Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister

―Of course not. Impossible!‖
―You cut yourself off from life. The boy has reconnected you. He is the grandson you
should have had, to keep the juices flowing, life staying alert.”
―Hard to believe.‖
―You‘re coming around. You can‘t cut all the phone lines and still be on speaking terms
with the world. Instead of living inside your son and your son‘s son, you were really heading for
the junkyard. The boy reminded you of your utter and complete finish.‖
―No more, no more!‖ Quartermain grabbed the hard rubber wheels of his chair, causing
them to stop short.
―Face up to it,‖ Bleak said. ―We‘re both dumb old fools. A little late for wisdom, but
better an ironic recognition than none at all.‖
Uncurling his friend‘s fingers from the spider web wheels, Bleak pushed the chair around
a corner so the light of the dying sun stained their faces a healthy red, and added, ―Look, life
gives us everything. Then it takes it away. Youth, love, happiness, friends. Darkness gets it all in
the end. We didn‘t have enough sense to know you can will it—life—to others. Your looks, your
youth. Pass it on. Give it away. It‘s lent to us for only a while. Use it, let go without crying. It‘s a
very fancy relay race, heading God knows where. Except now, in your last lap of the race, you
find no one waiting for you on the track ahead. Nobody for you to hand the stick to. You‘ve run
the race for no reason. You‘ve failed the team.‖
―Is that what I‘ve done?‖
―Yes. You weren‘t hurting the boy. Actually, what you were trying to do was make him
grow up. You were both wrong for a while. Now you‘re both winning. Not because you want to,
but because you have to.‖
―No, it‘s only he who‘s ahead. The idea was to grow them as fruit for the grave. But all I
did was give them—‖
―Love,‖ said Bleak.
Quartermain could not say the word. That dreadful sweet, candy-sickening word. So trite,
so true, so irritating, so wonderful, so frightening, and, in the end, so lost to himself.
―They won. I did them a favor, my God, a favor! I was blind! I wanted them to race
about, like we run about, and wither, and be shocked by their withering, and die, like I‘m dying.
But they don‘t realize, they don‘t know, they‘re even happier, if that‘s possible.‖
―Yes.‖ Bleak pushed the chair. ―Happier. Because growing old isn‘t all that bad. None of
it is bad if you have one thing. If you have the one thing that makes it all right.‖