Look! It's Richard Pryor! That guy kills me! I suppose he was...
ST. PETER
Ummm... yessir.
GOD
Shit. (Pause) Maybe I better cut Down on my drinking. (Pause)
Still... It WAS in the way.
Fade to black, except for the spotlight on the ruins of the floating
globe.
ST. PETER
Yessir.
GOD (muttering)
My son got back, didn't he?
ST. PETER
Yessir, some time ago.
GOD
Good. Everything's hunky-dory, then.
THE SPOTLIGHT GOES OUT.
(Author's note: GOD'S VOICE should be as loud as possible.)
Before The Play
Stephen King
Copyright 1982 by Stephen King.
'Before the Play,' was first published in Whispers,
Vol. 5, No. 1-2, August 1982.
A BEDROOM IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING
Coming here had been a mistake, and Lottie Kilgallon didn't like to
admit her mistakes.
And I won't admit this one, she thought with determination as she
stared up at the ceiling that glimmered overhead
Her husband of 10 days slumbered beside hen Sleeping the sleep
of the just was how some might have put it. Others, more honest,
might have called it the sleep of the monumentally stupid. He was
William Pillsbury of the Westchester Pillsburys, only son and heir
of Harold M. Pillsbury, old and comfortable money. Publishing
was what they liked to talk about because publishing was a
gentleman's profession, but there was also a chain of New England
textile mills, a foundry in Ohio, and extensive agricultural holdings
in the South - cotton and citrus and fruit. Old money was always
better than nouveau riche, but either way they had money falling
out of their assholes. If she ever said that aloud to Bill, he would
undoubtedly go pale and might even faint dead away No fear, Bill.
Profanation of the Pillsbury family shall never cross my lips.
It had been her idea to honeymoon at the Overlook in Colorado,
and there had been two reasons for this. First, although it was
tremendously expensive (as the best resorts were), it was not a
'hep' place to go, and Lottie did not like to go to the hep places.
Where did you go on your honeymoon. Lottie? Oh, this perfectly,
wonderful resort hotel in Colorado - the Overlook. Lovely place.
Quite out of the way but so romantic. And her friends - whose
stupidity was exceeded in most cases only by that of William
