A Short Story Is A

The Man In Black Smiled. "shall We Tell The Truth Then, You And I? No More Lies?" I Thought We Had Been." But The Man In Black Persisted As If Roland Hadn't Spoken. "shall There Be Truth Between Us, As Two Men? Not As Friends, But As Equals? There Is An Offer You Will Get Rarely, Roland. Only Equals Speak The Truth, That's My Thought On't. Friends And Lovers Lie Endlessly, Caught In The Web Of Regard. How Tiresome!

Shall There Be Truth Between Us, As Two Men? Not As Friends, But As Enemies And Equals?

And All That Weirdness Isn't Just Going On Outside. It's In You Too, Right Now, Growing In The Dark Like Magic Mushrooms. Call It The Thing In The Cellar. Call It The Blow Lunch Factor. Call It The Loony Tunes File. I Think Of It As My Private Dinosaur, Huge, Slimy, And Mindless, Stumbling Around In The Stinking Swamp Of My Subconscious, Never Finding A Tar Pit Big Enough To Hold It.

If You Can Remember All The Accessories That Go With Your Best Outfit, The Contents Of Your Purse, The Starting Lineup Of The New York Yankees Or The Houston Oilers, Or What Label "hang On Sloopy" By The Mccoys Was On, You Are Capable Of Remembering The Differences Between A Gerund (verb Form Used As A Noun) And A Participle (verb Form Used As An Adjective).

Yet Suppose Further. Suppose That All Worlds, All Universes, Met At A Single Nexus, A Single Pylon, A Tower. And Within It, A Stairway, Perhaps Rising To The Godhead Itself. Would You Dare Climb To The Top, Gunslinger? Could It Be That Somewhere Above All Of Endless Reality, There Exists A Room?...' You Dare Not.' And In The Gunslinger's Mind, Those Words Echoed: You Dare Not.