At first he thought he had lapsed into delirium. What he was seeing was too bizarre to be sane. When Annie returned, she was pushing a charcoal grill in front of her.

“Annie, I'm in terrible pain.” Tears coursed down his cheeks.

“I know, my dear.” She kissed his cheek, the touch of her” lips as gentle as the fall of a feather. “Soon.” She left and he looked stupidly at the charcoal grill something meant for an outdoor summer patio which now stood in his room, calling up relentless images of idols and sacrifices.

And sacrifice was what she had in mind, of course - when she came back she was carrying the manuscript of Fast Cars, the only existing result of his two years” work, in one hand. In the other she had a box of Diamond Blue Tip wooden matches.

“No,” he said, crying and shaking. One thought worked at him, burned in him like acid: for less than a hundred bucks he could have had the manuscript photocopied in Boulder. People - Bryce, both of his ex-wives, hell, even his mother - had always told him he was crazy not to make at least one copy of his work and put it aside; after all, the Boulderado could catch on fire, or the New York townhouse; there might be a tornado or a flood or some other natural disaster. He had constantly refused, for no rational reason: it was just that making copies seemed a jinx thing to do.

Well, here was the jinx and the natural disaster all rolled up m one; here was Hurricane Annie. In her innocence it had apparently never even crossed her mind that there might be another copy of Fast Cars someplace, and if he had just listened, if he had just invested the lousy hundred dollars - “Yes,” she replied, holding out the matches to him. The manuscript, clean white Hammermill Bond with the title page topmost, lay on her lap. Her face was still clear and calm.

“No,” he said, turning his burning face away from her.

“Yes. It's filthy. That aside, it's also no good.”

“You wouldn't know good if it walked up and bit your nose off!” he yelled, not caring.

She laughed gently. Her temper had apparently gone on vacation. But, Paul thought, knowing Annie Wilkes, it could arrive back unexpectedly at any moment, bags in hand: Couldn't stand to stay away! How ya doin?

“First of all,” she said, “good would not bite my nose off. Evil might, but not good. Second of all, I do know good when I see it - you are good, Paul. All you need is a little help. Now, take the matches.” He shook his head stiffly back and forth. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No goddammit!”

“Use all the profanity you want. I've heard it all before.”

“I won't do it.” He closed his eyes.

When he opened them she was holding out a cardboards square with the word NOVRIL printed across the top in bright blue letters. SAMPLE, the red letters just below the trade name read NOT TO BE DISPENSED WITHOUT PHYSICIAN'S PRESCRIPTION. Below the warning were four capsules in blister-packs. He grabbed. She pulled the cardboard out of his reach.

“When you burn it,” she said. “Then I'll give you the capsules - all four of these, I think - and the pain will go away. You will begin to feel serene again, and when you've got hold of yourself, I will change your bedding - I see you've wet it, and it must be uncomfortable - and I'll also change you. By then you will be hungry and I can give you some soup. Perhaps some unbuttered toast. But until you burn it, Paul, I can do nothing. I'm sorry.” His tongue wanted to say Yes! Yes, okay! and so he bit it. He rolled away from her again - away from the enticing, maddening cardboard square, the white capsules in their lozenge-shaped transparent blisters. “You're the devil,” he said.

Again he expected rage and got the indulgent laugh, with its undertones of knowing sadness.

“Oh yes! Yes! That's what a child thinks when mommy comes into the kitchen and sees him playing with the cleaning fluid from under the sink. He doesn't say it that way, of course, because he doesn't have your education. He just says, “Mommy, you're mean!"“ Her hand brushed his hair away from his hot brow. The fingers trailed down his cheek, across the side of his neck, and then squeezed his shoulder briefly, with compassion, before drawing away.

“The mother feels badly when her child says she's mean or if he cries for what's been taken away, as you are crying now. But she knows she's right, and so she does her duty. As I am doing mine.” Three quick dull thumps as Annie dropped her knuckles on the manuscript - 190,000 words and five lives that a well and pain-free Paul Sheldon had cared deeply about, 190,000 words and five lives that he was finding more dispensable as each moment passed.

The pills. The pills. He had to have the goddam pills. The lives were shadows. The pills were not. They were real.

“Paul?”

“No!” he sobbed.

The faint rattle of the capsules in their blisters - silence then the woody shuffle of the matches in their box.

“Paul?”

“No!”

“I'm waiting, Paul.” Oh why in Christ's name are you doing this asshole Horatio-at-the-bridge act and who in Christ's name are you trying to impress? Do you think this is a movie or a TV show and you are getting graded by some audience on your bravery? You can do what she wants or you can hold out. If you hold out you'll die and then she'll burn the manuscript anyway. So what are you going to do, lie here and suffer for a book that would sell half as many copies as the least successful Misery book you ever wrote, and which Peter Prescott would shit upon in his finest genteel disparaging manner when he reviewed it for that great literary oracle, Newsweek? Come on, come on, wise up! Even Galileo recanted when he saw they really meant to go through with it!

“Paul? I'm waiting. I can wait all day. Although I rather suspect that you may go into a coma before too long; I believe you are in a near-comatose state now, and I have had a lot of… “ Her voice droned away.

Yes! Give me the matches! Give me a blowtorch! Give me a Baby Huey and a load of napalm! I'll drop a tactical nuke on it if that's what you want, you fucking beldame!

So spoke the opportunist, the survivor. Yet another part, failing now, near-comatose itself, went wailing off into the darkness: A hundred and ninety thousand words! Five lives! Two years” work! And what was the real bottom line: The truth! What you knew about THE FUCKING TRUTH!

There was the creak of bedsprings as she stood up.

“Well! You are a very stubborn little boy, I must say, and I can't sit by your bed all night, as much as I might like to! After all, I've been driving for nearly an hour, hurrying to get back here. I'll drop by in a bit and see if you've changed y - “

“You burn it, then!” he yelled at her.

She turned and looked at him. “No,” she said, “I cannot do that, as much as I would like to and spare you the agony you feel.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” she said primly, “you must do it of your own free will.” He began to laugh then, and her face darkened for the first time since she had come back, and she left the room with the manuscript under her arm.