Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Douglas stood with Tom and Charlie in the moist-smelling warm late-summer-green
ravine. Mosquitoes danced their delicate dances upon the silence. A dancing idiot hum-tune.
―Everyone‘s gone,‖ said Tom . Douglas sat on a rock and took off his shoes . ―Bang,
you‘re dead,‖ said Tom, quietly . ―I wish I was, oh, I wish I was dead,‖ said Doug . Tom said, ―Is
the war over? Shall I take down the flag?‖ ―What flag?‖
―Just the flag, that‘s all.‖
―Yeah. Take it down. But I‘m not sure if the war is really over yet . . . but it sure has
changed. I‘ve just got to figure out how.‖
Charlie said, ―Yeah, well, you did give cake to the enemy. If that wasn‘t the strangest
thing . . .‖
―Ta-ta-tahhhh,‖ hummed Tom. He made furling motions in the warm empty silent air. He
stood solemnly by the quiet creek in the summer evening with the sun fading. ―Ta-ta-tahhhh.
Ta-ta-tahhhh.‖ He hummed ―Taps.‖ A tear fell off his cheek.
―Oh, for gosh sakes!‖ cried Douglas. ―Stop!‖
Douglas and Tom and Charlie climbed out of the ravine, and walked through the boxed
and packaged town, through the avenues and streets and alleys, among the thousand-celled
houses, the bright prisons, down the definite sidewalks and the positive lanes, and the country
seemed far away and it was as if a sea had moved away from the shore of their life in one day.
Suddenly there was the town and their lives to be lived in that town in the next forty years,
opening and shutting doors and raising and lowering shades, and the green meadow was distant
and alien.
Douglas looked over at Tom getting taller every minute, it seemed. He felt the hunger in
his stomach and he thought of the miraculous foods at home and he thought of Lisabell blowing
out the candles and sitting there with fourteen years burnt behind her and not caring, very pretty
and solemn and beautiful. He thought of the Lonely One, very lonely indeed, wanting love, and
now gone.
Douglas stopped at Charlie‘s house, feeling the season change about them.
―Here‘s where I leave you guys,‖ said Charlie. ―See you later, at the haunted house with
those dumb girls.‖
―Yeah, see you later, Charlie.‖