[Castle] "Grand Old Man..." (G)
Author's Note: Written for "fic_promptly"'s any, any, death of an icon. Dedicated to the late, great, Ray Bradbury, who passed away last week. You'll be missed, Ray, but like that carny fortune-teller predicted, you really will live forever, through the stories you wrote and the writers you inspired....
Alexis felt something funny in the air that afternoon, on her return home from a summer class, something that crinkled coldly, like tinfoil on a winter's day. Even as she unlocked the door to the apartment, she felt a sense of emptiness hovering just inside the room. The place was quiet as a long-unopened Egyptian tomb as she entered.
She found Dad in his study, sitting back from the laptop, a stack of dog-eared paperbacks on the desk beside the computer, and his chin resting in one hand, elbow on the arm of his swivel chair. The image of a round-faced older gent with white hair and thick-framed glasses took up most of the screen of the laptop. Dad looked on it fondly, a flicker of silver tears at the corners of his eyes.
"Dad, what's wrong?" she asked, touching his arm.
His sad reverie switched off as he yelped alert and looked up at her. "Oh, Alexis, you startled me," he said. His gaze returned to the professor-image before him. "Ray Bradbury passed away today."
"Dandelion Wine guy?" she asked, scooching down beside the chair. "He must have been ancient."
"The grand old man of sci-fi short stories," Dad replied. "He was ninety-one years young."
"That's still very old," Alexis noted, practical as she often was. "It was his time to go."
"But he was younger at heart than some young people," Dad said, nudging her a bit, playing.
"Well, he sure knew how to write about small-town America without it turning into a bad Norman Rockwell clone," Alexis said. "And sometimes I think Fahrenheit 451 was a bit *too* prophetic: it's like he cursed reality shows and big-screen TVs into existence."
"Oh, but Ray Bradbury was so much more than just books on high school required reading lists," Castle said. "He was a *poet*, a distiller of words into a fine liqueur that makes you dizzy if you drink too much at once."
She took that in, smiling a bit. "Well, I did get a little dizzy reading The Martian Chronicles. I thought it was the style shifts between the stories and the bridging chapters between them. And there was that one horror story about the kid with the flu which had me jumping every time someone sneezed in study hall."
"And who wouldn't want to roam through the golden lanes of October Country?" Dad mused, as if gazing down a vista of autumn maples glowing in the October sunlight.
"That's one I didn't read," she admitted, frowning.
He replied with a smirk and reached for one of the dog-eared paperbacks, which shed pages and covers like the layers of a mummy's wraps and offered it to her like a relic. "Take and read, but only a sip at a time," he said.
Alexis felt something funny in the air that afternoon, on her return home from a summer class, something that crinkled coldly, like tinfoil on a winter's day. Even as she unlocked the door to the apartment, she felt a sense of emptiness hovering just inside the room. The place was quiet as a long-unopened Egyptian tomb as she entered.
She found Dad in his study, sitting back from the laptop, a stack of dog-eared paperbacks on the desk beside the computer, and his chin resting in one hand, elbow on the arm of his swivel chair. The image of a round-faced older gent with white hair and thick-framed glasses took up most of the screen of the laptop. Dad looked on it fondly, a flicker of silver tears at the corners of his eyes.
"Dad, what's wrong?" she asked, touching his arm.
His sad reverie switched off as he yelped alert and looked up at her. "Oh, Alexis, you startled me," he said. His gaze returned to the professor-image before him. "Ray Bradbury passed away today."
"Dandelion Wine guy?" she asked, scooching down beside the chair. "He must have been ancient."
"The grand old man of sci-fi short stories," Dad replied. "He was ninety-one years young."
"That's still very old," Alexis noted, practical as she often was. "It was his time to go."
"But he was younger at heart than some young people," Dad said, nudging her a bit, playing.
"Well, he sure knew how to write about small-town America without it turning into a bad Norman Rockwell clone," Alexis said. "And sometimes I think Fahrenheit 451 was a bit *too* prophetic: it's like he cursed reality shows and big-screen TVs into existence."
"Oh, but Ray Bradbury was so much more than just books on high school required reading lists," Castle said. "He was a *poet*, a distiller of words into a fine liqueur that makes you dizzy if you drink too much at once."
She took that in, smiling a bit. "Well, I did get a little dizzy reading The Martian Chronicles. I thought it was the style shifts between the stories and the bridging chapters between them. And there was that one horror story about the kid with the flu which had me jumping every time someone sneezed in study hall."
"And who wouldn't want to roam through the golden lanes of October Country?" Dad mused, as if gazing down a vista of autumn maples glowing in the October sunlight.
"That's one I didn't read," she admitted, frowning.
He replied with a smirk and reached for one of the dog-eared paperbacks, which shed pages and covers like the layers of a mummy's wraps and offered it to her like a relic. "Take and read, but only a sip at a time," he said.