The skies finally cleared up this morning. For three days in a row, the rain ruled over North Carolina. It dribbled down in little droplets, it poured in loud pitter-patters, and sometimes it blasted the windshield of our car, causing the wipers to rock back and forth in a frenzy.
The rain reminded me of a short film I watched back in elementary school---a movie that frightened me and made me incredibly sad. It was called "All Summer in One Day" and it was based from a 1959 Ray Bradbury short story. The film follows a group of children on Venus, whose parents left Earth to colonize the second planet. The Venutian landscape is a cruel one---a place where rain falls down for days upon weeks upon months. A place where the sun only shines every seven years and for only an hour.
One of the girls in the class is an outcast. She recently moved to Venus from Earth and still remembers what the sun looks like and how it feels on her skin. The other schoolchildren make a pariah out of her, shunning her because she has experienced something that they crave to know. When the teacher is out of the room, the children lock up the girl in the closet. Then they forget all about her because the teacher announces it is time to go outside to see the sun and to play.
And this is the part I remember the most vividly. The children rush outside and everything in the dire landscape is changed. The sun shines wildly in a blue, blue sky. Flowers pop out from the soil and bloom in ecstasy. The children run and scream and laugh. The rain has finally disappeared. Summer has arrived.
But once the rain comes back, the children remember the little girl. They unlock the door in silence. As the girl makes her way out of the closet, one by one the children hand her the flowers they had picked outside---the flowers that only bloomed every seven years for one hour. And that was the end of the movie.
Depressing? Yes! Why did they show this to elementary school children?! And why would people ever move to Venus?!
