'The Jaunt', Todash Space, and Holes in the Macroverse... | The Lore of Stephen King's Dark Tower Series: Part 2

The second part of my Dark Tower breakdown series, if you've ever wanted to piece together the Stephen King Universe, I am here to help you out!
Last time we talked of the monstrous 'IT' that terrorized the small town of Derry, Maine, now we speak of a more bleak monster....in fact it's not a creature at all...
The Jaunt was one of the earlier stories written by King, when he was more obsessed with categorizing real things into horror.
Even as one of his earliest and shortest pieces written, he is still able to link this into the vault of his Macroverse...the same place that houses 'IT', 'Cujo' and all the other nasty things he's thought up over time.

The Jaunt places a family en route to Mars as our establishing shot, the process for warping is called 'The Jaunt', and it wasn't an easy task developing this method of travel.

The story points out that scientists developed this warping station as a way to get humans through time/space quickly, but every time someone would 'jaunt' back from the destination, they would become insane and perish shortly thereafter...

No one can survive the jaunt, but no one could figure out why... The only survivor was in fact the first guinea pig to use the jaunt, a prisoner. His only words upon returning were, "it's eternity in there". The horror on his face before dying shows eternity as a hellish white, and not an escape.
In fact the warp machine became a tool of destruction when the mob is described as using it for a body disposal unit; they would toss bodies into the nothingness of the Macroverse, a worst punishment than death itself...

The cure for this situation was found to be in anesthesia, simply put the traveler out and remove their consciousness, at that point the warp won't affect the mind in any ill-manner.
Once this theory was brought to light, the jaunt became just like any form of travel, it's just that travelers must be anesthetized before departure.
This tale is told partly through the eyes of a father with his family, they are about ready to depart. The attendant approaches the family and applies the mask with 'sleeping gas' to each member...

Now after all this, King wouldn't just let sleeping dogs lie would he? I think not, in fact the conclusion to 'The Jaunt' is one of the most excruciating endings ever put to paper.
The family lands safely through the jaunt, and have made it through the Macroverse intact. The thing is something is different, and our narrator, a once loving father, sees his son...

Described as yellow skinned, with a cackle of a man aged far beyond a boy... He claws his own eyes out and screams:
'LONGER THAN YOU THINK DAD, IT'S LONGER THAN YOU THINK!'

Imagine a millenia of thoughts in a single moment, experiencing time travel with your body, at a pace the mind can not comprehend. The composite of a full person is a lie, and the mind is left lingering in the white of space...
It would drive anyone mad!

This lost space in 'The Jaunt' is called Todash Space.
It is the link between worlds when the inhabitants weaken the barriers to their own time/space, such as building a time warp. The blankness of the void can't be handled by the normal human mind, in fact that is why we can't register the true shape of any of King's creatures, they all are too much for the mind to conquer.

Todash Space is also where lurking creatures can leak out randomly, in fact Salem's Lot and The Mist are based on creatures from this hellish white....everything is linked.
The Dark Tower is the center of the Macroverse, and the battle for good and evil are always tugging even when smaller battles are being won.
King is a brilliant mind that can link all of his stories together, until next time!

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