THE END OF SOMETHING
By Joseph Charles
This story was inspired by a short story written by Ray Bradbury.
The rain rained hard, and the wind blew a downpour against the dark countryside. It cut into the ground and beat down the grass and bushes and trees. Vengeful at being left so long in the sky, the rain soaked the earth. Gracious to feel Terra-Firma again, it dug into the hills of sod. It drowned the ants in their colonies and drove the underground creatures out that slept comfortably before.
The rain was intense. It beat upon the trees and picket fences and worn, hard footpaths and fell angrily into the lake, enraged, churning the water into prickly, rough, sandpaper pieces, filling the boats and wetting the wind.
The lightning flashed through the darkness and the roar of thunder sounded a celestial battle. Its majestic cymbals and roaring basses penetrated the rough sawed oak and knotty pine board houses on the lake.
And high away on the top of a hill, quiet with darkness, stood the brown canvas tent of the summer theatre.
It was a house of farce and imagination. Now it is standing straight and strong, shielding within itself a particular world of Make Believe. Yet as it stands there the furious wind sneaks in under its wings and across its promenade, and takes hold and yanks. A rope comes loose from a peg, and a giant canvas flap begins to whistle and crack as it streams out in the wind.
While the flap is threatened to be ripped from its moorings, the wind continues, paper and litter fly past, and grinning, damp pools form and roll through the opening and begin to soak into the foundation.
The thunder roles, mockingly robust, and haughty. The lightning flashes, a brief bit done by a chiding actor in the sky. Another burst of thunder becomes its crowning encore.
Now a falling tree bough crashes through the canvas near the red and gold ringed pinnacle at the top of the tent. The water rushes through, excited with the conquest, like a herd of wild children, proud that they had waited all of the night of Christmas Eve, attacking a gift laden Christmas tree. The water comes through, spreads over the polished wooden seats and wooden floors, licking the props and curtains, actor's costumes and scripts, running under small rugs on the stage and into the light sockets.
Suddenly the flash of lightning reveals running figures inside the tent. Bubbling in chaos within, appear the souls of actors and plays long lost, now brought foreword in time, eerie, disembodied, brought foreword to witness the end of their eternal performances in the night. A multitude of demons and apparitions, now fearing the wind, now bewildered, huddled in corners, in tiny make-up boxes, and inside the great organ.
At once the spirits run out from their corners and hide-a-ways into the sea of water. They choke, gasp for air, running desperately this way and that, confused and startled. The tent flaps blow, letting in the water, and the three witches try to hold them. Jimmy Valentine is there and Juliet. Mr. Roberts is there also and Punch and Judy and all the rest, trying to hold together their faltering home. They all run about in one last moment.
One of them—Harvey, the white rabbit, or Odysseus or King Henry VIII— accidentally brushes the master switch and all the lights in the tent light up, staring with wild eyes into every corner and out into the dark night. And the rain, pushing its way through the torn canvas, scours the hot bulbs, caressing them, making red and white and rainbow colors. There is a puff of smoke and sparks within the tent and the miraculous electric eyes are blinded.
Witches cries echo from within, from the tent walls and the oak floors, reverberating among the seats.
In her last moments, Cleopatra is there tempting Mark Anthony. Old Scrooge desperately wipes the water from the table tops. The three witches from Macbeth cast spells and hocus-pocus and miracle charms against the forces of the storm.
Still the rain comes in. It feeds on the organ's black and white—now shining wet—keys and plays with a pipe left in an ashtray and fondles a wig and false mustache left on a dressing table. It rusts the tin box at the cashier's window and greedily devours the paint on the hundreds of seats, warping their backs.
With sylphidine glory, the phantoms fight their suppressor, waving their fists at the sky and cursing it while Snow White weeps in a corner and Alice drinks from fourteen different bottles to find something to make her big enough to fight. The rain comes down from the heavens and dissolves them. They run madly this way and that, the rain eating their skins, causing their flesh to decay. They fall away like flower petals as the rain devours them.
One last time, John Bishop and Mrs Pennywinkle run about trying to shield the props on the stage with their bodies and others try to pull the canvas together. But the main truss heaves and falters about to fall. The apparitions, soaked and beaten, crying phantom tears, turn and flee, softly whispering. They disappear into crevices and corners. They melt into the substance of the walls, going through to another dimension.
Then the music and sound of laughter that had been absorbed into the walls during long, past performances flows out, dissolving in slush and debris, Streaming down the hill. Bright kaleidoscopes of colored light will be never seen again in the dark night for the rust.
The colored pinnacle can hold no more, and it cries out before it falls, and the canvas pieces, shredding in the wind, wail back as together they surrender to the storm.
The floor shudders, cringing, and the red and gold pinnacle falls. It hits the stage with a thud, shattering it, throwing pieces everywhere.
Yet, the wind and the rain, still not completely satisfied, continues into the night.