by Ray Bradbury
His wife started to talk swiftly. She named a lot of things and she talked about a lot more, but before she got very far he cut gently across her talking. ‘I know, I know, the kids and school, our car, I know,’ he said. ‘And bills and money and credit. But what about that farm Dad left us? Why can’t we move there, away from cities? I know a little about farming. We could stock up, hole in, have enough to live on for months if anything happened.’
She said nothing.
‘Sure, all of our friends are here in town,’ he went on reasonably. ‘And movies and shows and the kids’ friends, and …’
She took a deep breath. ‘Can’t we think it over a few more days?’
‘I don’t know. I’m afraid of that. I’m afraid if I think it over, about my truck and my new work, I’ll get used to it. And, oh Christ, it just doesn’t seem right a man, a human being, should ever let himself get used to any idea like that.’
She shook her head slowly, looking at the windows, the gray walls, the dark pictures on the walls. She tightened her hands. She started to open her mouth.
‘I’ll think tonight,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay up a while. By morning I’ll know what to do.’
‘Be careful with the children. It wouldn’t be good, their knowing all this.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
‘Let’s not talk anymore, then. I’ll finish dinner!’ She jumped up and put her hands to her face and then looked at her hands and at the sunlight in the windows. ‘Why, the kids’ll be home any minute.’
‘I’m not very hungry.’
‘You got to eat, you just got to keep on going.’ She hurried off, leaving him alone in the middle of a room where not a breeze stirred the curtains, and only the gray ceiling hung over him with a lonely bulb unlit in it, like an old moon in a sky. He was quiet. He massaged his face with both hands. He got up and stood alone in the dining room door and walked forward and felt himself sit down and remain seated in a dining room chair. He saw his hands spread on the white tablecloth, open and empty.
‘All afternoon,’ he said, ‘I’ve thought.’
She moved through the kitchen, rattling silverware, crashing pans against the silence that was everywhere.
‘Wondering,’ he said, ‘if you put the bodies in the trucks lengthwise or endwise, with the heads on the right, or the feet on the right. Men and women together, or separated? Children in one truck, or mixed with men and women? Dogs in special trucks, or just let them lay? Wondering how many bodies one garbage truck can hold. And wondering if you stack them on top of each other and finally knowing you must just have to. I can’t figure it. I can’t work it out. I try, but there’s no guessing, no guessing at all how many you could stack in one single truck.’
He sat thinking of how it was late in the day at his work, with the truck full and the canvas pulled over the great bulk of garbage so the bulk shaped the canvas in an uneven mound. And how it was if you suddenly pulled the canvas back and looked in. And for a few seconds you saw the white things like macaroni or noodles, only the white things were alive and boiling up, millions of them. And when the white things felt the hot sun on them they simmered down and burrowed and were gone in the lettuce and the old ground beef and the coffee grounds and the heads of white fish. After ten seconds of sunlight the white things that looked like noodles or macaroni were gone and the great bulk of garbage silent and not moving, and you drew the canvas over the bulk and looked at how the canvas folded unevenly over the hidden collection, and underneath you knew it was dark again, and things beginning to move as they must always move when things get dark again.
He was still sitting there in the empty room when the front door of the apartment burst wide. His son and daughter rushed in, laughing, and saw him sitting there, and stopped.
Their mother ran to the kitchen door, held to the edge of it quickly, and stared at her family. They saw her face and they heard her voice:
‘Sit down, children, sit down!’ She lifted one hand and pushed it toward them. ‘You’re just in time.’
The Visitor
Saul Williams awoke to the still morning. He looked wearily out of his tent and thought about how far away Earth was. Millions of miles, he thought. But then what could you do about it? Your lungs were full of the ‘blood rust.’ You coughed all the time.
Saul arose this particular morning at seven o’clock. He was a tall man, lean, thinned by his illness. It was a quiet morning on Mars, with the dead sea bottom-flat and silent – no wind on it. The sun was clear and cool in the empty sky. He washed his face and ate breakfast.
