It was a strange figure like a child, but not quite a child, perhaps more of a late high school age.

It’s been 60 years since he changed television with his teleplays uk car rental companies and his unforgettable TV show ‘The Twilight Zone.’ Now, friends, family, and world-class showrunners David Chase and Matthew Weiner remember the pugilistic power of Rod Serling. by James Hughes
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T om Cruise was not dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. But here he was, having double-locked himself into his custom-built trailer on the London set of All You Need Is Kill late in December uk car rental companies in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand uk car rental companies and Twelve, putting uk car rental companies on his pajamas, slippers, and nightcap, and sitting down, alone, before a very low digital fire on the 60-inch plasma screen to take the protein-enriched gruel specially prepared for him by his personal caterer. Humbug, he muttered to himself, at once grateful for the consideration that went into the meal and unsatisfied by the circumstance under which he would be eating it: far away from his youngest daughter, who soon would be probably enjoying a personal audience with Santa Claus himself at a five-star North Pole resort, as arranged by her mother and her chaperones from the supermarket tabloid that assiduously documented their every fatherless move, because that was the way things were going for him lately. It was this very Yuletide thought that had driven him back to this well-appointed but lonely trailer, on an abandoned movie set temporarily darkened for the impending holiday.
As he threw his head back, frustrated by his plight, his glance happened uk car rental companies to rest on a bell, a bell that hung on the door to let him know that an assistant director required his presence on set, a bell that now began to swing softly, hardly making a sound, but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the trailer. He was really into bells at the moment, ever since a young costar, who shall remain nameless, said that she was a big bell fan and it gave them something to talk about. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed a billion years. The bells ceased as they had begun, together, and he momentarily thought he might have a fun bell story to tell the costar, which could possibly lead into an allegedly spur-of-the-moment private jet trip to the world s largest bell factory, which he would have rented out just for her. The bells were replaced by a clanking sound, as if someone were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in a wine merchant s cellar, not that he was a big drinker, but he could fake it in a pinch. Then Cruise remembered to have heard, possibly while taking a meeting for a haunted house movie he had turned down, that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.
The trailer door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, coming up the three tiny stairs into his sitting room. He saw it. I know her! Paula Wagner s ghost! The same face, the very same, of his former producing partner, with whom he had parted ways four years earlier, after many successful projects and billions of box-office dollars. Paula in her ponytail, usual powerful but feminine uk car rental companies pantsuit, and a chain around her middle, which was made of scripts, obsolescent BlackBerrys, the scalps of agents, and heavy Birkin bags wrought in steel.
Don t be an idiot. Expect the second on the next night at the same annoying hour. The third upon the next night, at, like, midnight. Whatever, they ll be here when they ll be here. Enjoy your haunting. I m done now.
W hen Cruise awoke, it was so dark that, looking out from the slowly rotating, Aviator-shaped water bed, he could scarcely distinguish the window from the walls of his trailer s master bedroom. He was attempting to pierce the darkness with eyes that sparkled so famously their twinkle alone was insured for a hundred million dollars with Lloyd s of London when the chimes of a distant church struck again and again, counting the hours from six to seven, from seven to eight, and then regularly up to 12. Twelve.
Why, it isn t possible, said Cruise, that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It isn t possible uk car rental companies that someone blotted out the sun, and that it s 12 noon. This is not happening.
He scrambled out of bed and to the window. It was foggy and cold, and he could see that no Teamsters were sauntering to and fro, as there unquestionably would have been if this were a regular uk car rental companies shooting night, which it wasn t, because the film had broken for the holiday.
So he went back to bed, thinking it over, but making nothing of it. The ghost had probably been a dream. Of course it was. He lay in this state until the chimes sounded three-quarters of an hour more, reminding him that the ghost warned him of a guest to arrive at the toll of one.
The curtains surrounding his bed, a tiger print but a very, very tasteful one, not like the ones Jamie Foxx had bought him as a gag wrap gift on Collateral were drawn aside by a hand, and Cruise found himself face-to-face with the unearthly visitor who drew them.
