Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister
Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister
Farewell Summer ~ Ray Bradbury - Marimarister
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―The wax museum last year. That was sort of like this.‖<br />
―These aren‘t wax,‖ said Tom. ―Oh, gosh, Doug, that‘s a real baby there, used to be alive.<br />
I never seen a dead baby before. I‘m gonna be sick.‖<br />
―Run outside. Go on!‖<br />
Tom turned and ran. In a moment, Charlie backed off and followed, his eyes darting from<br />
the baby to the jellyfish or whatever it was and then to the seahorse or what might be someone‘s<br />
earlobes, tympanum and all.<br />
―How come there‘s no one here to tell us what all this stuff is?‖ Will wondered.<br />
―Maybe,‖ said Doug slowly, ―maybe they‘re afraid to tell, or can’t tell, or won’t."<br />
―Lord,‖ said Will. ―I‘m froze.‖<br />
From outside the tent‘s canvas walls came the sounds of Tom being sick.<br />
―Hey!‖ Will cried suddenly. ―It moved!‖<br />
Doug reached his hand out to the glass. ―No, it didn‘t.‖<br />
―It moved, darn it. It doesn‘t like us staring at it! Moved, I‘m telling you! That‘s enough<br />
for me. So long, Doug.‖<br />
And Doug was left alone in the dark tent with the cold glass jars holding the blind things<br />
that stared out with eyes that seemed to say how awful it was to be dead.<br />
There’s nobody to ask, thought Douglas, no one here. No one to ask and no one to tell.<br />
How do we find out? Will we ever know?<br />
From the far end of the tent museum came the sound of high-pitched laughter. Six girls<br />
ran into the tent, giggling, letting in a bright wedge of sunlight.<br />
Once the tent flap closed they stopped laughing, enveloped suddenly in darkness.<br />
Doug turned blindly and walked out into the light.<br />
He took a deep breath of the hot summer-like air, and squeezed his eyes shut. He could<br />
still see the platforms and the tables and the glass jars filled with thick fluid, and in the fluid,<br />
suspended, strange bits of tissue, alien forms from far unknown territories. What could be a<br />
swamp water creature with half an eye and half a limb, he knew, was not. What could be a<br />
fragment of ghost, of a spiritual upchuck come out of a fogbound book in a night library, was<br />
not. What could be the stillborn discharge of a favorite dog was not. In his mind‘s eye the things<br />
in the jars seemed to melt, from fluid to fluid, light to light. If you flicked your eyes from jar to