Insomnia

“Although he had been awake for twenty-four hours by then, every trace of sleepiness had left his mind and body by quarter of four. He was tired, yes—more deeply and fundamentally tired than he had ever been in his life—but being tired and being sleepy, he had discovered, were sometimes poles apart. Sleep, that undiscriminating friend, humankind’s best and most reliable nurse since the dawn of time, had abandoned him again.”

In this passage, the novel draws a distinction between two synonymous words to deepen the nuance of Ralph’s experience. By differentiating “sleepy’ from “tired,” King calls attention to the fact that Ralph’s desire for rest goes beyond the realm of bodily need into emotional need. The fact that Ralph’s insomnia comes in the wake of Carolyn’s death drives the idea that his tiredness is, in part, a grief response.

“Ralph suddenly remembered what Carolyn used to say whenever he started moaning and bitching about some chore he didn’t want to do, some errand he didn’t want to run, or some duty call he didn’t want to make: It’s a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so don’t sweat the small stuff.”

Since Carolyn dies at the start of the novel, King fills in her absence by making her appear as a guiding voice in Ralph’s head. This turn of phrase recurs throughout the novel several times, allowing Carolyn to function as Ralph’s emotional conscience. This not only helps Ralph to make the emotional decisions that will push the story forward, but also helps to deepen his relationship with Carolyn even after her loss.

“‘The Crimson King, Ed? Who’s he?’

‘Oh, please.’ Ed gave Ralph a cunning look. ‘“Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.”’”

Ed introduces the overarching antagonist of the novel using biblical allusion. This drives the sinister and ageless aspects of the Crimson King’s character, comparing him to a notorious scriptural figure whose wrath and caprice made him responsible for the massacre of innocents, which foreshadows the planned massacre at the rally.

“‘He saw into people in a way that seemed scary to me […] You sometimes wondered if it was an ordinary pair of eyes he was using to look at you, or some kind of X-ray machine.’

At the snackbar, the woman was bending down with a small paper cup of soda. The kid reached up for it with both hands, grinning, and took it […] The rosy glow pulsed briefly into existence around him again as he did, and Ralph knew he had been right: the kid’s name was Patrick, and his mother didn’t want to take him home. There was no way he could know such things, but he did just the same.”

In this passage, King turns Bill’s figurative language into something literal, using it to describe how Ralph’s perception is changing because of his exposure to hyper-reality. This shift drives the uncanniness of the narrative, undermining the realism that has defined Ralph’s life thus far. This passage also features one of the earliest appearances of Patrick Danville, foreshadowing his importance in the later parts of the novel.

“The Friends of Life are eminently infiltratable, Ralph, because they’re convinced that, deep down, everyone is on their side. But we believe that our person is the only one who’s gotten in toward the middle, and this person says that Dan Dalton is just the tail Ed Deepneau wags.”

This passage marks a shift in the hierarchy of the novel’s many antagonists, undermining one and elevating the other. Whereas The Friends of Life previously represented a major threat by giving Ed organizational credibility, this passage implies that Ed has been manipulating the organization all along, using them to fulfill his personal agenda. This only makes Ed much more threatening as he assumes his role as primary antagonist.

“He and Ralph had known each other for over twenty years; for the last ten of those years they had lived in the same building. He had been one of Carolyn’s pallbearers, and if Ralph couldn’t talk to Bill about what had been happening to him, who could he talk to?

The answer seemed to be no one.”

The logic that leads Ralph to confide in Bill underscores Ralph’s loneliness. Ralph’s fear that there is “no one” else he can confide in speaks to his sense of isolation and invisibility after Carolyn’s death. His recollection of how Bill served as one of “Carolyn’s pallbearers” reinforces how important this connection with Carolyn makes Bill in Ralph’s eyes.

“In my family, dying at eighty is dying young…and if I had to spend twelve years living in a place where they announce dinner over the loudspeaker, I’d go crazy.”

Despite the services that the care facility guarantees, Lois bristles against the idea that she is the kind of person who belongs there. She effectively declares her indignation with the view that being elderly means that she has no more agency. The defense of her personal agency drives Free Will Versus Predestination as a theme by resisting the perceptions that others impose on her because of her age.

“Lois had spoken of being pushed, but to Ralph it felt more as if he were being carried, the way a river carries a man in a small boat. But he couldn’t see where he was going; heavy mist shrouded the banks, and now, as the current began to grow swifter, he could hear the rumble of rapids somewhere up ahead.

