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The concept of dreaming is known to the waking mind but to the
dreamer there is no waking, no real world, no sanity; there is only
the screaming bedlam of sleep. Rose McClendon Daniels slept
within her husband's madness for nine more years.
-----------------
Come over here, sweetheart, I want to talk to you up close.
---------
Get out of here, that deep part of her said suddenly. Get out of
here right now, this very minute. Don't even take the time to
run a comb through your hair. Just go.
'That's ridiculous,' she said, rocking back and forth faster than
ever. The spot of blood on the sheet sizzled in her eye. From here,
it looked like the dot under an exclamation point. 'That's ridiculous,
where would I go?'
Anywhere he isn't, the voice returned. But you have to do it
right now. Before
Before what?
That one was easy. Before she fell asleep again.
---------
Her feet, clad in white lowtop sneakers, patted the floor in a quickening
rhythm (the buzzing was now mostly in her head, rattling her brains,
heating her up), and what she thought was Fourteen years.
Fourteen years of having him talk to me up close. The
miscarriage. The tennis racket. Three teeth, one of which I
swallowed. The broken rib. The punches. The pinches. And the
bites, of course. Plenty of those. Plenty of -
Stop it! It's useless, thinking like this, because you're not
going anywhere, he'd only come after you and bring you back,
he'd find you, he's a policeman and finding people is one of the
things he does, one of the things he's good at-
'Fourteen years,' she murmured, and now it wasn't the last
fourteen she was thinking about but the next. Because that other
voice, the deep voice, was right. He might not kill her. He might
not. And what would she be like after fourteen more years of
having him talk to her up close? Would she be able to bend over?
Would she have an hour - fifteen minutes, even - a day when her
kidneys didn't feel like hot stones buried in her back? Would he
perhaps hit her hard enough to deaden some vital connection, so
she could no longer raise one of her arms or legs...?
----Come over here, sweetheart, I want to talk to you up close.
---------
Get out of here, that deep part of her said suddenly. Get out of
here right now, this very minute. Don't even take the time to
run a comb through your hair. Just go.
'That's ridiculous,' she said, rocking back and forth faster than
ever. The spot of blood on the sheet sizzled in her eye. From here,
it looked like the dot under an exclamation point. 'That's ridiculous,
where would I go?'
Anywhere he isn't, the voice returned. But you have to do it
right now. Before
Before what?
That one was easy. Before she fell asleep again.
---------
Her feet, clad in white lowtop sneakers, patted the floor in a quickening
rhythm (the buzzing was now mostly in her head, rattling her brains,
heating her up), and what she thought was Fourteen years.
Fourteen years of having him talk to me up close. The
miscarriage. The tennis racket. Three teeth, one of which I
swallowed. The broken rib. The punches. The pinches. And the
bites, of course. Plenty of those. Plenty of -
Stop it! It's useless, thinking like this, because you're not
going anywhere, he'd only come after you and bring you back,
he'd find you, he's a policeman and finding people is one of the
things he does, one of the things he's good at-
'Fourteen years,' she murmured, and now it wasn't the last
fourteen she was thinking about but the next. Because that other
voice, the deep voice, was right. He might not kill her. He might
not. And what would she be like after fourteen more years of
having him talk to her up close? Would she be able to bend over?
Would she have an hour - fifteen minutes, even - a day when her
kidneys didn't feel like hot stones buried in her back? Would he
perhaps hit her hard enough to deaden some vital connection, so
she could no longer raise one of her arms or legs...?
'I'm going,' she murmured. 'I'm really, really going.'
But she stayed where she was a moment longer, like an animal which has been kept in a cage so long it cannot believe in freedom even when it is offered. She reached behind her and touched the knob of the door - the door that led into her cage
'No more,' she whispered. She tucked her bag under one arm and took her first dozen steps into the fogbank which was now her future.
-Rose Madder, Stephen King
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