14 March 2012

[Warning: While I do not intend to reveal any specific plot points or twists in this series of blogs, I may comment on the pacing of the novel. If you do not care to have the pacing revealed to you, please read no further until you read Pet Sematary for yourself. – JPR]

Yesterday, I began reading Pet Sematary, my first Stephen King novel. I made it through the author’s introduction with no issues. In fact, I am proud to say I sailed through the introduction, not just unafraid, but emboldened.

I am nearly 80 pages into the book now and nothing entirely creepy has occurred. I feel fine so far, but am beginning to get anxious like at the beginning of a rollercoaster as it climbs to its inevitable perilous descent. What, at first, allows for a relaxing look about at the scenery turns (quickly or slowly depending upon your personal constitution) into an undercurrent of paranoia that the world will soon spin out of control and one will be strapped in for the duration of the predictable disaster.

Although nothing devious or outright sinister has happened in the novel yet, I am walking around with an internal sense of false bravado—a bravado meant to mask my deep trepidation.

I have never seen Psycho. I visited Disney World and Universal Studios in my adolescence, though I can’t quite remember where the following scene took place. As a group, we saw a behind-the-scenes look at Alfred Hitchcock films. The viewing had various scenes from The Birds and Vertigo and the shower sequence from Psycho. That was as close as I’ve gotten to seeing the film, but I can’t shake that image.

I always buy see-through shower curtains and sometimes keep my eyes open the entire time I’m cleaning my body and washing my hair and scrubbing between my toes like a good boy. I fear someone will sneak in unannounced during my cleaning ritual and commit some heinous act. If it were not a clear sign of unrestrained neurosis, I would probably attach a small ringing bell device to my bathroom door to indicate when someone (or something) enters or exits the bathroom. This plan has at least one fault. I’m sure I would constantly imagine the bell tinkling and just resort to my paranoid plan b—never showering and never blinking while sitting in the corner of a perpetually well-lit room. I would probably be allowed visitors from time to time.

I fear this sense of dread will be unleashed the further I delve into the novel.

Thus endeth Day One.