The Ray Bradbury's terrifying short story, one of the great stories of childhood-as-nightmare, appeared originally in Esquire in October l953; it first appeared in book form in the Ballantine first issue of his famous novel, Fahrenheit 451. Charles Underhill, seeking to protect his young son from the agonies of schoolyard bullying in the playground makes a deal with the playground's mysterious manager but only at the end discovers the true nature of the pact.
Publication Year: 2010
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This was interesting, but once I realized where it was heading, there weren't really any surprises left.
The main character's motivation was a little questionable, personally. It is hard to tell, however, how realistic his concern actually was; he seemed a bit of an unreliable narrator to me, and I'm not sure what he was really seeing on the titular playground and what he was imagining in his head or taking extremely out of context. Is this a dystopian future where playgrounds are terrifying or is he an overly-concerned helicopter parent?
The ending was odd, though not really out of place with the rest of the story. I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to make of it. It had a Twilight Zone-esque twist, but I'm not sure I really liked the twist as much as I wanted to.
I haven't read any Bradbury in years and years, so this was a nice starting point back into his work.
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