Still, there are shapes, Ralph. Shapes in the mist.”

King uses an extended metaphor to suggest the way that Ralph and Lois’s experiences of hyper-reality are part of something bigger. The metaphor centers on the image of a river passage, which restricts Ralph’s movement along a singular, inescapable path. Ralph senses that large, unseen forces are responsible for this movement, foreshadowing his encounter with the agents of the Purpose and the theme of free will versus predestination.

“‘Death is very stupid,’ she said, speaking in the nagging and unlovely voice which only the very tired and the deeply heartsick seem to employ. ‘An obstetrician this slow in cutting a baby’s umbilical cord would be fired for malpractice.’”

During Ralph’s conversation with Bob’s niece, she introduces the metaphor of the slow obstetrician, which ends up defining the nature of the bald doctors who feature prominently in the narrative. This suggests that the novel’s view of death is inherently absurd, even as its unknowability allows it to maintain power over Ralph.

“The loneliness is the worst part of getting old, I think—not the aches and pains, not the cranky bowels or the way you lose your breath after climbing a flight of stairs you could have just about flown up when you were twenty—but being lonely […] No one talks to you anymore—oh, they talk at you, sometimes, but that’s not the same—and mostly it’s like people don’t even see you.”

Lois’s reflections on her loneliness as an elderly person resonates with the loneliness Ralph experiences as a retiree and widower, revealing her own experiences of loneliness and the complexities of grief. Key to this passage is Lois’s emphasis on the emotional challenges of elderly life, which outweigh the physical changes and challenges. Consequently, the desire to overcome loneliness becomes the foundation of Lois’s and Ralph’s romantic relationship.

“Sitting there, not wanting to get up even long enough to use the bathroom because the deathwatch had almost run down by then, each tick was a lurch and the gap between each tick and the next was a lifetime; his long-time companion had a train to catch and he wanted to be on the platform to see her off. There would only be one chance to do it right.”

The flashback to Carolyn’s death brings back the motif of the deathwatch, showing how its power persists even after Carolyn has died. As Ralph returns to the place of Carolyn’s death, he is struck by the memory of the physical strain the deathwatch imposed on him, forcing him to stay in place to await the end of its ticking. By trying to assert self-control to resist the power of the deathwatch, Ralph demonstrates the opposite, showing how much his fear of uncertainty controls him. This drives Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty as a theme.

“Ralph hadn’t intended to agree with anything either one of them said, but that phrase—the physicians of last resort—sliced cleanly and effortlessly through his anger. It felt true. They had freed Jimmy V. from a world where there was nothing left for him but pain.”

Ralph’s reaction to Clotho and Lachesis’s self-description of their work marks a turning point in his relationship with death. It represents the moment he understands death’s mechanisms and the mercy it grants to those who die. Death no longer becomes a wholly random event, as it has been depicted in the novel thus far, but transforms into something purposeful and even beneficial for those who experiencing physical suffering. This helps Ralph with overcoming the fear of uncertainty.

“We cannot deal with what’s happening; the situation has passed far beyond our skills. We can no longer see clearly, let alone act. Yet in this case our inability to see hardly matters, because in the end, only Short-Timers can oppose the will of Atropos.”

The philosophical implications of this passage drive free will versus predestination. There is nothing the Purpose can do to stop the Random except to enlist people, the only beings with the capacity to oppose the Random. This suggests that humanity naturally has the ability to impose or restore order to a chaotic world, should they choose to do so. That capability is free will.

“Big tragedies have always been a part of the Random; why is this so different?”

Ralph’s skepticism over the stated objectives of their mission relies on his awareness of the everyday senselessness that comes about with tragedy or disaster. In the sense Ralph proposes, widespread death is a normal event, unworthy of meriting the attention of higher beings who have no real empathy for humanity. The senseless nature of tragedy normalizes the potential violence at the Susan Day rally.

“Helen clearly considered tonight’s rally more important than ever, and she wouldn’t be the only one. It was no longer just about choice and who had the right to decide what a woman did with her own body; now it was about causes important enough to die for and honoring the friends who had done just that. Now they were talking not just about politics but about a kind of secular requiem mass for the dead.”

After the attempted massacre at High Ridge, Helen explains to Ralph why it is important to go through with the rally. Doing so is no longer just about expressing support for women’s rights and access to health and support services, but to honor those who were killed as hostages at High Ridge by an extremist. Helen’s refusal to be intimidated speaks to overcoming the fear of uncertainty.

