Dover Beach Post

Mrs. Phelps stormed out of the Montag's house and briskly rushed home, not trying to hide the tears that kept puring down her face, despite her best efforts before she left. She let them fall, didn't know why they came or how she felt, weather it was sad or moved or upset or something else. The haunting lines echoed through her head, making it hard to organize herself. "With tremulous cadence slow, and bring the eternal note of sadness in..."Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow of human misery..."  What did it mean? The only thing stopping her from rushing to the fire department right away is the silly idea that it all might mean something greater than herself, but of course that was ridiculous. That's all life is about, yourself, not your husband or your kids or your friends or any family at all, not strangers or kin are as important as you. Or are they? for the poem also said "Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!" as if to someone else, just as important. 

But what is she thinking? that's why this was outlawed in the first place, wasn't it? To protect them from this sort of thinking. She wasn't used to actually thinking outside of the entertainment on the wall-TV. And now she is even more confused, because for a second she actually thinks she likes thinking like this, doing something more with herself other than mindless meandering... Perhaps that's why the tears still flow, she thinks as she steps through the door to her house. And instead of going to the parlor to turn on the family, as she did most every day, she went to the bedroom, pulled out the one thing she didn't know like the back of her own hand in the whole house... a book left by a grandfather or some such thing. She had never touched it other than to hide it, but was told she mustn't loose it. And as she started leafing through it, she realized how valuable this was. she brushed off her husband when he tried to ask what was going on. she was too busy to answer. she heard him leave abruptly. The rest of the day seemed to come in eights- eight hours to finish the book, all 300 pages, because she'd never read so much in her life. Eight hours from when she got home until her husband finally reported her... Eight minutes to loose it all: her house, her family, her book, her freedom, and most of all everything she treasured in her life... And eight seconds to want out.

Sadly, prison didn't have a way out.