| l’enfer c’est les autres? |

no. futuristic, yet absurd, bradbury denies sartre’s existentialist thought of eventuality that cannot be thwarted. unfortunately it’s the self, that bothersome self, that has to be feeded steadily for not growing old and forget the things it learned, the knowledge it took, from books and paper reels.

“all you umpires, back to the bleachers. referees, hit the showers. it’s my game. i pitch, i hit, i catch. i run the bases. at sunset i’ve won or lost. at sunrise, i’m out again, giving it the old try. and no one can help me. not even you.” (bradbury | fahrenheit 451)

(cf. http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4dmu3ajmK1rt8levo1_500.jpg)

but the world lost more than a man’s view into mankind’s mirror, for as a romancier he was and burnt to be:

“the autumn leaves blew over the moonlit pavement in such a way as to make the girl who was moving there seem fixed to a sliding walk, letting the motion of the wind and the leaves carry her forward. her head was half bent to watch her shoes stir the circling leaves. her face was slender and milk-white, and in it was a kind of gentle hunger that touched over everything with tireless curiosity. it was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them. her dress was white and it whispered. he almost thought he heard the motion of her hands as she walked, and the infinitely small sound now, the white stir of her face turning when she discovered she was a moment away from a man who stood in the middle of the pavement waiting.
“and you must be” – she raised her eyes from
professional symbols “-the firemen”. her voice
trailed off.
“how oddly you say that.”
“i’d – i’d have known it with my eyes shut,” she
said, slowly.
“what – the smell of kerosene?” he laughed. “you never wash it off completely”
(ebd.)