You can find Stephen King fans in all sorts of unexpected places.
On Monday the Maine-based author tweeted out his support for the country — which is undergoing an assault by neighboring country Russia — by posting a picture of himself wearing a yellow and blue t-shirt reading, “I Stand With Ukraine.”
King accompanied the photo by writing, “I don’t usually post pictures of myself, but today is an exception.”
His support caught the attention of the official Twitter account of Ukraine, which retweeted King, and wrote, “we will prevail over those langoliers for you, sir.”
It’s in reference to the novella “The Langoliers,” which was part of King’s 1990 collection “Four Past Midnight.” The story is about plane passengers aboard a red-eye to Boston who wake up in Bangor — after possibly traveling through a time rip — to find that everyone else on the jet has vanished. They must get back to their time before hundreds of forest creatures try to destroy their plane and the world.
King is not the only one from Maine voicing his support for Ukraine. Earlier in the day, Gov. Janet Mills signed a proclamation declaring Maine’s solidarity with the country against Russia’s invasion and called on state regulators to delist all Russian-made spirits as soon as possible.
Maine’s independent senator, Angus King, also said on Monday that Russian leader Vladimir Putin should be looking for an “offramp” instead of using more force against Ukraine.