"All Summer In a Day," by Ray Bradbury
The current deluge of rain we're receiving in the Boston area reminds me of a classic Ray Bradbury story, "All Summer In a Day." The story is set on an earlier version of the planet Venus, one whose intense cloud cover implied to astronomers that Venus was a water-soaked world, with constant, unrelenting rain. In Bradbury's story, he posits that once every seven years, however, the clouds part, and people can enjoy about an hour of blissful sunshine. The story focuses on a grade school class that is anticipating the arrival of this hour in the middle of the day, when they will be given their recess.
I don't want to say much more than that. If you've read the story, you know what happens, and if you haven't, you probably want to track it down without having the plot spoiled for you.
Of course, today we know that the Venusian clouds have nothing to do with water and everything to do with the Greenhouse Effect. And given the accelerated rate of global warming on Earth, I sometimes wonder if the extreme weather patterns we've been experiencing are a prelude to something worse.
I don't want to say much more than that. If you've read the story, you know what happens, and if you haven't, you probably want to track it down without having the plot spoiled for you.
Of course, today we know that the Venusian clouds have nothing to do with water and everything to do with the Greenhouse Effect. And given the accelerated rate of global warming on Earth, I sometimes wonder if the extreme weather patterns we've been experiencing are a prelude to something worse.
I'm fearful of what these current weather patterns may bring.
*happysigh* I do love Ray Bradbury.
I mentioned this to someone just the other day: this is the first SF short story I remember reading (in 2nd grade), and I vaguely remembered that it was by Ray Bradbury, but couldn't remember the title. Woot!
A lot of Bradbury's stories give this poignant sadness that makes you want so badly to reach into the story and turn things around. "Picasso Summer" comes to mind. And Dandelion Wine has a bit of it too, but instead of being for the characters in the story, it's for our own 12-year-old selves. (That's something I didn't get when Dad read it to us as a bedtime story, but I did when I reread it ten years later.)