Some months later, and now a widower, Ralph encounters Ed's wife Helen who has been badly beaten by her husband after having signed a sleep maintenance insomnia, waking earlier each night until he is barely able to sleep an hour each night.
Ralph Roberts, who is retired, encounters his good-natured acquaintance Ed Deepneau at the local airfield, behaving aggressively and swearing obscenely at a driver he accuses of involvement in transporting fetal tissue from abortions. The story is set in Stephen King's multiverse in the fictional town of Derry, Maine.
