tuck everlasting
taken from the 1975 natalie babbitt book.
i got a feeling this whole thing is going to come apart like wet bread.
here, child. hide your eyes.
you’ll get heat stroke out there on a day like this.
there, there, now. hear me out.
i was too scared to do anything.
but first we got to talk, and the pond’s the best place. the pond’s got answers.
so you may as well relax. there’s nothing you can do to stop me.
you’ll sleep first-rate on the sofa here.
but things can come together in strange ways.
well, you never told me not to!
it’s no use having that dream. nothing’s going to change.
all right, but come in if it gets too hot, won’t you, dear?
it’s going to rain, i think.
don’t stay out here much longer.
you can’t have living without dying. so you can’t call it living, what we got. we just are, we just be, like rocks beside a road.
who’s that you’re talking to?
i’m tired of being looked at all the time. i want to be by myself for a change.
it was like pain, a dull pain on the fringes of the sky.
you’re too much of a worrier.
a toad? nasty things, toads.
so of course you know everyone, and everything that goes on.
big tree got hit by lightning, split right down the middle. caught fire and everything.
i have to help. if it wasn’t for me, there wouldn’t have been any trouble in the first place.
but dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born. you can’t pick out the pieces you like and leave the rest. being part of the whole thing, that’s the blessing.
they were wild, unbelievable stories, but i believed them.
i won’t go with you! i won’t!
life’s got to be lived, no how matter how long or short.
it’s my toad. so you’d better leave it alone.
what a week this has been!
i have a great deal to say and very little time for saying it.
these are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.
