All You Love Will Be Carried Away              
                       By Steven King                       

                       (part 2 of 7)                        

He stood where he was a  moment longer, waiting for the wind
to drop.  It did, and he  could see the spark  lights again.
The farmhouse. And was it possible that behind those lights,
some farmer's wife was even now heating up a pot of Cottager
Split Pea Soup or  perhaps microwaving a Cottager Shepherd's
Pie or Chicken Francais? It was. It was as possible as hell.
While her husband watched the  early news with his shoes off
and  his sock  feet on  a  hassock, and  overhead their  son
played a  video game on  his PlayStation and  their daughter
sat in the tub, chin_deep in fragrant bubbles, her hair tied
up  with a  ribbon, reading"The  Golden Compass,"  by Philip
Pullman, or  perhaps one  of the  Harry Potter  books, which
were favorites of Alfie's  daughter, Carlene. All that going
on behind  the spark  lights, some family's  universal joint
turning smoothly  in its  socket, but  between them  and the
edge  of this  parking lot  was a  mile and  a half  of flat
field,  white  in  the  running_away light  of  a  low  sky,
comatose  with the  season. Alfie  briefly imagined  himself
walking into that field in  his city shoes, his briefcase in
one  hand and  his suitcase  in the  other, working  his way
across the  frozen furrows, finally arriving,  knocking; the
door would be opened and he  would smell pea soup, that good
hearty smell, and  hear the KETV (ABC)  meteorologist in the
other room saying, "But now look at this low_pressure system
just coming over the Rockies."

And what would Alfie say to  the farmer's wife? That he just
dropped by for  dinner? Would he advise her  to save Russian
Jews,  collect valuable  prizes? Would  he begin  by saying,
"Ma'am, according to at least one source I've read recently,
all that  you love will  be carried  away?" That would  be a
good conversation opener, sure to interest the farmer's wife
in the  wayfaring stranger  who had  just walked  across her
husband's  east field  to knock  on her  door. And  when she
invited him to step in, to  tell her more, he could open his
briefcase  and  give  her  a couple  of  his  sample  books,
tell  her that  once she  discovered the  Cottager brand  of
quick_serve  gourmet delicacies  she would  almost certainly
want to  move on to  the more sophisticated pleasures  of Ma
Mere. And, by the way, did she have a taste for caviar? Many
did. Even in Nebraska.

Freezing. Standing here and freezing.

He turned from the field and the spark lights at the far end
of it and walked to the  motel, moving in careful duck steps
so  he wouldn't  go  ass over  tea kettle.  He  had done  it
before,  God knew.  Whoops_a_daisy in  half a  hundred motel
parking lots. He  had done most of it  before, actually, and
supposed that was at least part of the problem.

There was  an overhang,  so he  was able to  get out  of the
snow.  There was  a Coke  machine with  a sign  saying, "Use
Correct Change." There was an ice machine and a Snax machine
with candy  bars and  various kinds  of potato  chips behind
curls of  metal like bedsprings.  There was no  "Use Correct
Change" sign on the Snax machine.  From the room to the left
of the  one where he  intended to kill himself,  Alfie could
hear  the early  news, but  it  would sound  better in  that
farmhouse over yonder, he was sure of that. The wind boomed.
Snow  swirled around  his  city shoes,  and  then Alfie  let
himself into his room. The light  switch was to the left. He
turned it on and shut the door.

He knew  the room;  it was  the room of  his dreams.  It was
square. The  walls were  white. On  one was  a picture  of a
small boy in a straw hat,  asleep with a fishing pole in his
hand. There was a green rug  on the floor, a quarter inch of
some nubbly synthetic stuff. It  was cold in here right now,
but when he  pushed the Hi Heat button on  the control panel
of the Climatron beneath the  window the place would warm up
fast. Would probably become hot. A counter ran the length of
one wall. There was a TV on it. On top of the TV was a piece
of cardboard with "One_Touch Movies!" printed on it.

There were  twin double beds, each  covered with bright_gold
spreads  that had  been tucked  under the  pillows and  then
pulled over them,  so the pillows looked  like small covered
corpses. There  was a table  between the beds with  a Gideon
Bible, a TV_channel guide, and  a flesh_colored phone on it.
Beyond the second bed was the door to the bathroom. When you
turned on the  light in there, the fan would  go on, too. If
you wanted the light, you got the fan, too. There was no way
around it. The  light itself would be  fluorescent, with the
ghosts of dead flies inside.  On the counter beside the sink
there  would be  a hot  plate and  a Proctor_Silex  electric
kettle and  little packets  of instant  coffee. There  was a
smell in here, the mingling of some harsh cleaning fluid and
mildew  on the  shower curtain.  Alfie knew  it all.  He had
dreamed it  right down  to the  green rug,  but that  was no
accomplishment,  it  was an  easy  dream.  He thought  about
turning  on the  heater, but  that would  rattle, too,  and,
besides, what was the point?