The Shining

“Mr. Hallora

“I don't know,” Hallora

“I'm sorry,” Da

“No, here I come. I'm okay, Da

“I didn't go as hard as I could,” Da

“Probably my good luck you did… my brains would be leakin out my ears.” He saw the alarm on Da

“Like I was Nolan Ryan throwing a fastball,” he replied promptly.

“You like baseball, do you?” Hallora

“Daddy and me like the Angels,” Da

“Was what, Dan?”

“I forget,” Da

“Can you tell what your mom and dad are thinking, Da

“Most times, if I want to. But usually I don't try.”

“Why not?”

“Well…” he paused a moment, troubled. “It would be like peeking into the bedroom and watching while they're doing the thing that makes babies. Do you know that thing?”

“I have had acquaintance with it,” Hallora

“They wouldn't like that. And they wouldn't like me peeking at their thinks. It would be dirty.”

“I see.”

“But I know how they're feeling,” Da

“It's just a headache. I've had hangovers that were worse. Can you read other people, Da

“I can't read yet at all,” Da

“I mean, can you tell what anybody is thinking?”

Da

“I can if it's loud,” he said finally. “Like Mrs. Brant and the pants. Or like once, when me and Mommy were in this big store to get me some shoes, there was this big kid looking at radios, and he was thinking about taking one without buying it. Then he'd think, what if I get caught? Then he'd think, I really want it. Then he'd think about getting caught again. He was making himself sick about it, and he was making me sick. Mommy was talking to the man who sells the shoes so I went over and said, `Kid, don't take that radio. Go away. ' And he got really scared. He went away fast.”

Hallora

Cautiously: “Is there more for you?”

“Sometimes,” Hallora

“Sometimes,” Da

“Who's Tony?”

And suddenly Da

“What's wrong?” he cried. “You're asking me all this because you're worried, aren't you? Why are you worried about me? Why are you worried about us?”

Hallora

“But I don't understand thingsl” Da

“Who's Tony?” Hallora

“Mommy and Daddy call him my `invisible playmate,"' Da

“Nightmares?” Hallora

“Yes. That's right. Nightmares.”

“About this place? About the Overlook?”

Da

“Shh,” Hallora

He said: “What you got, son, I call it shinin on, the Bible calls it having visions, and there's scientists that call it precognition. I've read up on it, son. I've studied on it. They all mean seeing the future. Do you understand that?”

Da

“I remember the strongest shine I ever had that way… I'm not liable to forget. It was 1955. I was still in the Army then, stationed overseas in West Germany. It was an hour before supper, and I was standin by the sink, givin one of the KPs hell for takin too much of the potato along with the peel. I says, 'Here, lemme show you how that's done. ' He held out the potato and the peeler and then the whole kitchen was gone. Bang, just like that. You say you see this guy Tony before… before you have dreams?”

Da

Hallora

“For a minute it was like I had just passed out. And then I heard an explosion and saw flames. There were people screaming. Sirens. And I heard this hissin noise that could only be steam. Then it seemed like I got a little closer to whatever it was and I saw a railroad car off the tracks and laying on its side with Georgia aced South Carolina Railroad written on it, and I knew like a flash that my brother Carl was on that train and it jumped the tracks and Carl was dead. Just like that. Then it was gone and here's this scared, stupid little KP in front of me, still holdin out that potato and the peeler. He says, 'Are you okay, Sarge?' And I says, `No. My brother's just been killed down in Georgia' And when I finally got my momma on the overseas telephone, she told me how it was.

“But see, boy, I already knew how it was.”

He shook his head slowly, as if dismissing the memory, and looked down at the wide-eyed boy.

“But the thing you got to remember, my boy, is this: Those things don't always come true. I remember just four years ago I had a job cookin at a boys' camp up in Maine on Long Lake. So I am sittin by the boarding gate at Logan Airport in Boston, just waiting to get on my flight, and I start to smell oranges. For the first time in maybe five years. So I say to myself, 'My God, what's comin on this crazy late show now?' and I got down to the bathroom and sat on one of the toilets to be private. I never did black out, but I started to get this feelin, stronger and stronger, that my plane was go