Today is 08/06/2026

by me, Kerry Burgess, 08/06/2026 08:30 AM

You gotta emphasize that part there on my tv-screen: "control of the fires"









The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author

excerpt, Chapter 71

He lingered lovingly over the idea but in the end could not quite believe it. They were coming of their own choice. They were coming wrapped in righteousness like a clutch of missionaries approaching the cannibals’ village.

Oh, it was so lovely!

Doubts would end. Fears would end. All it would take was the sight of their four heads up on spikes in front of the MGM Grand’s fountain. He would assemble every person in Vegas and make them file past and look. He would have photographs taken, would print fliers, have them sent out to LA and San Francisco and Spokane









The Stand - complete edition, by Stephen King, author

excerpt, Chapter 44

He dreamed he was in a field of corn, lost there. But there was music, guitar music. Joe playing the guitar. If he found Joe he would be all right. So he followed the sound, breaking through one row of corn to the next when he had to, at last coming out in a ragged clearing. There was a small house there, more of a shack really, the porch held up with rusty old jacklifters. It wasn’t Joe playing the guitar, how could it have been? Joe was holding his left hand and Nadine his right. They were with him. An old woman was playing the guitar, a jazzy sort of spiritual that had Joe smiling. The old woman was black, and she was sitting on the porch, and Larry guessed she was just about the oldest woman he had ever seen in his life. But there was something about her that made him feel good… good in the way his mother had once made him feel good when he was very little and she would suddenly hug him and say, Here’s the best boy, here’s Alice Underwood’s all-time best boy.

The old woman stopped playing and looked up at them.

Well say, I got me comp’ny. Step on out where I can see you, my peepers ain’t what they once was.

So they came closer, the three of them hand in hand, and Joe reached out and set a bald old tire swing to slow pendulum movement as they passed it. The tire’s doughnut-shaped shadow slipped back and forth on the weedy ground. They were in a small clearing, an island in a sea of corn. To the north, a dirt road stretched away to a point.

You like to have a swing on this old box o mine? she asked Joe, and Joe came forward eagerly and took the old guitar from her gnarled hands. He began to play the tune they had followed through the corn, but better and faster than the old woman.

Bless im, he plays good. Me, I’m too old. Cain’t make my fingers go that fast now. It’s the rheumatiz. But in 1902 I played at the County Hall. I was the first Negro to ever play there, the very first.

Nadine asked who she was. They were in a kind of forever place where the sun seemed to stand still one hour from darkness and the shadow of the swing Joe had set in motion would always travel back and forth across the weedy yard. Larry wished he could stay here forever, he and his family. This was a good place. The man with no face could never get him here, or Joe, or Nadine.

Mother Abagail is what they call me. I’m the oldest woman in eastern Nebraska, I guess, and I still make my own biscuits. You come see me as quick as you can. We got to go before he gets wind of us.

A cloud came over the sun. The swing’s arc had decreased to nothing. Joe stopped playing with a jangling rattle of strings, and Larry felt the hackles rise on the back of his neck. The old woman seemed not to notice.

Before who gets wind of us? Nadine asked, and Larry wished he could speak, cry out for her to take the question back before it could leap free and hurt them.

That black man. That servant of the devil. We got the Rockies between us n him, praise God, but they won’t keep him black. That’s why we got to knit together. In Colorado. God come to me in a dream and showed me where. But we got to be quick, quick as we can, anyway. So you come see me. There’s others coming, too.

No, Nadine said in a cold and fearful voice. We’re going to Vermont, that’s all. Only to Vermont—just a short trip.

Your trip will be longer than ours, if’n you don’t fight off his power, the old woman in Larry’s dream replied. She was looking at Nadine with great sadness. This could be a good man you got here, woman. He wants to make something out of himself. Why don’t you cleave to him instead of using him?

No! We’re going to Vermont, to VERMONT!

The old woman looked at Nadine pityingly. You’ll go straight to hell if you don’t watch close, daughter of Eve. And when you get there, you are gonna find that hell is cold.

The dream broke up then, splitting into cracks of darkness that swallowed him. But something in that darkness was stalking him. It was cold and merciless, and soon he would see its grinning teeth.









expanding

From 9/15/1998 ( ) To 8/1/2026 ( ) is 10182 days

From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 9/18/1993 ( premiere USA TV series "The Mommies" ) is 10182 days



- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 08:32 AM Pacific-timezone USA Thursday 08/06/2026