Stephen King's 'The Lawnmower Man'

[cyberghostface]

Today is Stephen King's birthday so I figured this might be a fun way to celebrate. (Disclaimer: I posted this here a little over a year ago.)

This came from Marvel's Bizarre Adventures #29. Some brief nudity and violence/gore.

The story opens with Harold Parkette, a man who is very proud of his lawn. One day, however, a neighbor's dog chases a cat under the lawnmower while a boy is mowing the lawn for him and his wife is so upset that she makes him get rid of the mower. The grass begins to grow until Harold can't take it anymore. He eventually finds an ad for mowing in the paper and calls for it.



Harold goes to read his paper and falls asleep. He is awoken by the loud sound of the lawnmower. He looks outside to see that it is running on the grass by itself, sounding like an Indy 500.



A mole is hiding in the grass when the mower swerves on its own to run it over before returning to its usual path.







Inside, Harold calls the police.

Comments

[icon_uk]

This always struck me as a deeply weird story, and one of those somewhat unfair ones, inasmuch that Harold really doesn't deserve this shit.

Harold is an ordinary chap who just called the wrong lawn service to come deal with his garden, and the fact he considered the naked guy eating his lawn to be a disturbed person seems entirely reasonable. He dosen't try to harm him, but does the seemingly right thing in calling the cops on them, he certainly does nothing to deserve an entirely grisly fate like this.

[cyberghostface]

A number of his short stories are like that, normal people caught up in something horrible and meeting unfortunate ends.

[icon_uk]

Oh, it's a common enough horror convention to have the innocent suffer (taken to it's logical if, IMHO, completely repellent conclusion in the torture-porn genre).

I think it's that it's a little unusual to see those stories told as the arc of the poor eventual-victim's POV. Such characters are usually a stepping stone to the protagonists story (Some unlucky soul has to be the werewolf's first victim before the fearless hunter is motivated to melt the silver necklace down for bullets etc)

Harold's arc is the whole substance of the story and that feels... unsettling to me. Which I suppose is it's aim.

[vspope]

On the other hand, there is the alternative moral: If an otherworldly force of nature likes you and isn't hurting you, just roll with it.

[captainbellman]

...What kind of basketballs has Walt Simonson been playing with?!