Disclaimer: I don’t own the original story by
Ray Bradbury; this is simply an alternative ending.
Waiting
For the Storm to Pass
7 years past. 7 long,
lonely, rainy, dark years. That one day that the sun shined like a bright
smile, where she was locked in the closet changed Margot. She never forgot,
never forgave. She turned from happy and optimistic to depressed and frail.
Though she would lash out at people frequently. Hitting them and threatening
them. Like her body went into autopilot. Then she would gain control, only to
break down crying. Her mother would calm her down. More than once in a while
her mother would tell her that “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass;
it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” Margot would tell her mother she was
a doctor, not a philosopher.
She never met those kids
again. The regions of Venus grew and they all moved. The planet has been
growing rapidly. People flying there to live on the beautiful new planet. They
thought it was paradise. Margot thought it was prison.
One day she while she was
walking to school, one of her only friends, an optimistic bubbly girl named
Abby, rushed to her. “Hey, hey Margot, guess what!” She said, bouncing on the balls
of her feet. She didn’t wait for an answer; she stood in front of Margot,
causing her to stop in her tracks. “The sun is coming out Wednesday!”
Margot was surprised, no
flabbergasted, no bumfuzzled. She couldn’t stand the rest of the day. At the
last bell she ran out the room like she was being chased by a demon. She
arrived back home in under five minutes. Her parents, unfazed by the door slam,
were sitting patiently on the couch.
Before she could tell them about what she learned that day, her parents
broke the news.
They bought three one way tickets back to earth, and were leaving
tomorrow. They didn’t know the sun would come out Wednesday. Tickets were
expensive; they wouldn’t have another chance to go. Her mother always thought
that they should wait for the sun to come out again, as closure. Though they
waited long enough. Margot kept her mouth shut, faking a smile. They were
leaving tomorrow.
The next day she stood outside, everything packed and in the ship
that was going back to Earth. She was about to walk through the doors when
something extraordinary happened. The
rain stopped. She looked up to see the clouds moving away from a bright light.
The scientists were wrong. The sun had come out today. Margot stood there for a
few minutes, basking in the warm, bright hug. When the sun resumed its hiding
spot behind the clouds, and the rain droplets fell down once more, Margot
walked through the doors, smiling.
