Ray Bradbury - Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1

‘I’ll try and fix up something more comfortable.’

‘Marionettes are made to move, not lie still. How would you like to lie in a box most of the time?’

‘Well—’

‘You wouldn’t like it at all. I keep running. There’s no way to shut me off. I’m perfectly alive and I have feelings.’

‘It’ll only be a few days now. I’ll be off to Rio and you won’t have to stay in the box. You can live upstairs.’

Braling Two gestured irritably. ‘And when you come back from having a good time, back in the box I go.’

Braling said, ‘They didn’t tell me at the marionette shop that I’d get a difficult specimen.’

‘There’s a lot they don’t know about us,’ said Braling Two. ‘We’re pretty new. And we’re sensitive. I hate the idea of you going off and laughing and lying in the sun in Rio while we’re stuck here in the cold.’

‘But I’ve wanted that trip all my life,’ said Braling quietly.

He squinted his eyes and could see the sea and the mountains and the yellow sand. The sound of the waves was good to his inward mind. The sun was fine on his bared shoulders. The wine was most excellent.

‘ I’ll never get to go to Rio,’ said the other man. ‘Have you thought of that?’

‘No, I—’

‘And another thing. Your wife.’

‘What about her?’ asked Braling, beginning to edge toward the door.

‘I’ve grown quite fond of her.’

‘I’m glad you’re enjoying your employment.’ Braling licked his lips nervously.

‘I’m afraid you don’t understand. I think – I’m in love with her.’

Braling took another step and froze. ‘You’re what ?’

‘And I’ve been thinking,’ said Braling Two, ‘how nice it is in Rio and how I’ll never get there, and I’ve thought about your wife and – I think we could be very happy.’

‘Th-that’s nice.’ Braling strolled as casually as he could to the cellar door. ‘You won’t mind waiting a moment, will you? I have to make a phone call.’

‘To whom?’ Braling Two frowned.

‘No one important.’

‘To Marionettes, Incorporated? To tell them to come get me?’

‘No, no – nothing like that!’ He tried to rush out the door.

A metal-firm grip seized his wrists. ‘Don’t run!’

‘Take your hands off!’

‘No.’

‘Did my wife put you up to this?’

‘No.’

‘Did she guess? Did she talk to you? Does she know? Is that it?’ He screamed. A hand clapped over his mouth.

‘You’ll never know, will you?’ Braling Two smiled delicately. ‘You’ll never know.’

Braling struggled. ‘She must have guessed; she must have affected you!’

Braling Two said, ‘I’m going to put you in the box, lock it, and lose the key. Then I’ll buy another Rio ticket for your wife.’

‘Now, now, wait a minute. Hold on. Don’t be rash. Let’s talk this over!’

‘Good-by. Braling.’

Braling stiffened. ‘What do you mean, “good-by”?’

Ten minutes later Mrs Braling awoke. She put her hand to her cheek. Someone had just kissed it. She shivered and looked up. ‘Why – you haven’t done that in years,’ she murmured.

‘We’ll see what we can do about that,’ someone said.

He had smoked a packet of cigarettes in two hours.

‘How far out in space are we?’

‘A billion miles.’

‘A billion miles from where?’ said Hitchcock.

‘It all depends,’ said Clemens, not smoking at all. ‘A billion miles from home, you might say.’

‘Then say it.’

‘Home. Earth. New York. Chicago. Wherever you were from.’

‘I don’t even remember,’ said Hitchcock. ‘I don’t even believe there is an Earth now, do you?’

‘Yes,’ said Clemens. ‘I dreamt about it this morning.’

‘There is no morning in space.’

‘During the night then.’

‘It’s always night,’ said Hitchcock quietly. ‘Which night do you mean?’

‘Shut up,’ said Clemens irritably. ‘Let me finish.’

Hitchcock lit another cigarette. His hand did not shake, but it looked as if, inside the sunburned flesh, it might be tremoring all to itself, a small tremor in each hand and a large invisible tremor in his body. The two men sat on the observation corridor floor, looking out at the stars. Clemens’s eyes flashed, but Hitchcock’s eyes focused on nothing; they were blank and puzzled.

‘I woke up at 0500 hours myself,’ said Hitchcock, as if he were talking to his right hand. ‘And I heard myself screaming, “Where am I? where am I?” And the answer was “Nowhere!” And I said, “Where’ve I been?” And I said, “Earth!” “What’s Earth?” I wondered. “Where I was born,” I said. But it was nothing and worse than nothing. I don’t believe in anything I can’t see or hear or touch. I can’t see Earth, so why should I believe in it? It’s safer this way, not to believe.’

‘There’s Earth.’ Clemens pointed, smiling. ‘That point of light there.’

‘That’s not Earth; that’s our sun. You can’t see Earth from here.’

‘I can see it. I have a good memory.’

‘It’s not the same , you fool,’ said Hitchcock suddenly. There was a touch of anger in his voice. ‘I mean see it. I’ve always been that way. When I’m in Boston, New York is dead. When I’m in New York, Boston is dead. When I don’t see a man for a day, he’s dead. When he comes walking down the street, my God, it’s a resurrection. I do a dance, almost, I’m so glad to see him. I used to, anyway. I don’t dance any more. I just look. And when the man walks off, he’s dead again.’

Clemens laughed. ‘It’s simply that your mind works on a primitive level. You can’t hold on to things. You’ve got no imagination. Hitchcock, old man. You’ve got to learn to hold on.’

‘Why should I hold on to things I can’t use?’ said Hitchcock, his eyes wide, still staring into space. ‘I’m practical. If Earth isn’t here for me to walk on, you want me to walk on a memory? That hurts . Memories, as my father once said, are porcupines. To hell with them! Stay away from them. They make you unhappy. They ruin your work. They make you cry.’

‘I’m walking on Earth right now,’ said Clemens, squinting to himself, blowing smoke.

‘You’re kicking porcupines. Later in the day you won’t be able to eat lunch, and you’ll wonder why,’ said Hitchcock in a dead voice. ‘And it’ll be because you’ve got a footful of quills aching in you. To hell with it! If I can’t drink it, pinch it, punch it, or lie on it, then I say drop it in the sun. I’m dead to Earth. It’s dead to me. There’s no one in New York weeping for me tonight. Shove New York. There isn’t any season here; winter and summer are gone. So is spring, and autumn. It isn’t any particular night or morning: it’s space and space. The only thing right now is you and me and this rocket ship. And the only thing I’m positive of is me . That’s all of it.’

Clemens ignored this. ‘I’m putting a dime in the phone slot right now,’ he said, pantomiming it with a slow smile. ‘And calling my girl in Evanston. Hello, Barbara!’

The rocket sailed on through space.

The lunch bell rang at 1305 hours. The men ran by on soft rubber sneakers and sat at the cushioned tables.

Clemens wasn’t hungry.

‘See, what did I tell you!’ said Hitchcock. ‘You and your damned porcupines! Leave them alone, like I told you. Look at me, shoveling away food.’ He said this with a mechanical, slow, and unhumorous voice. ‘Watch me.’ He put a big piece of pie in his mouth and felt it with his tongue. He looked at the pie on his plate as if to see the texture. He moved it with his fork. He felt the fork handle. He mashed the lemon filling and watched it jet up between the tines. Then he touched a bottle of milk all over and poured out half a quart into a glass, listening to it. He looked at the milk as if to make it whiter. He drank the milk so swiftly that he couldn’t have tasted it. He had eaten his entire lunch in a few minutes, cramming it in feverishly, and now he looked around for more, but it was gone. He gazed out the window of the rocket, blankly. ‘Those aren’t real either,’ he said.