This commingling of the supernatural and the commonplace is what makes this hefty read so enjoyable. King throws in a tender romance, sensitive and often funny portrayals of the ravages of age, and the somewhat loopy presence of Rite-Aid drugstores, Cup-A-Soup, and Port-O-Sans smack-dab in the middle of hyper-reality. In the climax, our oldsters serve as earthly agents to thwart a potentially calamitous disruption in the order of the universe. Atropos takes advantage of a pro-life rally currently polarizing the hamlet and enlists a local crazy to help him make a literal killing in the afterlife futures market. The third, a malevolent sprite named Atropos, represents "The Random" and takes great pleasure in prematurely cutting folks' balloon strings with his rusty scalpel. The first two, whom Ralph and Lois name Clotho and Lachesis - from a Greek myth about three yam-spinning sisters - are benevolent and serve "The Purpose," or natural, timely demise. They are brokers for what we mortals call death. These three, naturally, are not really of this earth.
Ah, but 68-year-old gal pal Lois Chasse shares these visions, which by now include three little bald entities in doctors' smocks.
In these strings, Ralph believes he can see other people's states of mind and being (e.g., disease, anger, calm). These hallucinations appear as auras, terminating in fine lines of light resembling balloon strings. Since his wife's recent death, Ralph Roberts, age 70, has been beset by insomnia and hallucinations. A small town in Maine again serves as King's (Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 1993, etc.) setting in this deft, steady tale, in which two lovable geezers travel through hyper-reality to balance the books of human existence, or something to that effect.
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