“Clotho and Lachesis may have sent you to High Ridge for the wrong reasons, but the Purpose sent you there for the right ones.”

This passage drives the theme of free will versus predestination further, albeit in favor of predestination. It suggests that the knowledge of higher beings will always be so inscrutable that it creates the illusion of free will. This resonates with some strains of religious thought, and indeed with Ralph’s sense that he is constantly being guided or carried to his ultimate fate.

“These mute reminders of the Random dead were both terrible and pathetic. The place was more than a museum or a packrat’s lair, Ralph realized; it was a profane church where Atropos took his own version of Communion—grief for bread, tears for wine.”

King compares Atropos’s lair to a Christian church, drawing from the massive scale of archaic cathedrals to suggest the size of the token chamber. The specification of the church brings to mind ritual connotations, reinforced by the references to Communion. In his lair, Atropos renews himself spiritually by consuming the despair of those whose lives he claims.

“[Of course you do, Ralph—that’s what these matters of life and death are really about: who has the right. This time it’s you. So what do you say?]

[‘I don’t know what I say. I don’t know what I think. All I know is that I wish all three of you had LEFT ME THE FUCK ALONE!’]”

This passage marks a major turning point in Ralph’s attitude toward the uncertainty of death. Ralph’s wish to revert to a state of ignorance results from the overwhelming burden that knowledge places on his conscience. Ralph is overcoming the fear of uncertainty by realizing it is better to remain uncertain about death than to know when and whom it will strike.

“So which was it going to be? The one or the many? The lady or the tiger? If he didn’t choose soon, the choice would be taken out of his hands by nothing more than the simple passage of time. So which one? Which?

‘Neither…or both,’ he said hoarsely, unaware in his terrible agitation that he was speaking aloud, and on several different levels at once. ‘I won’t choose one or the other. I won’t.’”

This passage marks a major thematic turn for free will versus predestination. Faced with two impossible choices, Ralph changes the terms of his dilemma by declaring that neither choice is satisfactory. He declares that one life is not worth more than another, let alone several others. To make a choice is to violate the presumption of equality among all human beings.

“[‘All lives are different. All of them matter or none matters. That’s only my short-sighted, Short-Time view, of course, but I guess you boys are stuck with it, since I’m the one with the hammer.’]”

This passage deepens the ideas in the previous entry by stressing uniqueness as the essential feature of humanity, which gives each person both idiosyncrasy and equality. Ralph leverages this view to set his own terms for saving Patrick, which puts him on equal footing with the higher beings. In a sense, Ralph transcends his humanity by arguing for Natalie’s continued existence.

“[T]hey were aware that the Short-Timers whose existences they had been sent to prune lived powerful inner lives, but they did not in the least comprehend the reality of those lives, the emotions which drove them, or the actions—sometimes noble, sometimes foolish—which resulted […] They lived in fearful perplexity and passed it off as imagination.”

This passage observes that only humanity can appreciate the richness of human life. A higher being can imagine human motivation, but cannot fully appreciate it. When faced with animals, humanity can only experience the same “fearful perplexity” that Clotho and Lachesis do for Ralph and Lois.

“Ralph: [“Did we ever have a choice? Did we really?”]

Lachesis, very softly: [We told you so, didn’t we? For Short-Timers there is always a choice. We find that frightening…but we also find it beautiful.]”

This passage resolves free will versus predestination by affirming the human capacity for free will. Ralph is ready to conclude that human life is designed according to destiny, which Lachesis refutes with the admission that human choice exists and is as inscrutable to higher beings as the Purpose is to Ralph’s understanding. Lachesis’s description of choice as being both “frightful” and “beautiful” resonates with the novel’s depiction of death, which is both uncertain and merciful for those who experience suffering.

“‘So break it, Ralph! Better your promise than my heart!’

‘And what about the kid? What about Helen, for that matter? Nat’s all she lives for. Doesn’t Helen deserve something better from me than a broken promise?’

‘I don’t care what she deserves! What any of them deserve!’ she shouted, and then her face crumpled. ‘Yes, all right, I suppose I do. But what about us, Ralph? Don’t we count?’”

Lois’s reaction to Ralph’s impending death speaks to the complexities of grief. She argues that Natalie and Helen deserve no more than she does, effectively reiterating Ralph’s argument to save Natalie in the first place. Ralph, however, can no longer break away from his promise because he cannot put Natalie’s death on his conscience. Ralph has chosen to privilege Natalie’s survival over his and Lois’s happiness, but is at peace with his choice.