Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online Page B

approached, reached, and paused at the very end of civilization.
    The Ravine.
    Here and now, down in that pit of jungled blackness were suddenly all the things he would never know or understand; all the things without names lived in the huddled tree shadow, in the odor of decay.
    He realized he and his mother were alone.
    Her hand trembled.
    He felt the tremble. ... Why? But she was bigger, stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn't she? Did she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below? Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No solace in being an adult? No sanctuary in life? No fleshly citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flushed him. Ice cream lived again in his throat, stomach, spine and limbs; he was instantly cold as a wind out of December gone.
    He realized that all men were like this; that each person was to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If he should scream, if he should holler for help, would it matter?
    Blackness could come swiftly, swallowing; in one titanically freezing moment all would be concluded. Long before dawn, long before police with flashlights might probe the dark, disturbed pathway, long before men with trembling brains could rustle down the pebbles to his help. Even if they were within five hundred yards of him now, and help certainly was, in three seconds a dark tide could rise to take all ten years from him and-
    The essential impact of life's loneliness crushed his beginning-to-tremble body. Mother was alone, too. She could not look to the sanctity of marriage, the protection of her family's love, she could not look to the United States Constitution or the City Police, she could not look anywhere, in this very instant, save into her heart, and there she would find nothing but uncontrollable repugnance and a will to fear. In this instant it was an individual problem seeking an individual solution. He must accept being alone and work on from there.
    He swallowed hard, clung to her. Oh, Lord, don't let her die, please, he thought. Don't do anything to us. Father will be coming home from lodge meeting in an hour and if the house is empty--
    Mother advanced down the path into the primeval jungle. His voice trembled. "Mom, Doug's all right. Doug's all right. He's all right. Doug's all right!"
    Mother's voice was strained, high. "He always comes through here. I tell him not to, but those darned kids, they come through here anyway. Some night he'll come through and never come out again--"
    Never come out again. That could mean anything. Tramps. Criminals. Darkness. Accident. Most of all death!
    Alone in the universe.
    There were a million small towns like this all over the world. Each as dark, as lonely, each as removed, as full of shuddering and wonder. The reedy playing of minor-key violins was the small towns' music, with no lights, but many shadows. Oh, the vast swelling loneliness of them. The secret damp ravines of them. Life was a horror lived in them at night, when at all sides sanity, marriage, children, happiness, were threatened by an ogre called Death.
    Mother raised her voice into the dark. "Doug! Douglas!"
    Suddenly both of them realized something was wrong.
    The crickets had stopped chirping. Silence was complete.
    Never in his life a silence like this one. One so utterly complete. Why should the crickets cease? Why? What reason? They'd never stopped ever before. Not ever.
    Unless. Unless-
    Something was going to happen.
    It was as if the whole ravine was tensing, bunching together its black fibers, drawing in power from sleeping countrysides all about, for miles and miles. From dew-sodden forest and dells and rolling hills where dogs tilted heads to moons, from all around the great silence was sucked into one center, and they were the core of it. In ten seconds now, something would happen, something would happen. The