by Ray Bradbury
At dawn he entered the kitchen. "Maria," he said, "I'm ready for breakfast."
She would not speak to him.
At sunset he called to the children. "We're ready! Come on!" The house was silent.
"I've locked them in the closet," said Maria.
"What do you mean?" he demanded.
"You'll be killed in that rocket," she said. "What kind of rocket can you buy for two thousand dollars? A bad one!"
"Listen to me, Maria."
"It will blow up. Anyway, you are no pilot."
"Nevertheless, I can flythis ship. I have fixed it."
"You have gone mad," she said.
"Where is the key to the closet?"
"I have it here."
He put out his hand. "Give it to me."
She handed it to him. "You will kill them."
"No, no."
"Yes, you will. Ifeel it."
He stood before her. "You won't come along?"
"I'll stay here," she said.
"You will understand; you will see then," he said, and smiled. He unlocked the closet. "Come, children. Follow your father."
"Good-by, good-by, Mama!"
She stayed in the kitchen window, looking out at them, very straight and silent.
At the door of the rocket the father said, "Children, we will be gone a week. You must come back to school, and I to my business." He took each of their hands in turn. "Listen. This rocket is very old and will fly onlyone more journey. It will not fly again. This will be the one trip of your life. Keep your eyes wide."
"Yes, Papa."
"Listen, keep your ears clean. Smell the smells of a rocket.Feel. Remember. So when you return you will talk of it all the rest of your lives."
"Yes, Papa."
The ship was quiet as a stopped clock. The airlock hissed shut behind them. He strapped them all, like tiny mummies, into rubber hammocks. "Ready?" he called.
"Ready!" all replied.
"Take-off!" He jerked ten switches. The rocket thundered and leaped. The children danced in their hammocks, screaming.
"Here comes the Moon!"
The moon dreamed by. Meteors broke into fireworks. Time flowed away in a serpentine of gas. The children shouted. Released from their hammocks, hours later, they peered from the ports. "There's Earth!" "There's Mars!"
The rocket dropped pink petals of fire while the hour dials spun; the child eyes dropped shut. At last they hung like drunken moths in their cocoon hammocks.
"Good," whispered Bodoni, alone.
He tiptoed from the control room to stand for a long moment, fearful, at the airlock door.
He pressed a button. The airlock door swung wide. He stepped out. Into space? Into inky tides of meteor and gaseous torch? Into swift mileages and infinite dimensions?
No. Bodoni smiled.
All about the quivering rocket lay the junk yard.
Rusting, unchanged, there stood the padlocked junk-yard gate, the little silent house by the river, the kitchen window lighted, and the river going down to the same sea. And in the center of the junk yard, manufacturing a magic dream, lay the quivering, purring rocket. Shaking and roaring, bouncing the netted children like flies in a web.
Maria stood in the kitchen window.
He waved to her and smiled.
He could not see if she waved or not. A small wave, perhaps. A small smile.
The sun was rising.
Bodoni withdrew hastily into the rocket. Silence. All still slept. He breathed easily. Tying himself into a hammock, he closed his eyes. To himself he prayed, Oh, let nothing happen to the illusion in the next six days. Let all of space come and go, and red Mars come up under our ship, and the moons of Mars, and let there be no flaws in the color film. Let there be three dimensions; let nothing go wrong with the hidden mirrors and screens that mold the fine illusion. Let time pass without crisis.
He awoke.
Red Mars floated near the rocket.
"Papa!" The children thrashed to be free.
Bodoni looked and saw red Mars and it was good and there was no flaw in it and he was very happy.
At sunset on the seventh day the rocket stopped shuddering.
"We are home," said Bodoni.
They walked across the junk yard from the open door of the rocket, their blood singing, their faces glowing.
"I have ham and eggs for all of you," said Maria, at the kitchen door.
"Mama, Mama, you should have come, to see it, to see Mars, Mama, and meteors, and everything!"
"Yes," she said.
At bedtime the children gathered before Bodoni. "We want to thank you, Papa."
"It was nothing."
"We will remember it for always, Papa. We will never forget."
Very late in the night Bodoni opened his eyes. He sensed that his wife was lying beside him, watching him. She did not move for a very long time, and then suddenly she kissed his cheeks and his forehead. "What's this?" he cried.
"You're the best father in the world," she whispered.
"Why?"
"Now I see," she said. "I understand."
She lay back and closed her eyes, holding his hand. "Is it a very lovely journey?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Perhaps," she said, "perhaps, some night, you might take me on just a little trip, do you think?"
"Just a little one, perhaps," he said.
"Thank you," she said. "Good night."
"Good night," said Fiorello Bodoni.
* * *
Epilogue
IT WAS almost midnight. The moon was high in the sky now. The Illustrated Man lay motionless. I had seen what there was to see. The stories were told; they were over and done.
There remained only that empty space upon the Illustrated Man's back, that area of jumbled colors and shapes.
Now, as I watched, the vague patch began to assemble itself, in slow dissolvings from one shape to another and still another. And at last a face formed itself there, a face that gazed out at me from the colored flesh, a face with a familiar nose and mouth, familiar eyes.
It was very hazy. I saw only enough of the Illustration to make me leap up. I stood therein the moonlight, afraid that the wind or the stars might move and wake the monstrous gallery at my feet. But he slept on, quietly.
The picture on his back showed the Illustrated Man himself, with his fingers about my neck, choking me to death. I didn't wait for it to become clear and sharp and a definite picture.
I ran down the road in the moonlight. I didn't look back. A small town lay ahead, dark and asleep. I knew that, long before morning, I would reach the town. . . .
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE:The Illustrated Man . 3
The Veldt 7
Kaleidoscope . 19
The Other Foot 26
The Highway . 36
The Man . 39
The Long Rain . 49
The Rocket Man . 60
The Fire Balloons . 69
The Last Night of the World . 83
The Exiles . 87
No Particular Night or Morning . 97
The Fox and the Forest 105
The Visitor . 117
The Concrete Mixer . 127
Marionettes, Inc . 142
The City . 148
Zero Hour . 154
The Rocket 162
Epilogue . 170
