The Small Assassin, Ray Bradbury

In 1987, the first manned spaceship, under the command of the US Navy, landed on Mars. To their surprise they found homes from various periods in Earth history and what appeared to be the crew’s relatives that have passed on. ("Mars is Heaven", X-Minus One, radio)

"My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing them down — everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off."

Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (22nd August 1920-2012)

June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past.

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

October Country

...that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noon go quickly, ducks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain...

Ray Bradbury

From our stacks: Illustration for "A Sound of Thunder," from The Golden Apples of the Sun. Ray Bradbury. With Drawings by Joe Mugnaini. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1972.

It was a quiet morning, the town covered over with darkness and at ease in bed. Summer gathered in the weather, the wind had the proper touch, the breathing of the world was long and warm and slow. You had only to rise, lean from your window, and know that this indeed was the first real time of freedom and living, this was the first morning of summer.

— Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine (William Morrow Paperbacks; April 23, 2013) (via Cultural Offering)

October Country by Ray Bradbury Cover by Joe Mugnaini

There was a smell of Time in the air tonight. He smiled and turned the fancy in his mind. There was a thought. What did time smell like? Like dust and clocks and people. And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain. And, going further, what did Time look like? Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, 100 billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing. That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded. And tonight - Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck - tonight you could almost taste time.

Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles