What Stephen King Can Do with a Short Story

Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream

My middle daughter put me on to a 2024 collection of Stephen King stories called You Like It Darker.

“Dad, I know you’re not a fan of long Stephen King books, but this one has a really cool short story.” She flipped to page 83, the first page of “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream.”

“I think you’ll like it.”

Since the last King book she gave me was right at 600 pages, the first thing I did was turn to the end of the story she liked. That was page 234.

234 minus 83 equals 153. 153 times 250 (the average word count of a standard page) is 38,250.

But since she is my daughter and she wanted me to read it, I did what any good dad would do. I read it.

I’m glad I did.

The first couple of pages recount a dream Danny has about the murder of a young woman.

It was not until I finished the story that I realized the first character I met was not Danny, but the dream itself.

An opening dream sequence where the dream is a character in the story.

Now that’s cool.

Throughout the story, the other characters line up based on the question of whether they believe Danny had a dream. Did he manufacture it out of thin air, or was he telling the truth?

It’s exactly what I was thinking all through it. Did he have a dream?

Then Danny had another dream.

Certainly, there can’t be two dreams, can there?

If you accept the possibility that the dreams are real, you are on Danny’s side. If you say the dreams are hogwash, you want him in the electric chair.

I won’t spoil the story for you.