Prank Calling

The water pelted window panes, running down the charred west side where the house had been burned, evenly free of its white paint. The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places.

Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn.
Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers.
Still farther over, their images burned on wood in one titanic instant, a small boy, hands flung into the air; higher up, the image of a thrown ball, and opposite him a girl, hands raised to catch a ball which never came down.

The five spots of paint - the man, the woman, the children, the ball - remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.

from Ray Bradbury: There Will Come Soft Rains