I recently reread Fahrenheit, it was excellent like always, but I feel in the end Montag character is... miss characterized. I think in the subway scene when he was talking to Faber he said something like, "What's the point of going to another's side if I just mindlessly take orders from them instead?" but in the ending scene isn't that exactly what he does? ... Anyway I figured it would be some fun writing practice to write a bit of an alternate ending so here it is…
"What do you think Montag?"
"How do you read a book that is in another's head?"
"We read it to them Montag, they come to us, and we will read it to them. Recite the books of Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli, and Christ. People want fulfillment, they long for entertainment, for meaning, and sometimes people are distracted from it. Sometimes you find something that at first seems has the answers, feels as if it is fulfilling, and sometimes it is to certain extent, which only helps to enforce the lie. And that's what it is, a lie. It's like a sweet, a chocolate, it has immediately satisfaction, but we don't eat chocolates for dinner, because it lacks substance. And like a stomach when a mind is starves it leads to desperate action, it leads to change, and it is this hunger for substance and thirst for fulfillment that will lead them inevitably to books, to us."
"But how will they find us?"
"You found us."
"But that was luck wasn't it? An exception, not the expectation. A fluke, a flaw, a fortunate mistake."
"Don't be so certain, I have never seen such a thing as luck, randomness becomes a trend when given a large enough sample size. Coincidence becomes a pattern when given space, perspective, a lone tree if seen from above can become a forest, and likewise a forest can shrink into a single tree if seen only from under its shade."
Then suddenly to Montage surprise, the man Fred, whom had been frowning suddenly spoke, his voice unexpectedly gruff for the smallest of the wizened men. "That's bull, and you know it Granger! There are always flukes, life's full of 'em. A week ago we caught no fish, every other day we caught at least three, it was a fluke, a mistake, something out of control and simply not to be expected."
"Both of you are wrong, and both of you are right, as is often the case in any argument the truth is less this or that, and more this and that. A fluke is sometimes only a fluke but, other times it is indicative of a pattern", said Simon sternly.
"Aye", Agreed Professor West inattentively, he was seemingly enamored with what appeared to be a rock.
"Clearly I was blind trying to trying to go at things my own way, planting books in firemen's houses, but how could you change anything if you do nothing?"
Certainly a blind man running must be more likely to finish a race then a man who hasn't moved a step since the race has started.
"It was a clever plan, on a greater scale it could have worked splendidly"
The crowd began to cheer, run Montag, run, run away Montag, the finish line, find the finish line, Montag!
"But Montag, there is a plan, we cannot be too careful, and we cannot afford to be rash."
He couldn't think, they cheered so loud they frightened away his thoughts. They cheered like a band playing by a lake, his thoughts were fish, he was angler, be quite, be silent, shut up!
"But what plan do you have? To sit around and wait on the world to catch up to you? Why aren't you doing something? You hadn't a single idea what you should be doing, do you? What use is sitting and doing nothing!"
"No, you mustn't raise your voice! Be quite Montag! Stand still and be silent. You cannot be too careful, we are the books if we die so do the literature with us, there is no second chance, people will come around, they always have they always will, disobedience is-"
The band interrupted, what was this sound? What is this music?! Bach? Beethoven!
"-there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity, this isn't cowardliness it's using our heads."
He had to go, leave, now, the music, the sound, the noise.
"Where are you going?" asked West, suddenly, looking away from the rock and straight through Montag.
Granger suddenly became mute, and every started to watch Montag, as he backed away.
"Somewhere, where it's quite", yelled Montag as the world suddenly erupted in Dante's Inferno, and his words were overwhelmed by the gross screaming of nine odious types of men. And when the men, revolting, repulsive, repellent, reprehensible, repugnant men, quit their bestial bawling, the world cried in pain, and shock weeping. The Earth was heaving! Montag felt the shock in his every iota of being, every atom rattled around and about, violently shaking him until he fell to the floor, green foliage falling from the convulsing trees and covering him like a blanket!
Then when it stopped, Montage shakenly lifted himself off the ground leaves falling off his back, spinning and dancing as the fell, he quickly examined the old men whom had also fallen but whom had yet to get up. The timber from the fire had been tossed around and about, and Granger hand seemed burned.
Quickly Montag rushed to the injured old man, leaves jumping out of his way. But he had no more time then to bat his eyes before Fred moved him aside and opened a strange white box with medical supply inside of it. As he applied the gauze Granger began to melodically talk with, his eyes glassy, and his voice strangely removed, "A phoenix was a songbird, the Greeks said its song was so beautiful, that Apollo halted his chariot to peruse its source, being the god of poetry and having a appreciation for such things, and when finding a bird so handsome, Apollo was instantly struck by its visage, he loved its appearance and song so much he gifted it with immortality so he could forever admire its plumage and melody. He was wizened from the mistakes of his relative, the goddess Eos, whom had granted her lover Tithonus prince of Troy and son of King Laomedon immortality, but had watched him wither away in age, unable to die but always growing older. So he made the bird to always be reborn when it died as all things but gods lost their ebulliently during the passing of time, now the god could always observe it in its relative prime. It lives in an oasis isolated from the world through a oceans of sun scorched sand, decorating its elaborate nest, and when it lies in that nest for the last time, when it feels the coldness of deaths presence descending upon it, they both burned, the nest and bird, and in the ashes is reborn the legendary songbird, only to make a new nest… forever the bird would craft its nest of wickersticks and when it burned itself and its nest to ashes, it would be reborn just as unknowing of its future as you and me…"
Granger stopped for a moment, then looked at Montag
"You know what the difference between a man and a bird is?"
Men were not birds, they didn't have feathers, they didn't have beaks, and men had wings made of stiff metal. He didn't answer however, or Granger didn't give him time to answer.
"A Phoenix doesn't write…"
Montag looked at the crazed smile of the man, and as Fred began to lift West off the ground, Montag too began to smile.
His old firemen's jacket had had a phoenix embroider onto it, he wore it every day. But he wasn't wearing it this day, the jacket had likely burned with his house.
Montag began to giggle, then Granger began to laugh, and Montag responded in turn with heaving hysteria, and soon the empty forest was filled with the echoes of thunderous laughter.