It was a strange uk car rental companies figure like a child, but not quite a child, perhaps more of a late high school age. Its hair, which touched the popped collar on a billowing, half-unbuttoned Oxford shirt, was middle-parted, insouciant. Its legs were bare, its feet nestled in well-padded tube socks, its bottom swaddled in snug Fruit of the Looms of the purest white. It clutched an empty candlestick in one hand, into which it seemed to be wordlessly singing an unheard rock-and-roll song.
Whatever! exclaimed the Spirit. This is how I rock out. Isn t it lame enough that I m here instead of ghost-boning uk car rental companies 1983 Rebecca De Mornay on some spectral subway car without you getting all uptight about my party uniform?
The Spirit looked at him, its eyes now obscured behind chunky black Wayfarers. Cruise was conscious of a thousand odors floating uk car rental companies in the air, each one bringing back a thousand more thoughts, and hopes, and dreams, all seemingly long fulfilled, but now also maddeningly elusive.
You can t do that. These are just shadows of things that have been. They can t see us, dude. How messed up would that be, if this version of yourself saw you hanging uk car rental companies out with another uk car rental companies you? Shhhh, you re gonna miss it.
Just a few feet away, a cocky young bartender-poet flipped a pair of tequila bottles up into the air, caught them behind uk car rental companies his back, and topped off the margaritas of two awestruck tourists in Tommy Bahama shirts. The bar exploded in applause, followed by verse-thirsty chants of Poem, poem, poem!
Trackside at the Daytona 500, Cruise and the Spirit watched as a roaring Chevrolet, having taken the checkered flag, pulled into victory lane, where a young Nicole Kidman rushed into the triumphant, hot-shot driver s outstretched arms.
They found themselves perched atop the judges bench in a military courtroom, watching with great interest as a self-assured young Navy lawyer, pushed to the absolute uk car rental companies limits of his abilities, coaxed a bruising, tragic confession from the fire-breathing uk car rental companies Marine raging against uk car rental companies the impossibility of defeat.
With a wiggle of his Wayfarers, they were in another scene and place. uk car rental companies There was a fancy sports agency, the home of a sickly, bespectacled boy with a not-yet-eight-pound head crammed full of adult facts, the end zone at a life-altering Monday Night Football game. They watched, in ghostly uk car rental companies silence, as a goldfish was liberated, a searching heart completed, the money shown.
There was a quiet moment between scenes, between on-screen mother and movie-time son. Cruise and Spirit idled by the craft services table, its cold cuts cruelly inaccessible to their spiritual dimension, and eavesdropped on the ad hoc family.
The Spirit lifted his Wayfarers, exposing a suddenly blinding light from his eyes. Cruise was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness, and further, of being in his own bedroom back in the trailer. uk car rental companies He barely had time to climb under the covers before he sank into a heavy sleep.
S till unsettled by the previous evening s visitation, Cruise awoke moments before the stroke of one, sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together. He drew back the curtains from his bed why was the bed in his trailer ringed by curtains to begin with? It was probably another situation like the bells; he was always doing things like that ready to meet the second messenger at its arrival, and unwilling to be taken by surprise yet again.
When the bell finally struck and no spirit appeared, he became impatient, because he had made a pretty nice life for himself by always being on time, always being considerate uk car rental companies about the schedules of others. Five minutes, 10 minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. This is bullshit, he allowed uk car rental companies himself to mutter in his anxious anticipation, despite a longtime aversion to the impolite in general and to swearing in particular. But then the bedroom was pierced with ghostly light pouring in from the cracks of the door, the source of which seemed to be in the sitting room. He got up and shuffled toward it.
The sitting room had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceilings were so hung with diaphanous scarves of various earth tones that it looked like a Marrakech brothel s waiting room. Candles flickered from atop every surface, the sweet burn of incense infused every molecule of breathable air, and lightly narcotized doves flapped gently in cages. Heaped upon the floor, to form some kind of throne, were the bounteous offerings of the well-stocked buffet table that now sat upended in a corn