Ray Bradbury - The Toynbee Convector

All the Family stood by the collapsed barn, stunned. Hearing Cecy’s cry, they turned.

“What happened?” cried John from her mouth.

“Yes, what!” said Philip, moving her lips.

“My God,” gasped William, staring from her eyes.

“The barn burned,” said Tom. “We’re dead! ”

The Family, soot-faced in the smoking yard, turned like a traveling minstrel’s funeral and stared up at Cecy in shock.

“Cecy?” asked Mother, wildly. “Is there someone, I mean, with you?”

“Yes, me, Tom!” shouted Tom from her lips.

“And me, John.”

“Philip!”

“William!”

The souls counted off from the young woman’s mouth.

The family waited.

Then, as one, the four young men’s voices asked the final, most dreadful question:

“Didn’t you save just one body?”

The Family sank an inch into the earth, burdened with a reply they could not give.

“But—” Cecy held on to her own elbows, touched her own chin, her mouth, her brow, inside which four live ghosts knocked elbows for room. “But—what’ll I do with them?” Her eyes searched over all those faces below in the yard. “My boy cousins can’t stay here. They simply can’t stand around in my head !”

What she cried after that, or what the cousins babbled, crammed like pebbles under her tongue, or what the Family said, running like burned chickens in the yard, was lost.

Like Judgment Day thunders, the rest of the barn fell.

With a hollow roar the fire went up the kitchen chimney. An October wind leaned this way and that on the roof, listening to all the Family talk in the dining room below.

“It seems to me,” said Father.

“Not seems, but is!” said Cecy, her eyes now blue, now yellow, now hazel, now brown.

“We must farm the young cousins out. Find temporary hospices for them, until such time as we can cull new bodies—”

“The quicker the better,” said a voice from Cecy’s mouth now high, now low, now two gradations between.

“Joseph might be loaned out to Bion, Tom given to Leonard, William to Sam, Philip to—”

All the uncles, so named, snapped their hackles and stirred their boots.

Leonard summed up for all. “Busy. Overworked. Bion with his shop, Sam with his arm.”

“Gah—.” Misery sprang from Cecy’s mouth in four-part harmony.

Father sat down in darkness. “Good grief, there must be some one of us with plenty of time to waste, a small room to let in the backside of their subconscious or the topside of their trapdoor Id! Volunteers! Stand! ”

The Family sucked an icy breath, for suddenly Grandma was on her feet, but pointing her witch-broom cane.

“That man right there’s got all the time in the world. I hereby solicit, name, and nominate him! ”

As if their heads were on a single string, everyone turned to blink at Grandpa.

Grandpa leaped up as if shot. “No!”

“Hush.” Grandma shut her eyes on the question, folded her arms, purring, over her bosom. “You got all the time in the world.”

“No, by Joshua and Jesus!”

“This,” Grandma pointed around by intuition, eyes closed, “is the Family. No one in the world like us. We’re particular strange-fine. We sleep days, walk nights, fly the winds and airs, wander storms, read minds, hate wine, like blood, do magic, live forever or a thousand years, whichever comes first. In sum, we’re the Family. That being true and particular there’s no one to lean on, turn to, when trouble comes—”

“I won’t—”

“Hush.” One eye as large as the Star of India opened, burned, dimmed down, shut. “You spit mornings, whittle afternoons, and catbox the nights. The four nice cousins can’t stay in Cecy’s upper floor. It’s not proper, four wild young men in a slim girl’s head.” Grandma’s mouth sweetened itself. “Besides, there’s a lot you can teach the cousins. You been around long before Napoleon walked in and then ran out of Russia, or Ben Franklin got the pox. Good if the boys were tucked in your ear for a spell. What’s inside, God knows, but it might, I say might, improve their posture. Would you deny them that ?”

“Jumping Jerusalem!” Grandpa leaped to his feet. “I won’t have them all wrestling two falls out of three between my left ear and my right! Kick the sides out of my head. Knock my eyes like basketballs around inside my skull! My brain’s no boardinghouse. One at a time! Tom can pull my eyelids up in the morning. William can help me shove the food in, noons. John can snooze in my cold pork-marrow half-into dusk. Philip can dance in my dusty attic nights. Time to myself is what I ask. And clean up when they leave! ”

“Done!” Grandma circled like an orchestra leader, waving at the ghosted air. “One at a time, did you hear , boys?”

“We heard!” cried an anvil chorus from Cecy’s mouth.

“Move ’em in!” said Grandpa.

“Gangway!” said four voices.

And since no one had bothered to say which cousin went first, there was a surge of phantoms on the air, a huge tide-drift of storm and unseen wind.

Four different expressions lit Grandpa’s face. Four different earthquakes shook his brittle frame. Four different smiles ran scales along his piano teeth. Before Grandpa could protest, at four different gaits and speeds, he was run out of the house, across the lawn, and down the abandoned railroad tracks toward town, yelling against and laughing for the wild hours ahead.

The family stood lined up on the porch, staring after the rushing parade of one.

“Cecy! Do something!”

But Cecy, exhausted, was fast asleep in her chair.

That did it.

At noon the next day the big, dull blue, iron engine panted into the railroad station to find the Family lined up on the platform, Grandpa leaned and supported in their midst. They not so much walked but carried him to the day coach, which smelled of fresh varnish and hot plush. Along the way, Grandpa, eyes shut, spoke in a variety of voices that everyone pretended not to hear.

They propped him like an ancient doll in his seat, fastened his straw hat on his head like putting a new roof on an old building, and talked into his face.

“Grandpa, sit up. Grandpa, mind your hat. Grandpa, along the way don’t drink. Grandpa, you in there? Get out of the way, cousins, let the old man speak.”

“I’m here.” Grandpa’s mouth and eyes gave some birdlike twitches. “And suffering for their sins. Their whiskey makes my misery. Damn!”

“No such thing!” “Lies!” “We did nothing!” cried a number of voices from one side, then the other of his mouth. “No!”

“Hush!” Grandma grabbed the old man’s chin and focused his bones with a shake. “West of October is Cranamockett, not a long trip. We got all kinds of folks there, uncles, aunts, cousins, some with and some without children. Your job is to board the cousins out and—”

“Take a load off my mind,” muttered Grandpa, a tear trickling down from one trembling eyelid.

“But if you can’t unload the damn fools,” advised Grandma, “bring ’em back alive!”

“If I live through it.”

“Goodbye!” said four voices from under his tongue.

“Goodbye!” Everyone waved from the platform. “So long, Grandpa, Tom, William, Philip, John!”

“ I’m here now, too! ” said a young woman’s voice.

Grandpa’s mouth had popped wide.

“Cecy!” cried everyone. “Farewell!”

“Good night nurse!” said Grandpa.

The train chanted away into the hills, west of October.

The train rounded a long curve. Grandpa leaned and creaked his body.