Read Online Now and Forever by Ray Bradbury - Free Book Online Page B

exist.”
    â€œOh God,” he whispered. “It is a burden. Let me sleep. Sometimes in dreams I find answers.”
    â€œSleep then,” she said.
    â€œYou,” he said. “Not the weather, not the genetics, you, dear Nef,” he paused, “are my fountain of youth.”
    â€œLet me make you young again,” she said.
    And sealed his mouth with hers.

CHAPTER 28
    He slept and he dreamed.
    He was on the train, going east, and then suddenly he was in Chicago, and even more suddenly, he was in front of the Art Institute and was going up the stairs and through the corridors to stand before the great Sunday in the Park painting.
    A woman was standing by the painting and she turned and it was his fiancée.
    As he watched, she grew older, aging before his eyes, and she said to him, “You’ve changed.”
    He said, “No, I haven’t changed at all.”
    â€œYour face is different. You’ve come to say goodbye.”
    â€œNo, just to see how you are,” he said.
    â€œNo, you’ve come to say goodbye.”
    And as he watched, she grew even older and he felt very small, standing in front of the painting and trying to think of something to say.
    Quite suddenly she was gone.
    He walked out of the building and there at the bottom of the stairs were seven or eight of his friends.
    As he watched, they grew older and they said the same things that she had said.
    â€œYou’ve come to say goodbye.”
    â€œNo,” he insisted. “No, I haven’t done that.”
    Then he turned and ran back into the building, a young man suddenly old among old paintings.
    And then he awoke.

CHAPTER 29
    He sat for a long while listening to the wind howl in the chimney and the rain funnels outside.
    The old house creaked down into a deep swell of night then backed up and over, out of sight of land and light.
    Rats practiced graffiti on the walls and spiders played harps so high that only the hairs inside his ears heard and quivered.
    How much loss, how much gain? he wondered. How much leave, and how much remain?
    What to decide? he thought.
    All right, he called into himself. What? Which?
    Not a stir of dark in his head. Not an echo.
    Just a whisper: Sleep.
    And he slept again and put out the light behind his eyes.
    He heard a locomotive whistle across his dreams.
    The train was gliding, rushing in the night, taking the curves under the moon, hitting the long straightaways, tossing dust, scattering sparks, laying out echoes, and he was atilt and adream and somehow the familiar words came back in his head:
    Â 
    One kiss and all time’s your dominion
    One touch and no death can be cold.
    One night puts off graveyard opinion
    One hour and you’ll never grow old.
    Drink deep of the wine of forever
    Drink long of eternity’s stuff
    Where everyman’s learned and clever,
    And two billion loves not enough.
    Â 
    He cried out in his dream. No! And then again, Oh God, yes.
    And some final few words spelled his dreams:
    Â 
    Somewhere a band is playing,
    Playing the strangest tunes,
    Of sunflower seeds and sailors,
    Who tide with the strangest moons.
    He was waking now. His mouth sighed:
    Somewhere a band is playing
    Listen, O, listen, that tune?
    Learn it and you’ll dance on forever
    In June and yet June and more … June.
    Â 
    The train was not far off now. It was rounding some hills. The sun was rising and he knew he had changed his mind.
    He looked out at a sunrise that was bloody, a town filled with farewell light, and a weather that was so strange he would not forget it for a thousand days.
    He saw his face in the bathroom mirror as he shaved, and the eyes looked immensely sad.
    He came down to breakfast and sat before the mound of hotcakes and did not eat.
    Nef, across from him, saw what he had seen in the mirror and sat back in her chair.
    â€œHave you been thinking?” she asked.
    He took a deep breath. Up to this very moment he didn’t know