I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries. - Stephen King

Now let many long years pass, all in a twinkling — one of the great things about tales is how fast time may pass when not much of note is happening. Real life is never that way, and it is probably a good thing. Time only passes faster in histories, and what is a history except a grand sort of tale where passing centuries are substituted for passing years?

In these silences, something may rise.

Once, during the drinking phase, Wendy had accused him of desiring his own destruction but not possessing the necessary moral fiber to support a full-blown deathwish. So he manufactured ways in which other people could do it, lopping a piece at a time off himself and their family.