Ray Bradbury: Long After Midnight, "One Timeless Spring"

Ray Bradbury
"One Timeless Spring"
Long After Midnight

"One Timeless Spring" is the second story in the collection, Long After Midnight.  Just as the first story, "The Blue Bottle," could have been a part of  The Martian Chronicles, this story, at first glance, could have been included in Dandelion Wine (DW) .  It's the story of a young boy who lives in a small town. Moreover, his name is Doug, just as the young boy in DW is named Doug Spaulding.

One difference between this story and the others in DW  is that it is a flashback tale.  Doug is looking back at the events whereas the others are told in the present, if I remember correctly.  I think it would take a bit of revision to fit it in.  Perhaps another reason is the tone of the tale.  It doesn't seem to quite mesh with the overall tone of  DW.

For example, the story begins

That week, so many years ago, I thought my mother an father were poisoning me.  And now, twenty years later, I'm not so sure they didn't.  There's no way of telling.

He begins a journal.


"'I didn't know I was sick until this week,' I wrote.  'I've been sick for a long time.  Since I was ten.  I'm twelve now.'"

Doug then decides he doesn't want to grow up (the Peter Pan Principle?); he wishes to remain twelve.  Is he afraid of growing up, of joining that mysterious and possibly dangerous world of the adults?  He remains adamant about freezing at that age, and then he meets Clarisse.

Since I read this story, I heard about and eventually read Bradbury's sequel to Dandelion Wine, the title of which is Farewell Summer and have come to the conclusion that  "One Timeless Spring"  actually fits in better with Farewell Summer.  The overall theme is the same:  a fear of growing up.