Douglas feels deeply happy with the moment he has now. Even though the days of his early naïve childhood is far gone, he still managed to preserve his unique ability to admire the world and everything that surrounds him. “I want to feel all there is to feel, he thought. Let me feel tired, now, let me feel tired. I mustn't forget, I'm alive, I know I'm alive, I mustn't forget it tonight or tomorrow or the day after that.” (Bradbury 14) – Douglas keeps repeating it on and on, as a sacred prayer, every day, just as he did in his childhood. If someone would ask him about his life motto, or the philosophy of life, he would definitely say: “Being aware that you are alive, and listening to your heart, feeling its every single bit, every single emotion”. Douglas always thought that life is a greatest wonder given to a man, and the world, too. His sensitivity was now combined with wisdom, gained through the years, and experience. The way he looks at the world with a total excitement doesn’t mean that he never had a single problem in his life. Of course not, there have been tough times for him, the challenges and obstacles didn’t avoid his fate, but it was his bright, positive, impressionable spirit that helped him to hold on. His positive attitude to whatever happened, and his family was his greatest value, and the greatest support.
These days, Douglas leads his own café together with his wife. They always have some during the morning or afternoon. In the evenings, though, much more people gather, as light music begins to play, the candles start sparkling on the tables, and the veranda awaits for dancing. The place is small and cozy, with colorful flower pots all around the room and the photographs of all the amazing places they have travelled to earlier. There were all possible images which one could only imagine: mighty mountain ridges, deep-blue ovals and circles of the lakes, small colorful houses by the sea, wild forests, narrow, cobbled streets of some ancient city, the hustling cars and skyscrapers of the metropolis Could he ever resist not having seen all this? Not having felt the flow of life in the cities, the whispers of nature in the wild, the call of his own heart to discover the world?
Every day, before going to sleep, his daughter comes to Douglas and, taking his hand, asks for a bedtime story. And thus his memories carry him somewhere far away, to the places of his first dreams, and his first discoveries He tells her of the sunsets, the birds and the skies, of all the childhood memories he could ever gather and recall, trying not to miss a single tone or color, not a single instant of the day. Those childish summer days seemed like a true fairytale for him now, for him and for his daughter. And as she gradually falls asleep while listening to the quiet voice of his father, she would dream of the places she heard of. Douglas would still be sitting on the edge of her bed; his mind would travel throughout the years till it would finally arrive to where he actually is, in his daughter's bedroom. He would then watch her sleep for a moment, and think how she reminds him of the small boy he used to be. Her great impressiveness, enthusiasm, and openness to the surrounding world were the heritage which he, as it seems, passed over to her. Finally, taking all his thoughts together with him, he went to his bedroom and ‘ lay in his bed and the town slept around him and the ravine was dark and the lake was moving quietly on its shore and everyone, his family, his friends, he old people and the young, slept on one street or another, in one house or another, or slept in the far country churchyards.” (Bradbury 189)
Works Cited
Bradbury, Ray. Dandelion Wine. New York: Bantam Books, 1976. Print.
