6
" That was enough dialogue for a few pages - he had to get into some fast, red-hot action.There weren't any more hitches now. The story flowed like a torrent. The margin bell chimed almost staccato, the roller turned with almost piston-like continuity, the pages sprang up almost like blobs of batter from a pancake skillet. The beer kept rising in the glass and, contradictorily, steadily falling lower. The cigarettes gave up their ghosts, long thin gray ghosts, in a good cause; the mortality rate was terrible.His train of thought, the story's lifeline, beer-lubricated but no whit impeded, flashed and sputtered and coursed ahead like lightning in a topaz mist, and the loose fingers and hiccuping keys followed as fast as they could. (" The Penny-A-Worder" ) "
11
" On the flat expanse of pancake ice, War stood by the Pale Rider’s side. Though their forms did not touch, their shadows intertwined, black on black, in a smoky caress.“Knew you’d come,” Death said cheerfully.She smiled, and that slow motion of her lips hinted at many things. “The White Rider divided, and the world on the brink of destruction. How could I stay away?”“I could set my watch by you.”“You don’t have a watch.” Her smile broadened into a grin. “An hourglass, maybe . . .”“Please, not another joke about a scythe . . .”She mimed zipping her mouth shut.A pause, as they listened to the sounds of the boy healing and the man summoning doom.“I like him,” War said.Even though she hadn’t specified whether she meant the boy or the man, Death smiled and nodded. “Me too.”“You like everyone.”“Well, yes.”The two shared a quiet laugh, their voices mingling in perfect harmony.A longer pause, and then War asked, “What of Famine?”“What of her? She’s not mine. Not yet, anyway. She will be soon enough.”The Red Rider slid him a look. “That’s cold, even for you.”“Eh, just practical.” A shrug. “Everyone comes to me eventually. It’s the journey that makes it interesting.”“Such a people person!”He flashed her a grin. “My best quality.”“Oh,” said War, sliding her gloved hand into his pale one, “I can think of others that are better. "
12
" Oliver Marley supposed there were more dignified ways to end his life. A lifelong victim to the twin sins of an infertile imagination and pragmatism, the thought of travel simply never crossed his mind. Had it occurred to him, Oliver could have jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge, into the abyss of the Grand Canyon or said au revoir off the Eiffel Tower. But truth be told, Oliver never was much of a traveler. Even locally there were certainly higher quality casinos to choose from, taller parking garages from which to leap. Instead he found himself perched atop the nearest appropriately-sized structure to his home, that being the parking garage of the Circus Time Hotel & Casino. His view not of Alcatraz Island and the rough waters of the San Francisco Bay, nor the breathtaking vistas of the Arizona desert, or the romanticism of the Paris skyline for that matter. Rather he found himself bathed in a noxious blend of pink and green neon, staring into a pair of giant blinking pastel eyes belonging to the eighty-foot clown staring down at him like a frilly guardian angel. Then again, when your primary objective is to pancake yourself on a public sidewalk, perhaps you’re not in the best position to nitpick over the intricacies of what does and does not constitute bad taste. Oliver would just have to live with the clown, at least for another minute or two. "
― , Marley