After that he wanted very much to be back on Earth. During the day he tried every way that it was possible to be in New York City. Sometimes, if he sat right and held his hands a certain way, he did it. He could almost smell New York. Most of the time, though, it was impossible.
Later in the morning Saul tried to die. He lay on the sand and told his heart to stop. It continued beating. He imagined himself leaping from a cliff or cutting his wrists, but laughed to himself – he knew he lacked the nerve for either act.
Maybe if I squeeze tight and think about it enough, I’ll just sleep and never wake, he thought. He tried it. An hour later he awoke with a mouth full of blood. He got up and spat it out and felt very sorry for himself. This blood rust – it filled your mouth and your nose; it ran from your ears, your fingernails; and it took a year to kill you. The only cure was shoving you in a rocket and shooting you out to exile on Mars. There was no known cure on Earth, and remaining there would contaminate and kill others. So here he was, bleeding all the time, and lonely.
Saul’s eyes narrowed. In the distance, by an ancient city ruin, he saw another man lying on a filthy blanket.
When Saul walked up, the man on the blanket stirred weakly.
‘Hello, Saul,’ he said.
‘Another morning,’ said Saul. ‘Christ, I’m lonely!’
‘It is an affliction of the rusted ones,’ said the man on the blanket, not moving, very pale and as if he might vanish if you touched him.
‘I wish to God,’ said Saul, looking down at the man, ‘that you could at least talk. Why is it that intellectuals never get the blood rust and come up here?’
‘It is a conspiracy against you, Saul,’ said the man, shutting his eyes, too weary to keep them open. ‘Once I had the strength to be an intellectual. Now, it’s a job to think.’
‘If only we could talk,’ said Saul Williams.
The other man merely shrugged indifferently.
‘Come tomorrow. Perhaps I’ll have enough strength to talk about Aristotle then. I’ll try. Really I will.’ The man sank down under the worn tree. He opened one eye. ‘Remember, once we did talk on Aristotle, six months ago, on that good day I had.’
‘I remember,’ said Saul, not listening. He looked at the dead sea. ‘I wish I were as sick as you, then maybe I wouldn’t worry about being an intellectual. Then maybe I’d get some peace.’
‘You’ll get just as bad as I am now in about six months,’ said the dying man. ‘Then you won’t care about anything but sleep and more sleep. Sleep will be like a woman to you. You’ll always go back to her, because she’s fresh and good and faithful and she always treats you kindly and the same. You only wake up so you can think about going back to sleep. It’s a nice thought.’ The man’s voice was a bare whisper. Now it stopped and a light breathing took over.
Saul walked off.
Along the shores of the dead sea, like so many emptied bottles flung up by some long-gone wave, were the huddled bodies of sleeping men. Saul could see them all down the curve of the empty sea. One, two, three – all of them sleeping alone, most of them worse off than he, each with his little cache of food, each grown into himself, because social converse was weakening and sleep was good.
At first there had been a few nights around mutual campfires. And they had all talked about Earth. That was the only thing they talked about. Earth and the way the waters ran in town creeks and what homemade strawberry p
ie tasted like and how New York looked in the early morning coming over on the Jersey ferry in the salt wind.
I want Earth, thought Saul. I want it so bad it hurts. I want something I can never have again. And they all want it and it hurts them not to have it. More than food or a woman or anything, I just want Earth. This sickness puts women away forever; they’re not things to be wanted. But Earth, yes. That’s a thing for the mind and not the weak body.
The bright metal flashed on the sky.
Saul looked up.
The bright metal flashed again.
A minute later the rocket landed on the sea bottom. A valve opened, a man stepped out, carrying his luggage with him. Two other men, in protective germicide suits, accompanied him, bringing out vast cases of food, setting up a tent for him.
Another minute and the rocket returned to the sky. The exile stood alone.
