Great excerpt
Stephen King: Skeleton Crew
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet: p. 511
"There was a curious doubling in my mind as I did those things,” the editor went on, after pausing for a sip of his Fresca. “Essentially, I was responding to a superstitious impulse. There are plenty of people who won’t walk under ladders or open an umbrella in the house. There are basketball players who cross themselves before taking foul shots and baseball players who change their socks when they’re in a slump. I think it’s the rational mind playing a bad stereo accompaniment with the irrational subconscious. Forced to define ‘irrational subconscious,’ I would say that it is a small padded room inside all of us, where the only furnishing is a small card table, and the only thing on the card table is a revolver loaded with flexible bullets.
“When you change course on the sidewalk to avoid the ladder or step out of your apartment into the rain with your furled umbrella, part of your integrated self peels off and steps into that room and picks the gun up off the table. You may be aware of two conflicting thoughts: walking under a ladder is harmless, and Not walking under a ladder is also harmless. But as soon as the ladder is behind you--or as soon as the umbrella is open--you’re back together again.”
The writer said, “that’s very interesting. Take it a step further for me, if you don’t mind. When does that irrational part actually stop fooling with the gun and put it up to its temple?”
The editor said,” When the person in question starts writing letters to the op-ed page of the paper demanding that all the ladders be taken down because walking under them is dangerous.”
There was a laugh.
“Having taken it that far, I suppose we ought to finish. The irrational self has actually fired the flexible bullet into the brain when the person begins tearing around town, knocking ladders over and maybe injuring the people that were working on them. It is not certifiable behavior to walk around ladders rather than under them. It is not certifiable behavior to write letters to the paper saying that New York City went broke because of all the people callously walking under workmen’s ladders. But it is certifiable to start knocking over ladders.”
“Because it’s overt,” the writer muttered.
The agent said, “you know, you’ve got something there, Henry. I’ve got this thing about not lighting three cigarettes on a match. I don’t know how I got it, but I did. Then I read somewhere that it came from the trench warfare in World War I. It seems that the German sharpshooters would wait for the Tommies to start lighting each other’s cigarettes. On the first light, you got the range. On the second one, you got the windage. And on the third one, you blew the guy’s head off. But knowing all that didn’t make any difference. I still can’t light three on a match. One part of me says it doesn’t matter if I light a dozen cigarettes on one match. But the other part--this very ominous voice, like an interior Boris Karloff--says ‘Ohhhh, if you dooo…’ ”
“But all madness isn’t superstitious, is it?” The writer’s wife asked timidly.
“Isn’t it?” the editor replied. “Jeanne d’ Arc heard voices from heaven. Some people think they are possessed by demons. Others see gremlins… or devils… or Fornits. The terms we use for madness suggest superstition in some form or other. Mania… abnormality… irrationality… lunacy… insanity. For the mad person, reality has skewed. The whole person begins to reintegrate in that small room where the pistol is.
“But the rational part of me was still very much there. Bloody, bruised, indignant, and rather frightened, but still on the job. Saying: ‘Oh, that’s all right. Tomorrow when you sober up, you can plug everything back in, thank God. Play your games if you have to. But no more than this. No further than this.’
“That rational voice was right to be frightened. There’s something in us that is very much attracted to madness. Everyone who looks off the edge of a tall building has felt at least a faint, morbid urge to jump. And anyone who has ever put a loaded pistol up to his head…”
“Ugh, don’t,” the writer’s wife said. “Please.”
“All right,” the editor said. “My point is just this: even the most well-adjusted person is holding on to his or her sanity by a greased rope. I really believe that. The rationality circuits are shoddily built into the human animal…”
Sorta puts half my life in perspective.