think that it means-correct me if I'm wrong-Is that the afterlife is as much a mystery to you guys as it is to us."] Lachesis, sounding a bit stiff: [On another occasion we might have time to discuss such things, but not now-as you have no doubt already noticed, time passes faster on this level of the building. Ralph looked around and saw the morning had already brightened considerably.
"Sorry.
Clotho, smiling: [Not at all-we enljoy your questions, and find them refreshing. Curiosity exists everywhere along life's continuum, but nowhere is it as abundant as here. But what you call the afterlife has no place in the four constants-Life an Death, the Random and the Purpose-which concern us now.
[The approach of almost every death which serves the Purpose takes a course with which we are very familiar. The auras of those who will die Purposeful deaths turn gray as the time of nishling approaches.
This gray deepens steadily to black. We are called when the aura [and we come exactly as you saw last night.
We give release to those who suffer, peace to those in terror, rest to those who cannot find rest.
Most Purposeful deaths are expected, even welcomed, but not all.
We are sometimes called to take men, women, an children who are in the best of health... yet their auras turn suddenly and their time of ri ishing has come.] Ralph remembered the young man in the sleeveless Celtics jersey!
he'd seen bopping into the Red Apple yesterday afternoon. they had been the picture of health and vitality... except for the slick-the slick surrounding him, that was. of Ralph opened his mouth, perhaps to mention the (or to ask about his fate), then closed it again. The sun was directly overhead now, and a bizarre certainty suddenly came to him: that he and Lois had become the subject of lecherous discussion in the secret city of the Old Crocks.
Anybody seen em?... No?... Think they run off together?.
Eloped, maybe?... Naw, not at their age, but they might be shacked up... I dunno if Ralphie's got any live rounds left in the old ammo dump, but she's always looked like a hot ticket to me...
Yeah, walks like she knows what to do with it, don't she?
The image of his oversized rustbucket waiting patiently behind one of the ivy-covered units of the Derry Cabins while the springs boinged and sproinged salaciously inside came to Ralph, and he grinned. He couldn't help it. A moment later the alarming idea that he might be broadcasting his thoughts on his aura came to him, and he slammed the door on the picture at once. Yet wasn't Lois looking at him with a certain amused speculation?
Ralph turned his attention hastily back to Clotho.
[Atropos serves the Random. Not all deaths of the sort Short-Timers call "senseless" and "unnecessary" and "tragic" are his work, but most are. When a dozen old men and women die in a fire at a retirement hotel, the chances are good that Atropos has been there, taking souvenirs and cutting cords. When an infant dies in his crib for no apparent reason, the cause, more often than not, is Atropos and his rusty scalpel. When a dog-yes, even a dog, for the destinies of almost all living things in the Short-Time world fall among either the Random or the Purpose-I's run over in the road because the driver of the car that hit him picked the wrong moment to glance at him watch-" Lois: ["Is that what happened to Rosalie?"] Clotho: [Atropos is what happened to Rosalie. Ralph's friend Joe Wyzer was only what we call "fulfilling circumstance."] is young man Lachesis: And Atropos is also what happened to lollrer, Cl, late Mr. McGovern.] Lois looked the way Ralph felt: dismayed but not really surprised. it was now late afternoon, perhaps as many as eighteen Short-Time hours had passed since they had last seen Bill, and Ralph had known the man's time was extremely short even last night, Lois, who had inadvertently put her hand inside him, probably knew it even better.
Ralph: ["When did it happen? How long after we saw him?"] Lachesis: [Not long. While he was leaving the hospital. I'm sorry for your loss, and for giving you the news in such clumsy fashion.
We speak to Short-Timers so infrequently that we forget how, I didn't mean to hurt you, Ralph and Lois.] Lois told him it was all right, that she quite understood, but tears were trickling down her cheeks, and Ralph felt them burning