Saul began to run. He hadn’t run in weeks, and it was very tiring, but he ran and yelled.
‘Hello, hello!’
The young man looked Saul up and down when he arrived.
‘Hello. So this is Mars. My name’s Leonard Mark.’
‘I’m Saul Williams.’
They shook hands. Leonard Mark was very young – only eighteen; very blond, pink-faced, blue-eyed and fresh in spite of his illness.
‘How are things in New York?’ said Saul.
‘Like this,’ said Leonard Mark. And he looked at Saul.
New York grew up out of the desert, made of stone and filled with March winds. Neons exploded in electric color. Yellow taxis glided in a still night. Bridges rose and tugs chanted in the midnight harbors. Curtains rose on spangled musicals.
Saul put his hands to his head, violently.
‘Hold on, hold on!’ he cried. ‘What’s happening to me? What’s wrong with me? I’m going crazy!’
Leaves sprouted from trees in Central Park, green and new. On the pathway Saul strolled along, smelling the air.
‘Stop it, stop it, you fool!’ Saul shouted at himself. He pressed his forehead with his hands. ‘This can’t be!’
‘It is,’ said Leonard Mark.
The New York towers faded. Mars returned. Saul stood on the empty sea bottom, staring limply at the young newcomer.
‘You,’ he said, putting his hand out to Leonard Mark. ‘You did it. You did it with your mind.’
‘Yes,’ said Leonard Mark.
Silently they stood facing each other. Finally, trembling, Saul seized the other exile’s hand and wrung it again and again, saying, ‘Oh, but I’m glad you’re here. You can’t know how glad I am!’
They drank their rich brown coffee from the tin cups.
It was high noon. They had been talking all through the warm morning time.
‘And this ability of yours?’ said Saul over his cup, looking steadily at the young Leonard Mark.
‘It’s just something I was born with,’ said Mark, looking into his drink. ‘My mother was in the blowup of London back in ’57. I was born ten months later. I don’t know what you’d call my ability. Telepathy and thought transference, I suppose. I used to have an act, I traveled all around the world. Leonard Mark, the mental marvel, they said on the billboards. I was pretty well off. Most people thought I was a charlatan. You know what people think of theatrical folks. Only I knew I was really genuine, but I didn’t let anybody know. It was safer not to let it get around too much. Oh, a few of my close friends knew about my real ability. I had a lot of talents that will come in handy now that I’m here on Mars.’
‘You sure scared the hell out of me,’ said Saul, his cup rigid in his hand. ‘When New York came right up out of the ground that way, I thought I was insane.’
‘It’s a form of hypnotism which affects all of the sensual organs at once – eyes, ears, nose, mouth, skin – all of them. What would you like to be doing now most of all?’
Saul put down his cup. He tried to hold his hands very steady. He wet his lips. ‘I’d like to be in a little creek I used to swim in in Mellin Town, Illinois, when I was a kid. I’d like to be stark-naked and swimming.’
‘Well,’ said Leonard Mark and moved his head ever so little.
Saul fell back on the sand, his eyes shut.
Leonard Mark sat watching him.
Saul lay on the sand. From time to time his hands moved, twitched excitedly. His mouth spasmed open; sounds issued from his tightening and relaxing throat.
Saul began to make slow movements of his arms, out and back, out and back, gasping with his head to one side, his arms going and coming slowly on the warm air, stirring the yellow sand under him, his body turning slowly over.
Leonard Mark quietly finished his coffee. While he drank he kept his eyes on the moving, whispering Saul lying there on the dead sea bottom.
‘All right,’ said Leonard Mark.
Saul sat up, rubbing his face.
After a moment he told Leonard Mark, ‘I saw the creek. I ran along the bank and I took off my clothes,’ he said breathlessly, his smile incredulous. ‘And I dived in and swam around!’
‘I’m pleased,’ said Leonard Mark.
