Beyond this room he felt the primed rocket glide on the desert field, its fire wings folded, its fire breath kept, held ready to speak for three billion men. In a moment he would wake and walk slowly out to that rocket.
And stand on the rim of the cliff.
Stand cool in the shadow of the warm balloon.
Stand whipped by tidal sands drummed over Kitty Hawk.
And sheathe his boy’s wrists, arms, hands, fingers with golden wings in golden wax.
And touch for a final time the captured breath of man, the warm gasp of awe and wonder siphoned and sewn to lift their dreams.
And spark the gasoline engine.
And take his father’s hand and wish him well with his own wings, flexed and ready, here on the precipice.
Then whirl and jump.
Then cut the cords to free the great balloon.
Then rev the motor, prop the plane on air.
And crack the switch, to fire the rocket fuse.
And together in a single leap, swim, rush, flail, jump, sail, and glide, upturned to sun, moon, stars, they would go above Atlantic, Mediterranean; over country, wilderness, city, town; in gaseous silence, riffling feather, rattle-drum frame, in volcanic eruption, in timid, sputtering roar; in start, jar, hesitation, then steady ascension, beautifully held, wondrously transported, they would laugh and cry each his own name to himself. Or shout the names of others unborn or others long dead and blown away by the wine wind or the salt wind or the silent hush of balloon wind or the wind of chemical fire. Each feeling the bright feathers stir and bud deep-buried and thrusting to burst from their riven shoulder blades! Each leaving behind the echo of their flying, a sound to encircle, recircle the earth in the winds and speak again in other years to the sons of the sons of their sons, asleep but hearing the restless midnight sky.
Up, yet farther up, higher, higher! A spring tide, a summer flood, an unending river of wings!
A bell rang softly.
No, he whispered, I’ll wake in a moment. Wait …
The Aegean slid away below the window, gone; the Atlantic dunes, the French countryside, dissolved down to New Mexico desert. In his room near his cot stirred no plumes in golden wax. Outside, no wind-sculpted pear, no trapdrum butterfly machine. Outside only a rocket, a combustible dream, waiting for the friction of his hand to set it off.
In the last moment of sleep someone asked his name.
Quietly, he gave the answer as he had heard it during the hours from midnight on.
“Icarus Montgolfier Wright.”
He repeated it slowly so the questioner might remember the order and spelling down to the last incredible letter.
“Icarus Montgolfier Wright.
“Born: nine hundred years before Christ. Grammar school: Paris, 1783, High school, college: Kitty Hawk, 1903. Graduation from Earth to Moon: this day, God willing, August 1, 1971. Death and burial, with luck, on Mars, summer 1999 in the Year of Our Lord.”
Then he let himself drift awake.
Moments later, crossing the desert Tarmac, he heard someone shouting again and again and again.
And if no one was there or if someone was there behind him, he could not tell. And whether it was one voice or many, young or old, near or very far away, rising or falling, whispering or shouting to him all three of his brave new names, he could not tell, either. He did not turn to see.
For the wind was slowly rising and he let it take hold and blow him all the rest of the way across the desert to the rocket which stood waiting there.
Acknowledgments
“In a Season of Calm Weather” and “The First Night of Lent” originally published in PLAYBOY. Copyright © 1956 by HMH Publishing Co., Inc.
“A Medicine for Melancholy” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Wonderful Ice-Cream Suit” originally published in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST as “The Magic White Suit.” Copyright © 1958 by The Curtis Publishing Company.
“Fever Dream” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Marriage Mender” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Town Where No One Got Off” originally published in ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE. Copyright © 1958 by Davis Publications, Inc.
“A Scent of Sarsaparilla” originally published in Star Science Fiction Stories #1, published by Ballantine Books, Inc.
“The Headpiece” originally published in LILLIPUT, London.
“The Time of Going Away” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“All Summer in a Day” and “Icarus Montgolfier Wright” originally published in FANTASY & SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE.
“Icarus Montgolfier Wright” copyright © 1956 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Gift” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Great Collision of Monday Last” originally published in ARGOSY, London, as “Collision of Monday.”
“The Little Mice” originally published in ESCAPADE as “The Mice.”
“The Shore Line at Sunset” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Day It Rained Forever” copyright © 1959 by Ray Bradbury.
“Chrysalis” originally published in AMAZING STORIES. Copyright 1946 by Ziff-Davis Publishing Company.
“Pillar of Fire” copyright 1948 by Love Romances Publishing Company, Inc.
“Zero Hour” copyright 1947 by Love Romances Publishing Company, Inc.
“The Man” originally published in THRILLING WONDER STORIES. Copyright 1948 by Standard Magazines, Inc.
“Time in Thy Flight” copyright 1953 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Pedestrian” copyright 1951 by Ray Bradbury.
“Hail and Farewell” copyright 1953 by Ray Bradbury.
“Invisible Boy” originally published in MADEMOISELLE. Copyright 1945 by Ray Bradbury.
“Come into My Cellar” copyright © 1962 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Million-Year Picnic” copyright 1946 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Screaming Woman” copyright 1951 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Smile” originally published in FANTASTIC MAGAZINE. Copyright 1952 by Ray Bradbury.
“Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed” originally published in THRILLING WONDER STORIES as “The Naming of Names.” Copyright 1949 by Ray Bradbury; copyright © renewed 1976 by Ray Bradbury.
“The Trolley” originally published in GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. Copyright © 1955 by The Hearst Corporation.
About the Author
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5, 2011, at the age of 91, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston’s classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy Award for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.
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Other Books by Ray Bradbury
DANDELION WINE
DARK CARNIVAL
DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS
DRIVING BLIND
FAHRENHEIT 451
THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN
A GRAVEYARD FOR LUNATICS
GREEN SHADOWS, WHITE WHALE
THE HALLOWEEN TREE
I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC!
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN
JOURNEY TO FAR METAPHOR
KALEIDOSCOPE
LONG AFTER MIDNIGHT
TH
E MARTIAN CHRONICLES
THE MACHINERIES OF JOY
THE OCTOBER COUNTRY
ONE TIMELESS SPRING
QUICKER THAN THE EYE
R IS FOR ROCKET
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES
THE STORIES OF RAY BRADBURY
S IS FOR SPACE
THE TOYNBEE CONVECTOR
WHEN ELEPHANTS LAST IN THE DOORYARD BLOOMED
YESTERMORROW
ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING
Copyright
Copyright notices for individual stories appear Acknowledgments, which constitute an extension of this copyright page.
A Medicine for Melancholy published by Bantam 1960.
S Is for Space published by Bantam 1970.
A MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY AND OTHER STORIES. Copyright © 1990 by Ray Bradbury. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Avon Books edition published 1998.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 97-94680
ISBN: 0-380-73086-3
EPub Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780062242105
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Ray Bradbury, A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories
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