Song of Susannah

Anger is the most useless emotion," Henchick intoned, "destructive to the mind and hurtful to the heart.

In the Land of Memory the time is always Now. In the Kingdom of Ago, the clocks tick... but their hands never move. There is an Unfound Door (O lost) and memory is the key which opens it.

Dead was the gift that kept on giving. Dead, like diamonds, was forever.

I hold to no God," Roland said. "I hold to the Tower, and won't pray to that.

All you imagined, no matter how wild it might seem, was no more than a disguised version of what you already knew.

Commala-come-come There’s a young man with a gun. Young man lost his honey When she took it on the run. Commala-come-one! She took it on the run! Left her baby lonely But he baby ain’t done. Commala-come-coo The wind’ll blow ya through. Ya gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya Cause there’s nothin else to do. Commala-come-two! Nothin else to do! Gotta go where ka’s wind blows ya Cause there’s nothin else to do. Commala-come-key Can you tell me what ya see? Is it ghosts or just the mirror That makes ya wanna flee? Commala-come-three! I beg ya, tell me! Is it ghosts or just your darker self That makes ya wanna flee? Commala-come-ko Whatcha doin at my do’? If ya doan tell me now, my friend I’ll lay ya on de flo’. Commala-come-fo’! I can lay ya low! The things I’ve do to such as you You never wanna know. Commala-gin-jive Ain’t it grand to be alive? To look out on Discordia When the Demon Moon arrives. Commala-come-five! Even when the shadows rise! To see the world and walk the world Makes ya glad to be alive. Commala-mox-nix! You’re in a nasty fix! To take a hand in traitor’s glove Is to grasp a sheaf of sticks! Commala-come-six! Nothing there but thorns and sticks! When your find your hand in traitor’s glove You’re in a nasty fix. Commala-loaf-leaven! They go to hell or up to heaven! The the guns are shot and the fires hot, You got to poke em in the oven. Commala-come-seven! Salt and yow’ for leaven! Heat em up and knock em down And poke em in the oven. Commala-ka-kate You’re in the hands of fate. No matter if it’s real or not, The hour groweth late. Commala-come-eight! The hour groweth late! No matter what shade ya cast You’re in the hands of fate. Commala-me-mine You have to walk the line. When you finally get the thing you need It makes you feel so fine. Commala-come-nine! It makes ya feel fine! But if you’d have the thing you need You have to walk the line. Commala-come-ken It’s the other one again. You may know her name and face But that don’t make her your friend. Commala-come-ten! She is not your friend! If you let her get too close She’ll cut you up again! Commala-come-call We hail the one who made us all, Who made the men and made the maids, Who made the great and small. Commala-come-call! He made us great and small! And yet how great the hand of fate That rules us one and all. Commala-come-ki, There’s a time to live and one to die. With your back against the final wall Ya gotta let the bullets fly. Commala-come-ki! Let the bullets fly! Don’t ‘ee mourn for me, my lads When it comes my day to die. Commala-come-kass! The child has come at last! Sing your song, O sing it well, The child has come to pass. Commala-come-kass, The worst has come to pass. The Tower trembles on its ground; The child has come at last. Commala-come-come, The battle’s now begun! And all the foes of men and rose Rise with the setting sun.

You know," King said, "I'm not much good at telling stories. That sounds like a paradox, but it's not; it's the reason I write them down.

I think telling stories is like pushing something. Pushing against uncreation itself, maybe.

The gunslinger said, "I used to think the most terrible thing would be to reach the Dark Tower and find the top room empty. The God of all universes either dead or nonexistent in the first place. But now...suppose there is someone there, Eddie? Someone in charge who turns out to be..." He couldn't finish. Eddie could. "Someone who turns out to be just another bumhug? Is that it? God not dead but feeble-minded and malicious?

I'm not laughing at you guys," King said. "It's actually against my religion to laugh at men who are toting guns.

King looked back at Roland. "As The Man With No Name--a fantasy version of Clint Eastwood--you were okay. A lot of fun to partner up with." "Is that how you think of it?" "Yes. But then you changed. Right under my hand. It got so I couldn't tell if you were the hero, the antihero, or no hero at all. When you let the kid drop, that was the capper." "You said you made me do that." Looking Roland straight in the eyes--blue meeting blue amid the endless choir of voices--King said, "I lied, brother.

You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction, only death in rationalism.

Passage between worlds. Then the gunfire. Then the killing.

When you came right down to it, how did anyone know they weren’t a character in some writer’s story, or a transient thought in some bus-riding schmoe’s head, or a momentary mote in God’s eye?

Cat can have kittens in the oven, girl, but that won’t ever make em muffins.

I deal in lead! Roland called, and Eddie felt goose-bumps pebble his arms.

A woman in love, is what. In my experience, they got their own laws.

Aye. Would’ee speak a word of prayer first, Roland? To whatever God thee holds?” “I hold to no God,” Roland said. “I hold to the Tower, and won’t pray to that.

Eddie got in. Roland paused for a moment to tap his throat three times. Eddie had seen him perform this ritual before when about to cross open water, and reminded himself to ask about it. He never got the chance; before the question occurred to him again, death had slipped between them.

Ka-mai, yes. Not just a fool, but ka's fool - a fool of destiny.

Dad-a-jum, dad-a-jiggers, goddam lobsters bit off your fingers," King said, and actually laughed.

Their situation was becoming ever harder to deny: they were characters in someone's story. This whole world--

Anger is the most useless emotion,” Henchick intoned, “destructive to the mind and hurtful of the heart.

A man named Stephen King. Do you know that name?” And saw by Cullum’s eyes that he did.

Is Stephen King the Crimson King of this world?

The gunslinger said, “I used to think the most terrible thing would be to reach the Dark Tower and find the top room empty. The God of all universes either dead or nonexistent in the first place. But now … suppose there is someone there, Eddie? Someone in charge who turns out to be …” He couldn’t finish. Eddie could. “Someone who turns out to be just another bumhug? Is that it? God not dead but feeble-minded and malicious?” Roland nodded. This was not, in fact, precisely what he was afraid of, but he thought Eddie had at least come close.