Ralph and Lois meet Clotho and Lachesis

Ralph Roberts and Lois Chasse, having followed the trail of the rogue entity Atropos to Derry Home Hospital, encounter the two benevolent little bald doctors, Clotho and Lachesis, in Room 315. This meeting, which occurs on a heightened plane of perception where time moves faster, reveals the cosmic stakes of the conflict: Ed Deepneau, his life-cord already severed by Atropos, has been turned into a weapon aimed at the Civic Center, where he plans to kill thousands. Clotho and Lachesis explain the Purpose and the Random, reveal that they cannot directly oppose Atropos, and task Ralph and Lois with stopping the impending massacre.

The Encounter in Room 315

Ralph and Lois, still holding hands, stand in the doorway of Jimmy Vandermeer's hospital room. Inside, they see the two little bald doctors from May Locher's house, standing at the foot of Jimmy V's bed. The doctors are dressed in clean white tunics, and their faces, which had seemed anonymous through binoculars, now show character and intelligence, especially in their dark, pupil-less eyes flecked with golden glints. Their auras gleam and flash around them like the robes of emperors. The doctors look over at Ralph and Lois and smile. Clotho, holding his long-bladed scissors in his right hand, speaks first, addressing Lois: "Hello, woman." Lachesis then steps forward, makes a funny little half-bow, and says to Ralph: "Hello, man. We've been waiting for you." Ralph feels Lois's hand tighten on his own, then loosen as she decides they are in no immediate danger. She takes a small step forward, looking from one doctor to the other, and asks who they are. Clotho crosses his arms over his small chest, the long blades of his scissors lying the entire length of his white-clad left forearm. He explains that they have no names as Short-Timers do, but that Ralph and Lois may call them after the Fates in the story Ralph has already told them. Clotho says he will be Clotho, although he spins no thread, and his colleague and old friend will be Lachesis, although he shakes no rods. He invites them in.

The Nature of the Purpose and the Random

Ralph and Lois enter the room, standing warily between the visitor's chair and the bed. Ralph is intimidated by the doctors' bright, fabulous auras, and sees from Lois's wide eyes that she feels the same. Lachesis asks for their names, explaining that they could know but choose not to, preferring to observe the rules of common Short-Time politeness. Ralph, feeling angry and manipulated, confronts them, asking if they took him and Lois onto an elevator, robbing them of their sleep until they were half-crazy. Clotho offers just a trace of a smile, saying they are no angels. Ralph's anger grows as he remembers the endless nights in his wing-chair and the day he couldn't find a Cup-A-Soup packet. He asks where the angels are, and if God is in the penthouse and the devil stoking coal in the boiler room. The doctors exchange a glance, and Lachesis tells Ralph his anger is not justified. He says they must set their questions aside, as the time of severing has come for the man in the bed, Jimmy Vandermeer. Clotho steps to the left side of the bed, and Lachesis approaches from the right, walking through Faye Chapin as he goes. Faye bends over, afflicted with a sudden coughing-fit, then opens his book of chess problems again. Lois tells Ralph she cannot watch them do it, but Ralph thinks she will. Clotho and Lachesis bend over Jimmy V, their faces lit with love and caring, making Ralph think of a Rembrandt painting. Their auras mingle and overlap above Jimmy's chest, and the dying man opens his eyes, smiles, and recognizes Ralph and Lois. Lachesis places his hands against Jimmy's cheeks and moves his head, while Clotho opens his scissors and slides them forward to hold Jimmy's black balloon-string. As Clotho closes the scissors, Lachesis kisses Jimmy's forehead and says, "Go in peace, friend." There is a small snick sound, and the segment of the balloon-string above the scissors drifts up toward the ceiling and disappears. The deathbag in which Jimmy V lay turns a momentary bright white, then winks out of existence. Jimmy opens his eyes again, looks at Faye, and then his gaze turns fixed and distant. Faye shakes his shoulder, then leaves the room. Clotho asks Ralph and Lois if they see and understand that what they do, they do with love and respect, that they are the physicians of last resort. Ralph and Lois both answer yes. Ralph hadn't intended to agree, but the phrase "physicians of last resort" cuts through his anger. He feels it is true; they freed Jimmy V from a world of pain. He realizes they must have stood in Room 317 with him seven months ago, giving Carolyn the same release. But he questions whether love and respect give them the right to put him and Lois through hell and then send them after a supernatural being that has gone off the rails. Lachesis says they need to talk and that they should move on from this place, as it will fill up with people. Ralph asks if they have any choice, and their answers come back quickly, colored with overtones of surprise: "Yes, of course!" and "There is always a choice!"

