Week 17 Reading Notes: The Last Night of the World (Bradbury), Part X

This was a really cool short story to read, and I am glad that I got a chance to check it out as my last reading of the semester. In this story there is a husband a wife, who have two small children. The couple, along with everyone they know has had the same exact mysterious dream that told them the the world was coming to an end, and in their hearts they knew it to be true. The couple discusses what is going to happen, and how they would like to spend their last night alive. They decide that they will not be scared, or run through the streets screaming, or do anything special, but instead they will live this night like any other normal night in their life. They don't tell the children anything, and they calmly eat dinner, clean the dishes, and go to bed just like they always do. The wife even goes back into the kitchen to turn off the water before she goes to sleep, even though it doesn't matter because everything they know and love will be gone the next day, this made them both laugh. I like that no one was afraid of death in this story, because they knew that there was absolutely nothing that they could do to change what was going to happen. They accepted their fate and appreciated the normalcy of their last day on earth.

I'm not sure if it is because I lost my brother from cancer when he was 14 and I was 5, or losing my grandfather that lived with us (and I was very close to) a few years after, but I have always viewed death differently than most people I know. Most people are terrified to die and are so afraid of the unknown that comes with it, but I have never been one of those people. I have realized when I was young that every single person that has ever lived has or will die, so there is really nothing to be afraid of. Whether you die at 14 or 114, you will die and that is the one thing you can be sure of in life. That is not to say that I don't value life, because just how the cold winter makes you really appreciate a warm sunny day, knowing that death will eventually come for you makes you appreciate the limited amount of time you do have on this earth. There is one quote when it comes to death that has always stuck with me since I heard it, and it was from the movie Act of Valor. It is a passage that reads "When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." This is how I chose to life my life and view the inevitability of death knocking at my door one day, and I think that this short story shares the same feeling.