas. Al fin y al cabo, somos viejos amigos. Pasaba por aquí y he entrado un momento para traerte este pequeño infarto, este derrame cerebral, etcétera; lo siento, no puedo quedarme, tengo un parto con hemorragia y, luego, inhalación de humo tóxico en Omaha.
Y la vocecita sigue gritando: «¡Te quiero, Tigger, te quiero! ¡Creo en ti, Tigger! ¡Siempre te querré y creeré en ti, y seguiré siendo niña, y el único Oz que habitará en mi corazón será ese simpático impostor de Nebraska! Te quiero…».
Vamos patrullando, mi hijo y yo…, porque lo que importa no es el sexo ni la guerra, sino la noble y terrible batalla sin esperanza contra Oz, el Ggande y Teggible.
”
”
Stephen King (Pet Sematary)