‘Here!’ Saul reached into his pocket and drew forth his last bar of chocolate. ‘This is for you.’
‘What’s this?’ Leonard Mark looked at the gift. ‘Chocolate? Nonsense, I’m not doing this for pay. I’m doing it because it makes you happy. Put that thing back in your pocket before I turn it into a rattlesnake and it bites you.’
‘Thank you, thank you!’ Saul put it away. ‘You don’t know how good that water was.’ He fetched the coffeepot. ‘More?’
Pouring the coffee, Saul shut his eyes a moment.
I’ve got Socrates here, he thought; Socrates and Plato, and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. This man, by his talk, is a genius. By his talent, he’s incredible! Think of the long, easy days and the cool nights of talk we’ll have. It won’t be a bad year at all. Not half.
He spilled the coffee.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ Saul himself was confused, startled.
We’ll be in Greece, he thought. In Athens. We’ll be in Rome, if we want, when we study the Roman writers. We’ll stand in the Parthenon and the Acropolis. It won’t be just talk, but it’ll be a place to be, besides. This man can do it. He has the power to do it. When we talk the plays of Racine, he can make a stage and players and all of it for me. By Christ, this is better than life ever was! How much better to be sick and here than well on Earth without these abilities! How many people have ever seen a Greek drama played in a Greek amphitheater in the year 31 B.C.?
And if I ask, quietly and earnestly, will this man take on the aspect of Schopenhauer and Darwin and Bergson and all the other thoughtful men of the ages …? Yes, why not? To sit and talk with Nietzsche in person, with Plato himself …!
There was only one thing wrong. Saul felt himself swaying.
The other men. The other sick ones along the bottom of this dead sea.
In the distance men were moving, walking toward them. They had seen the rocket flash, land, dislodge a passenger. Now they were coming, slowly, painfully, to greet the new arrival.
Saul was cold. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Mark, I think we’d better head for the mountains.’
‘Why?’
‘See those men coming? Some of them are insane.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’
‘Isolation and all make them that way?’
‘Yes, that’s it. We’d better get going.’
‘They don’t look very dangerous. They move slowly.’
‘You’d be surprised.’
Mark looked at Saul. ‘You’re trembling. Why’s that?’
‘There’s no time to talk,’ said Saul, getting up swiftly. ‘Come on. Don’t you realize what’ll happen once they discover your talent? They’ll fight over you. They’ll kill each other – kill you – for the right to own you.’
‘Oh, but I don’t belong to anybody,’ said Leonard Mark. He looked at Saul. �
��No. Not even you.’
Saul jerked his head. ‘I didn’t even think of that.’
‘Didn’t you now?’ Mark laughed.
‘We haven’t time to argue,’ answered Saul, eyes blinking, cheeks blazing. ‘Come on!’
‘I don’t want to. I’m going to sit right here until those men show up. You’re a little too possessive. My life’s my own.’
Saul felt an ugliness in himself. His face began to twist. ‘You heard what I said.’
‘How very quickly you changed from a friend to an enemy,’ observed Mark.
Saul hit at him. It was a neat quick blow, coming down.
Mark ducked aside, laughing. ‘No, you don’t!’
They were in the center of Times Square. Cars roared, hooting, upon them. Buildings plunged up, hot, into the blue air.
‘It’s a lie!’ cried Saul, staggering under the visual impact. ‘For God’s sake, don’t, Mark! The men are coming. You’ll be killed!’
Mark sat there on the pavement, laughing at his joke. ‘Let them come. I can fool them all!’
New York distracted Saul. It was meant to distract – meant to keep his attention with its unholy beauty, after so many months away from it. Instead of attacking Mark he could only stand, drinking in the alien but familiar scene.
He shut his eyes. ‘No.’ And fell forward, dragging Mark with him. Horns screamed in his ears. Brakes hissed and caught violently. He smashed at Mark’s chin.
Silence.
Mark lay on the sea bottom.
