“I think we all know,” Professor Verdon said, “that there is no Santa Claus, no Tooth Fairy, and no actual beings called Walk-Ins. Yet these tales

(Continued on P. 8)

The rest of the article is missing. Nor is there any explanation as to why King may have included it in his journal.

June 19th, 1989

I just got back from my one-year Alcoholix Anonymous “anniversary.” An entire year w/o drugs or booze! I can hardly believe it. No regrets; sobering up undoubtedly saved my life (and probably my marriage), but I wish it wasn’t so hard to write stories in the aftermath. People in “the Program” say don’t push it, it’ll come, but there’s another voice (I think of it as the Voice of the Turtle) telling me to hurry up and get going, time is short and I have to sharpen my tools. For what? For The Dark Tower, of course, and not just because letters keep coming in from people who read The Drawing of the Three and want to know what happens next. Something in me wants to go back to work on the story, but I’ll be damned if I know how to get back.

July 12th, 1989

There are some amazing treasures on the bookshelves down here in Lovell. Know what I found this morning, while I was looking for something to read? Shardik, by Richard Adams. Not the story about the rabbits but the one about the giant mythological bear. I think I’ll read it over again.

Am still not writing much of interest …

September 21, 1989

Okay, this is relatively weird, so prepare yourself.

Around 10 A.M., while I was writing (while I was staring at the word processor and dreaming about how great it would be to have an ice-cold keg of Bud, at least), the doorbell rang. It was a guy from Bangor House of Flowers, with a dozen roses. Not for Tab, either, but for me. The card read Happy Birthday from the Mansfields—Dave, Sandy, and Megan.

I had totally forgotten, but today I’m the Big Four-Two. Anyway, I took one of the roses out, and I kind of got lost in it. I know how strange that sounds, believe me, but I did. I seemed to hear this sweet humming, and I just went down & down, following the curves of the rose, kind of splashing thru these drops of dew that seemed as big as ponds. And all the time that humming sound got louder & sweeter, and the rose got … well, rosier. And I found myself thinking of Jake from the first Dark Tower story, and Eddie Dean, and a bookstore. I even remember the name: The Manhattan Restaurant of the Mind.

Then, boom! I feel a hand on my shoulder, I turn around, and it’s Tabby. She wanted to know who sent me the roses. She also wanted to know if I’d fallen asleep. I said no, but I kind of did, right there in the kitchen.