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TOMORROW THE SUN

Claudia Payne

The afternoon was warm and still, with just enough soft breeze
to make it pleasant, but not enough to create the chill that inland
Maine carries even into late June. A few little boys were frolicking
by the edge of the lake, building castles in the sand with the concern
of aged engineers. Tossing water to the clouds, they imitated the
crawl, heads craned out of the mysterious wet and faces screwed up
watertight. Their grandmother sat on the prow of a beached boat and
paddled her feet in the water, the gnarled toes reaching for a time
when she too had frisked and played.

Thus the afternoons slipped by beneath the trees, June slowly
blending into July. Moving in the easy routine of her summer job at
the hotel, Ann almost lost track of the days. She liked her work as a
waitress; she said it was the fastest way to learn about people. The
way they ate and ordered or talked to her while she served them held
little clues which she expertly wove into the pattern of their char-
acter. But character study wasn't her only motive for working each
summer; it was a quick way to earn a dollar and a college girl who
is working her way through needs plenty of dollars for each year.

From each person she met during the summer Ann drew some
small clue to the awesome vastness of life. Some clues hinted at the
desperation in man's struggle for happiness, his frantic two week
search for pleasure and peace. Some showed that in a quiet way a
few men and women had found an inner joy and fullness built around
their family. The tenderness of a mother's voice as she spoke to her
sons wakened a warmth within Ann as she passed long afternoons
lying beneath a maple tree dreaming of a poetic romance, a consum-
mate love and then a growing, living family, her own family.

Perhaps these beautiful dreams filled Ann's mind as she drove
the mountain road to town that day. It was a day requiring dreams,
for the rain fell steadily and the fog hung along the edge of the road
like billowing drapery.

What becomes of dreams when time ceases? When no breath
shares them with listening ears? There must be a peaceful end for
dreams, for Ann's face was peaceful and still when the patrolman
found her car hours later in the ravine. The rain fell silently on
the twisted metal as if to soothe its wounds. That night it fell quietly

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