Ray Bradbury - Long After Midnight

And was it the snow softly whispering out there, or was it the past, accumulations of old time and need, despairs mounding themselves to panics and at last finding tongue?

"God, Charles. Just now, I could have sworn I heard you say—"

"Say what?"

"You said:'Make a wish’"

"I did?"

His laughter behind me did not make me turn; I kept on watching the snow fall and I told him what I must tell—

"You said. 'It's a special, fine, strange night. So make the finest, dearest, strangest wish ever in your life, deep from your heart. It will be yours.' That's what I heard you say."

"No." I saw his image in the glass shake its head. "But, Tom, you've stood there hypnotized by the snowfall for half an hour. The fire on the hearth talked. Wishes don't come true, Tom. But—" and here he stopped and added with some surprise, "by God, you did hear something, didn't you? Well, here. Drink."

The popcorn was done popping. He poured wine which I did not touch. The snow was falling steadily along the dark window in pale breaths.

"Why?" I asked. "Why would this wish jump into my head? If you didn't say it, what did?"

What indeed, I thought; what's out there, and who are we? Two writers late, alone, my friend invited for the night, two old companions used to much talk and gossip about ghosts, who've tried their hands at all the usual psychic stuffs, Ouija boards, tarot cards, telepathies, the junk of amiable friendship over years, but always full of taunts and jokes and idle fooleries.

But this out there tonight, I though, ends the jokes, erases smiles. The snow—why, look! It's burying our laughter....

"Why?" said Charlie at my elbow, drinking wine, gazing at the red-green-blue Yule-tree lights and now at the back of my neck. "Why a wish on a night like this? Well, it is the night before Christmas, right? Five minutes from now, Christ is born. Christ and the winter solstice all in one week. This week, this night, proves that Earth won't die. The winter has touched bottom and now starts upward toward the light. That’s special. That's incredible."

"Yes," I murmured, and thought of the old days when cavemen died in their hearts when autumn came and the sun went away and the ape-men cried until the world shifted in its white sleep and the sun rose earlier one fine morning and the universe was saved once more, for a little while. "Yes."

"So—" Charlie read my thoughts and sipped his wine. "Christ always was the promise of spring, wasn't he? In the midst of the longest night of the year, Time shook, Earth shuddered and calved a myth. And what did the myth yell? Happy New Year! God, yes, January first isn't New Year's Day. Christ's birthday is. His breath, sweet as clover, touches our nostrils, promises spring, this very moment before midnight. Take a deep breath, Thomas."

"Shut up!"

"Why? Do you hear voices again?"

Yes! I turned to the window. In sixty seconds, it would be the morn of His birth. What purer, rarer hour was there, I thought wildly, for wishes.

"Tom—" Charlie seized my elbow. But I was gone deep and very wild indeed. Is this a special time? I thought. Do holy ghosts wander on nights of falling snow to do us favors in this strange-held hour? If I make a wish in secret, will that perambulating night, strange sleeps, old blizzards give back my wish tenfold?

I shut my eyes. My throat convulsed.

"Don't," said Charlie.

But it trembled on my lips. I could not wait Now, now, I thought, a strange star burns at Bethlehem.

"Tom," gasped Charlie, "for Christ's sake!"

Christ, yes, I thought, and said:

"My wish is, for one hour tonight—"

"No!" Charlie struck me, once, to shut my mouth.

"—please, make my father alive again."

The mantel clock struck twelve times to midnight.

"Oh, Thomas . . ." Charlie grieved. His hand fell away from my arm. "Oh, Tom."

A gust of snow rattled the window, clung like a shroud, unraveled away.

The front door exploded wide.

Snow sprang over us in a shower.

"What a sad wish. And ... it has just come true."

"True?" I whirled to stare at that open door which beckoned like a tomb.

"Don't go, Tom," said Charlie.

The door slammed. Outside, I ran; oh, God, how I ran.

"Tom, come back!" The voice faded far behind me in the whirling fall of white. "Oh, God, don't!"

But in this minute after midnight I ran and ran, mindless, gibbering, yelling my heart on to beat, blood to move, legs to run and keep running, and I thought: Him! Him! I know where he is! If the gift is mine! If the wish comes true! I know his place! And all about in the night-snowing town the bells of Christmas began to clang and chant and clamor. They circled and paced and drew me on as-I shouted and mouthed snow and knew maniac desire.

Fool! I thought. He's dead! Go back!

But what if he is alive, one hour tonight, and I didn't go to find him?

I was outside town, with no hat or coat, but so warm from running, a salty mask froze my face and flaked away with the jolt of each stride down the middle of an empty road, with the sound of joyous bells blown away and gone.

A wind took me around a final comer of wilderness where a dark wall waited for me.

The cemetery.

I stood by the heavy iron gates, looking numbly in.

The graveyard resembled the scattered ruins of an ancient fort, blown up lifetimes ago, its monuments buried deep in some new Ice Age.

Suddenly, miracles were not possible.

Suddenly the night was just so much wine and talk and dumb enchantments and I running for no reason save I believed, I truly believed, I had felt something happen out here in this snow-dead world.

Now I was so burdened at the blind sight of those untouched graves and printless snow, I would gladly have sunk and died there myself. I could not go back to town to face Charlie. I began to think this was all some brutal humor and awful trick of his, his insane ability to guess someone's terrible need and toy with it. Had he whispered behind my back, made promises, nudged me toward this wish? Christ!

I touched the padlocked gate.

What was here? Only a flat stone with a name and born 1888, died 1957, an inscription that even on summer days was hard to find, for the grass grew thick and the leaves gathered in mounds.

I let go of the iron gate and turned. Then, in an instant, I gasped. An unbelieving shout tore from my throat.

For I had sensed something beyond the wall, near the small boarded-up gatekeeper's lodge^

Was there some faint breathing there? A muted cry?

Or just a hint of warmth on the wind?

I clenched the iron gate and stared beyond.

Yes, there! The faintest track, as if a bird had landed to run along between the buried stones. Another moment, and I would have missed it forever!

I yelled, I ran, I leaped.

I have never, oh, God, in all my life, leaped so high. I cleared the wall and fell down on the other side, a last shout bloodying my mouth. I scrambled around to the far side of the gatehouse.

There in shadows, hidden away from the wind, leaning against a wall, was a man, eyes shut, his hands crossed over his chest.

I stared at him, wildly. I leaned insanely close to peer, to find.

I did not know this man.

He was old, old, very old.

I must have groaned with fresh despair.

For now the old man opened his trembling eyes.

It was his eyes, looking at me, that made me shout:

"Dad!"

I lurched to seize him into dim lamplight and the falling snows of after-midnight.

Charlie's voice, a long way off in the snowy town, echoed, and pleaded: No, don't, go, run. Nightmare. Stop.

The man who stood before me did not know me.

Like a scarecrow held up against the wind, this strange but familiar shape tried to make me out with his white-blind and cobwebbed eyes. Who? he seemed to be thinking.