After what seems like ten weeks of unadulterated excitement—all of it the unhealthiest variety—things at Zenith House seem to have finally settled back into their accustomed drone. Porter sneaks into Jackson’s office and sniffs the seat of her office chair during the five-minute period which comes every morning between ten and ten-thirty when the seat is vacant (it is during this half-hour each morning that Ms. Jackson removes herself and a copy of either Vogue or Better Homes and Gardens to the ladies’ bog, where she has her daily dump). | THE PLANT by Stephen King part four of a novel in progress philtrum press Bangor Maine 2000 Copyright 1985 2000 by Stephen rights- reserved. From the journals of Riddley Walker 3 25 81 After what seems like ten weeks of unadulterated excitement all of it the unhealthiest variety things at Zenith House seem to have finally settled back into their accustomed drone. Porter sneaks into Jackson s office and sniffs the seat of her office chair during the five-minute period which comes every morning between ten and ten-thirty when the seat is vacant it is during this half-hour each morning that Ms. Jackson removes herself and a copy of either Vogue or Better Homes and Gardens to the ladies bog where she has her daily dump Gelb has resumed his surreptitious visits to the Riddley Walker Casino and after a rash double-or-nothing proposal earlier this week now owes me Herb Porter after his brief fugue has once again mounted into the seat of the great political locomotive which he imagines only himself of all the earth s billions really capable of driving and I have resumed these pages after a three-week hiatus in which I have peacefully swept dirt by day and spread narrative by night and if that is not pomposity masquerading as eloquence then nothing is. But the accustomed drone is not quite the same as before is it There are two principal reasons for this. One is down the hall and one is right here in my little janitorial perhaps it s only in my head. I would give a great deal to know which and please believe me that my tongue is nowhere near my cheek when I say so. The change down the hall is of course John Kenton. The change in here or in my head is Zenith the Common Ivy. .