The Mission and the Warning

Clotho and Lachesis walk toward the door, and Ralph and Lois shrink back to let them pass. The auras of the little bald doctors sweep over them, and Ralph registers them in taste and texture: the taste of sweet apples, the texture of dry, light bark. They join the doctors in the hallway outside Bob Polhurst's room. Through the open door, they can see the deathwatch continuing around the old teacher's bed. Lois asks if the doctors could help Bill McGovern, who is in the room, but Clotho and Lachesis shake their heads in unison. Clotho says nothing can be changed. Ralph thinks of Dorrance's saying: "Done-bun-can't-be-undone." Lois asks when it will happen, and Clotho says their friend belongs to the other, to the third, to the one Ralph has already named Atropos. He says Atropos could tell them the exact hour of the man's death no more than they could, and that Atropos cannot even tell whom he will take next, as he is an agent of the Random. This phrase sends a chill through Ralph's heart. Lachesis says this is no place for them to talk and tells them to come. Lachesis takes one of Clotho's hands, then holds out his free hand to Ralph. At the same time, Clotho reaches toward Lois. She hesitates, then looks at Ralph. Ralph looks grimly at Lachesis and tells him he better not hurt her. Lachesis assures him neither of them will be hurt and tells Ralph to take his hand. Ralph sighs, nods to Lois, and grips Lachesis's outstretched hand. The shock of recognition, as deep and pleasant as an unexpected encounter with an old and valued friend, washes over him again: apples and bark, memories of orchards. He is somehow aware that his aura has changed color and become, at least for a little while, the gold-flecked green of Clotho and Lachesis. Lois takes Clotho's hand, inhales a sharp little gasp, then smiles hesitantly. Clotho tells them to complete the circle and not to be afraid, saying all is well. Ralph thinks he disagrees, but when Lois reaches for his hand, he grasps her fingers. The taste of apples and the texture of dry bark is joined by some dark and unknowable spice. Ralph inhales its aroma deeply and then smiles at Lois. She smiles back, with no hesitation, and Ralph feels a dim, far-off confusion. A voice counsels him to hesitate anyway. Lois, sounding alarmed and giddy, calls his name. Ralph looks around just in time to see the top of the door of Room 315 descending past her shoulders—except it isn't the door going down; it is Lois going up. All of them are going up, still holding hands in a circle. Ralph has just gotten this through his head when momentary darkness, sharp as a knife-edge, crosses his vision like a shadow thrown by the slat of a venetian blind. He has a brief glimpse of narrow pipes that are probably part of the hospital's sprinkler system, surrounded by tufted pink pads of insulation. Then he is looking down a long tiled corridor. A gurney cart is rolling straight at his head, which, he suddenly realizes, has surfaced like a periscope in one of the fourth-floor corridors. He hears Lois cry out and feels her grip on his hand tighten. Ralph closes his eyes instinctively and waits for the approaching gurney to flatten his skull. Clotho tells them to be calm, reminding them that these things exist on a different level of reality from the one where they are now. Ralph opens his eyes. The gurney is gone, although he can hear its receding wheels. The sound is coming from behind him now. The gurney, like McGovern's friend, has passed right through him. The four of them are now levitating slowly into the corridor of what has to be the pediatrics wing. A doctor and a nurse stroll toward them, discussing a case. The doctor walks through Ralph, and as he does, Ralph understands that he has started smoking again on the sly after five years off the weed and is feeling guilty as hell about it. Then they are gone. Ralph looks down just in time to see his feet emerge from the tiled floor. He turns to Lois, smiling tentatively, and says it sure beats the elevator. She nods, her grip on his hand still very tight. They rise through the fifth floor, surface in a doctor's lounge on the sixth, and then they are on the roof. The night is clear, moonless, and gorgeous. Stars glitter across the arc of the sky in an extravagant, misty sprawl of light. The wind is blowing hard, and Ralph thinks of Mrs Perrine saying Indian summer was over. Ralph can hear the wind but not feel it, although he has an idea he could feel it if he wanted to. As this thought comes, he senses some minor, momentary change in his body, something that feels like a blink. Suddenly his hair is blowing back from his forehead, and he can hear his pants cuffs flapping around his shins. He shivers. Ralph gives another interior blink and the push of the wind is gone. He looks over at Lachesis and asks if he can let go of his hand now. Lachesis nods and drops his own grip. Clotho releases Lois's hand. Ralph looks across town to the west and sees the pulsing blue runway lights of the airport. Beyond them is the gridwork of orange arc sodiums that mark Cape Green. Someplace, in the sprinkle of lights just east of the airport, is Harris Avenue. Lois says it is beautiful, and Ralph nods, thinking that standing there and seeing the city spread out in the dark like this is worth everything he has been through since the insomnia started. But that is a thought he doesn't entirely trust. He turns to Lachesis and Clotho and demands an explanation: who they are, who Atropos is, and what they want him and Lois to do. The two bald docs are standing between two rapidly turning heat ventilators. They glance nervously at each other, and Lachesis gives Clotho an almost imperceptible nod. Clotho steps forward, looks from Ralph to Lois, and seems to gather his thoughts. He says they must first understand that the things which are happening, while unexpected and distressing, are not precisely unnatural. He and his colleague do what they were made to do; Atropos does what he was made to do; and Ralph and Lois will do what they were made to do. Ralph favors him with a bright, bitter smile, saying there goes freedom of choice. Lachesis says he mustn't think so, that what they call freedom of choice is part of what they call ka, the great wheel of being. Lois asks if they see now through a glass darkly. Clotho, smiling his somehow youthful smile, says it is from the Bible and a very good way of putting it. Ralph says it is also pretty convenient for guys like them, but asks them to keep in mind a saying that isn't from the Bible: "Don't gild the lily." Ralph has an idea that might be a little too much to ask.