A Letter from Randall Flagg

The following is a letter from Randall Flagg the "Dark Man" to Mother Abigail from Stephan King's The Stand, Complete and Uncut Edition.

Dear, “Mother” Abigail Freemantle,

                It’s been quite some time since the Captain Trips made the world a lot quieter hasn’t it? But enough small talk, I know you've received my visions and denied them. Enclosed is my mark, a nice black stone with an awful pretty red flaw running down it. My ‘flock’ here in Vegas covet these things, they’re a sign of loyalty and trust from me. And this is your last shot. I don’t want you to end up on my bad side Ms. Abigail that’s not a safe or a smart thing to have happen. Oh and your followers out in that little ‘Free Zone’ you’re all running out in Boulder, don’t worry your pretty little head about them. Their deaths will be even more swift than yours, and that eyesore of a town you've got set up down there will be little more than ashes in no time, all you've got to do is make the trip out here and pledge your undying loyalty to me. And renounce any funny ideas you may have about there being a benevolent being in the sky, feeding you information about my kin. That’s just a silly voice in your head and soon enough Abigail just like everything else it’s going to fade away. There’s no room for a god other than Me now.

                Now Abigail I’m going to be to be very frank with you now, I don’t honestly care whether or not you show up any time soon to kiss my heels everything you've got is coming to an end rather soon. If my eyes are right that funny voice in your head that’s been giving you so much hope, has shut its mouth because you took it for granted one too many times. It’s a bit of a shame you’ll receive this letter post humorously otherwise this little tid-bit of information concerning my follower Mr. Harold Lauder’s soon to be assassination of your council in Boulder. A real shame indeed. I do wonder though, if before your 108 year old body gives out if you’ll be able to squawk about sending four of your’s out to Me. And I do wonder, oh I truly do if you’ll still be breathing to tell them that before they ever see Vegas that one of them is going to bite the dust in the thick of the desert. Hell even if you manage to get all that out it won’t matter any, I have big plans for those who chose sides against me time and time again. Plans that I don’t think would be polite to write a letter, to an elderly lady on her deathbed about. But I’m going to anyway. Remember the part about the swift death? I lied, those do-gooders are going to hang high off a special set of crucifix I have lined up for them, and then Boulder will burn, and what’s left of this pestilent crater of a world will finally be mine after all these years, everything ‘Right’ and ‘Just’ can finally stay quiet in its grave.

Best Wishes,

R.F.

Goodreads Widget

W.'s books

The Divine Comedy

by Dante Alighieri

Room

by Emma Donoghue

Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde

by Michael A. Stackpole

World of Warcraft: Ashbringer

by Micky Neilson

Warcraft: Death Knight

by Dan Jolley

Book Talk

5 Reasons why Andrew Ryan was a madman.

Andrew Ryan, the man behind Rapture. Born into poverty in Russia, and rose to wealth and fame in America Andrew Ryan was hardened by what he encountered throughout his life. Rapture, his magnum opus, a city where the sweat on your brow is owned by no other than yourself, where the artist is free from the censor at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.Now building a sprawling city underwater is actually not a monstrously ludicrous idea really, but governing it the way Ryan did makes him nigh on insane.

1. Rapture had zero moral restraints.
Now this is deliberate Rapture was built so that morality and ethics couldn't get in the way of science and the arts in any way shape or form. The issues arise from having no regulation on literally anything, a titular issue that is seen very early on is addiction the the gene altering substance ADAM, any degree of testing initially on non-humans or some sort of work around or hot-fix would have made all the difference in the long run as ADAM addiction leads to excessive gene-splicing and thus the populous of Rapture devolve into the aptly named Splicers.

2. Ryan took laissez faire too literally.
Laissez Faire, or "Hands off" is a political ideal where the government has nothing to do with certain aspects of its systems, the economy most often. In Rapture, although Andrew Ryan is the founder and de-facto leader of the city his mindset meant that he didn't intervene on literally anything that went on in Rapture, which rapidly led to its downfall. The deliberate disregarding of Frank Fontaine who from the start was blatantly attempting to usurp Rapture to the complete and total lack of any attention to the well being or moral standard of any citizen attributed heavily to the downfall of Rapture.

3. Ryan's Politics.
Because Rapture had no real leader, Ryan's position as the wealthiest among the people and founder of the city set him up as a political figure head, because of this Ryan took it on himself to compete many times in political stand offs and campaigns against key figures in the community. See Rapture was top heavy when it came to social class, the rich and intelligent were like gods in their pantheon but the lowly workers who actually built Rapture were still in the city, and they were upset because of the drastic imbalance in the system, Frank Fontaine struck out against the upper class and soon a political war broke out, during which instead of convicting Fontaine on his crimes of smuggling and trafficking on the spot Ryan chose to debate with Fontaine, a debate that destroyed a vast amount of Ryan's credibility with his people and only acted to stoke the already white hot flames of rebellion. Ryan will go on to repeat this suicidal debate style with other candidates stirring Rapture's populous