Douglas Spaulding

Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered.

People forget if they don't keep testing things.

"Tom!" Then quieter. "Tom. . .does everyone in the world. . .know he's alive?"
"Sure. Heck, yes!"
"I hope they do," whispered Douglas. "Oh, I sure hope they know."

And then there is that day when all around, all around you hear the dropping of the apples, one by one, from the trees. At first it is one here and one there, and then it is three and then it is four and then nine and twenty, until the apples plummet like rain, fall like horse hoofs in the soft, darkening grass, and you are the last apple on the tree; and you wait for the wind to work you slowly free from your hold upon the sky, and drop you down and down. Long before you hit the grass you will have forgotten there ever was a tree, or other apples, or a summer, or green grass below. You will fall in darkness...

YOU CANT DEPEND ON THINGS BECAUSE...

...like machines, for instance, they fall apart or rust or rot, or maybe never get finished at all... or wind up in garages...
...like tennis shoes, you can only run so far, so fast, and then the earth's got you again...
...like trolleys. Trolleys, big as they are, always come to the end of the line...

YOU CANT DEPEND ON PEOPLE BECAUSE...

...they go away...
strangers die...
people you know fairly well die...
friends die...
people murder people, like in books...
your own folks can die.
So... !
He held onto a double fistful of breath, let it hiss out slow, grabbed more breath, and let it whisper through his tight-gritted teeth.

SO. He finished in huge heavily blocked capitals.

SO IF TROLLEYS AND RUNABOUTS AND FRIENDS AND NEAR FRIENDS CAN GO AWAY FOR A WHILE OR GO AWAY FOREVER, OR RUST, OR FALL APART OR DIE, AND IF PEOPLE CAN BE MURDERED, AND IF SOMEONE LIKE GREAT— GRANDMA, WHO WAS GOING TO LIVE FOREVER, CAN DIE... IF ALL OF THIS IS TRUE... THEN... I, DOUGLAS SPAULDING, SOME DAY... MUST...

He stood swaying slightly, the forest collected, full-weighted and heavy with syrup, clenched hard in his down-slung hands. 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.

"I'm alive," said Douglas. "But what's the use? They're more alive than me. How come? How come?" And standing alone, he knew the answer, staring down at his motionless feet...

The world, like a great iris of an even more gigantic eye, which has also just opened and stretched out to encompass everything, stared back at him.
And he knew what it was that had leaped upon him to stay and would not run away now.
I'm alive, he thought.

The people that made the shoes must have watched a lot of winds blow the trees and a lot of rivers going down to the lakes. Whatever it was, it was in the shoes, and it was summer.

Mr. Sanderson, don't you think you owe it to your customers, sir, to at least try the tennis shoes you sell, for just one minute, so you know how they feel?

"Boy," said the old man at last, "in five years, how would you like a job selling shoes in this emporium?"
"Gosh, thanks, Mr. Sanderson, but I don't know what I'm going to be yet."
"Anything you want to be, son," said the old man, "you'll be. No one will ever stop you."