Umney's Last Case

Chapter 1: The News from Peoria

Umney's got out of bed at 7:30am one L.A. spring morning. He can smell the exhaust of the vehicles from where he is and the smell is Oleander. He thinks of Peoria Smith, the blind paperboy, was standing in his accustomed place on the corner of Sunset and Laurel, and if that didn't mean God was in His heaven and all was jake with the world, Umney didn't know what did.

He go on to do the things he used to do that they. He prepared himself for work and expect to meet Peoria in his usual spot down the street. Peoria Smith was all right, just as always, and he'd recognized Umney by my walk even though it was at least an hour before his usual time.

After the greeting in the morning dew, and Umney's regular newspaper, Peoria gave the news that his Mom won the lottery in Tijuana and that they are rich!

Of course Umney didn't believe the boy. He said that Peoria may be old enough to know the difference between daydreams and what's real, but it's not old enough for that kind of talk. That sounded right. And that he is sure that the boy only pulling his sleeves. He must have made a mistake, because if it was true, then Peoria wouldn't be standing here anymore when Umney came by.

They've had an exchange of word. Peoria mentioned that he would not have come in that corner earlier that usual to tell his friend, Mr. Umney, that he is now rich (and insisting that he be called Francis, because that is his name) but in the end it finished with Peoria walking out (blindly)

Peoria--well, okay, Francis--made it as far as Derringer's Bar before turning to deliver one final salvo.

``Fuck you, Mr. Umney!'' he screamed, and ran on.

To be Continued....

Chapter by Chapter.. Starting with The Talisman

I'm currently reading two of Stephen King's books right now. One is Nightmare and Dreamscapes (if you notice my recent posts) and the other one is The Talisman - the one where he co-writes with Peter Straub.

I have a hardbound first edition copy of the Talisman so that means I will not be able to bring it wherever I go, so I really cannot finish it in a short period of time (short meaning couple of weeks.. :) ..

Anyway, here's what I'm going to do and I hope you guys agree. I will be posting every chapter summary, editing the post every time there is a new chapter to add. Alright! Great! Let's begin! :)

Nighmares and Dreamscapes - The End of the Whole Mess

This short story is a good one. As much as possible I want to do the review myself (and I will)... This story from Nightmare and Dreamscapes apparently has an article in wikipedia, so I will take some of the stuff from there.


--- from the wikipedia article --

The End of the Whole Mess is a short science fiction story by Stephen King which was first published in Omni Magazine in 1986, and later published in the Nightmares and Dreamscapes collection.

The story, narrated by Howard Fornoy, recounts the life of his genius younger brother, Robert. Bobby, a child prodigy whose adult interests led him to study a variety of scientific disciplines, discovered a chemical that reduces the aggressive tendencies of humans and other organisms.

While doing sociological research in Texas, Bobby used crime statistics to create a sort of topographic map which displayed a geographical pattern of violent crime. Examining the map, Robert noted diminishing levels of crime centered around the town of La Plata. When he arrives to investigate, he finds that this town has never had any violent crime. Bobby is ultimately able to determine that the cause of the non-aggression is the presence of a chemical to the town's water supply, a phenomenon that is mentioned in King's earlier novel IT.

Even minimal exposure to the chemical will calm down an angry person or animal, and Bobby has been able to isolate the chemical and reduce it to concentrated form. At a time of international chaos suggestive of an approaching total nuclear war, Bobby and Howard, with the aid of a volcano, disperse a large quantity of this substance throughout the world, in the hope of preventing a catastrophe. Indeed, the effects are quick and expected: a massive decrease in hostilities around the globe.

To the Fornoys' horror, there was another constant about La Plata that was not studied until after the substance was released: a constant higher-than-normal tendency for residents to develop Alzheimer's disease, mental retardation, and premature senility.

Near the end of the story, the writer's words and writing styles become significantly hampered. It is then the reader understands hints given earlier: the brothers, remorseful of having doomed the world to a senile existence - and possible extinction - have decided to go through with a suicide pact by injecting themselves with a lethal dose of the miracle chemical.

Bobby died first, and Howard was charged with writing a note to explain what had happened. In the end, Howard does not even understand what he wrote, or even if he really did write it. His final lines tell us that he is going to put the pages into a "bocks full of quiyet air to last a milyun yrz", and also to tell his brother that "it wuz not yor falt i love you".

The eventual decline of Howard's narration, mirroring his eroding intelligence, is somewhat similar to the second half of Flowers for Algernon.

---- End of article ---

Here's my review....

In this story, Philippines is mentioned. And every time my beloved country is mentioned, I would like to stressed it out... may it be bad or good publicity. :)

Bobby was telling Bowow how really messed up our world is...

"That was 2003, the year a PLO splinter group called the Sons of Jihad set off a Squirt Bomb in London, polluting sixty per cent of it and making the rest of it extremely unhealthy for people who ever planned to have children. The year we tried to blockade the Philippines after the Cedeño administratino accepted a "small group of Red Chinese advisors, and only backed down when it became clear that (a) the Chinese weren't kidding about emptying the holes if we didn't pull back, and (b) the American people weren't all that crazy about committing mass suide over the Philippine Islands..."