Gonzalo

“And then Carlos thought, You left me. You left me in the end. Why? He hugged his dog close, burying his nose in her fur. He knew there was no answer beyond the obvious, constant imbalance in any transaction of the heart. You don’t love me the way I love you.”
― Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

“Stark lit a Pall Mall himself, picked up one of his Berols, opened his own notebook . . . and then paused. He looked at Thad with naked honesty. “I’m scared, hoss,” he said. And Thad felt a great wave of sympathy for Stark—in spite of everything he knew. Scared. Yes, of course you are, he thought. Only the ones just starting out—the kids—aren’t scared. The years go by and the words on the page don’t get any darker . . . but the white space sure does get whiter. Scared? You’d be crazier than you are if you weren’t. “I know,” he said. “And you know what it comes down to—the only way to do it is to do it.”
― Stephen King, The Dark Half

“And yet, they caught glimpses of things on the shore that could have had no other provenance. A pinwheel of arms and hands, connecting in a knot of tissue bearing one staring blue eye, kept pace with them for hours, leaping in what appeared to be play, sometimes disappearing behind rocks for a mile or more, only to be spotted again as the landscape evened out; a small shack at the base of the cliff, with three charred black figures, paused in their construction of a wooden pyre to fix them with a red glare as they sailed past, while something small and frightened bucked beneath the”
― Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

“He wished to be home in London, with its dark libraries and lantern-lit alleys, with his pipe and his brandy, surrounded by the Society’s flickering candles and devil-haunted shadows. There he would feel safe. Out here, in this briny, sun-wracked environment, he felt exposed and bewildered. A moth lost in a delirium of light.”
― Nathan Ballingrud, Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell