“It was September.  In the last days when things are getting sad for no reason.  The beach was so long and lonely with only about six people on it.  The kids quit bouncing the ball because somehow the wind made them sad, too, whistling the way it did, and the kids sat down and felt autumn come along the endless shore.

All of the hot-dog stands were boarded up with strips of golden planking, sealing in all the mustard, onion, meat odors of the long, joyful summer.  It was like nailing summer into a series of coffins.  One by one the places slammed their covers down, padlocked their doors, and the wind came and touched the sand, blowing away all of the million footprints of July and August.  It got so that now, in September, there was nothing but the mark of my rubber tennis shoes and Donald and Delaus Arnold’s feet, down by the water curve.

Sand blew up in curtains on the sidewalks, and the merry-go-round was hidden with canvas, all of the horses frozen in mid-air on their brass poles, showing teeth, galloping on.  With only the wind for music, slipping through canvas. […]

I ran.  Sand spun under me and the wind lifted me.  You know how it is, running, arms out so you feel veils from your fingers, caused by wind.  Like wings.

~ Ray Bradbury, The Lake

Notes:

• Quote Source – Memory’s Landscape.
• Photo – Mme Scherzo
• Related posts: Ray Bradbury