Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1

Up. Down. Up, down, and across. Back and up and down and across. Cutting. Up. Down.

Up.

Think about the old man and the wheat in his hands when he died.

Down.

Think about this dead land, with wheat living on it.

Up.

Think about the crazy patterns of ripe and green wheat, the way it grows!

Down.

Think about …

The wheat whirled in a full yellow tide at his ankles. The sky blackened. Drew Erickson dropped the scythe and bent over to hold his stomach, his eyes running blindly. The world reeled.

‘I’ve killed somebody!’ he gasped, choking, holding to his chest, falling to his knees beside the blade. ‘I’ve killed a lot—’

The sky revolved like a blue merry-go-round at the county fair in Kansas. But no music. Only a ringing in his ears.

Molly was sitting at the blue kitchen table peeling potatoes when he blundered into the kitchen, dragging the scythe behind him.

‘Molly!’

She swam around in the wet of his eyes.

She sat there, her hands fallen open, waiting for him to finally get it out.

‘Get the things packed!’ he said, looking at the floor.

‘Why?’

‘We’re leavin’,’ he said, dully.

‘We’re leavin’?’ she said.

‘That old man. You know what he did here? It’s the wheat, Molly, and this scythe, Every time you use the scythe on the wheat a thousand people die. You cut across them and—’

Molly got up and put the knife down and the potatoes to one side and said, understandingly, ‘We traveled a lot and haven’t eaten good until the last month here, and you been workin’ every day and you’re tired—’

‘I hear voices, sad voices, out there. In the wheat,’ he said. ‘Tellin’ me to stop. Tellin’ me not to kill them!’

‘Drew!’

He didn’t hear her. ‘The field grows crooked, wild, like a crazy thing. I didn’t tell you. But it’s wrong.’

She stared at him. His eyes were blue glass, nothing else.

‘You think I’m crazy,’ he said, ‘but wait ’til I tell you. Oh, God, Molly, help me; I just killed my mother!’

‘Stop it!’ she said firmly.

‘I cut down one stalk of wheat and I killed her. I felt her dyin’, that’s how I found out just now—’

‘Drew!’ Her voice was like a crack across the face, angry and afraid now. ‘Shut up!’

He mumbled. ‘Oh – Molly—’

The scythe dropped from his hands, clamored on the floor. She picked it up with a snap of anger and set it in one corner. ‘Ten years I been with you,’ she said. ‘Sometimes we had nothin’ but dust and prayers in our mouths. Now, all this good luck sudden, and you can’t bear up under it!’

She brought the Bible from the living room.

She rustled its pages over. They sounded like the wheat rustling in a small, slow wind. ‘You sit down and listen,’ she said.

A sound came in from the sunshine. The kids, laughing in the shade of the large live oak beside the house.

She read from the Bible, looking up now and again to see what was happening to Drew’s face.

She read from the Bible each day after that. The following Wednesday, a week later, when Drew walked down to the distant town to see if there was any General Delivery mail, there was a letter.

He came home looking two hundred years old.

He held the letter out to Molly and told her what it said in a cold, uneven voice.

‘Mother passed away – one o’clock Tuesday afternoon – her heart—’

All that Drew Erickson had to say was. ‘Get the kids in the car, load it up with food. We’re goin’ on to California.’

‘Drew—’ said his wife, holding the letter.

‘You know yourself,’ he said, ‘this is poor grain land. Yet look how ripe it grows. I ain’t told you all the things. It ripens in patches, a little each day. It ain’t right. And when I cut it, it rots! And next mornin’ it comes up without any help, growin’ again! Last Tuesday, a week ago, when I cut the grain it was like rippin’ my own flesh. I heard somebody scream. It sounded just like – And now, today, this letter.’

She said, ‘We’re stayin’ here.’

‘Molly.’

‘We’re stayin’ here, where we’re sure of eatin’ and sleepin’ and livin’ decent and livin’ long. I’m not starvin’ my children down again, ever!’

The sky was blue through the windows. The sun slanted in, touching half of Molly’s calm face, shining one eye bright blue. Four or five water drops hung and fell from the kitchen faucet slowly, shining, before Drew sighed. The sigh was husky and resigned and tired. He nodded, looking away. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘We’ll stay.’

He picked up the scythe weakly. The words on the metal leaped up with a sharp glitter.

WHO WIELDS ME – WIELDS THE WORLD!

‘We’ll stay …’