The Rocket Man

the rocket man

“Doug,” he said, about five in the afternoon, as we were picking up our towels and heading back along the beach near the surf. “I want you to promise me something.

“Don’t ever be a rocket man.”

I stopped.

“I mean it,” he said, “because when you’re out there you want to be here, and when you’re here you want to be out there. Don’t start that. Don’t let it get hold of you.

“You don’t know what it is. Every time I’m out there I think, if I ever get back to Earth I’ll stay there, I’ll never go out again. But I go out and I guess I’ll always go out.”

“I’ve thought about being a Rocket Man for a long time,” I said.

He didn’t hear me. “I try to stay here. Last Saturday when I got home I started trying so damned hard to stay here.”

I remembered him in the garden, sweating, and all the traveling and doing and listening, and I knew that he did this to convince himself that the sea and the towns and the land and his family were the only real things and the good things. But I knew where he would be tonight: looking at the jewelry in Orion from our front porch.

“Promise me you won’t be like me,” he said.

ray bradbury, maclean's magazine, march 1, 1951

Tags

quotes books short story ray bradbury bradbury bradburyworks bradbury aesthetic the rocket man

More Posts from Bradburyworks and Others

bradburyworks

3 years ago

““God how we get our fingers in each other’s clay. That’s friendship, each playing the potter to see what shapes we can make of the other.””

— Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes

54 notes View Post

bradburyworks

11 months ago

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury, Photos Around My Hometown

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury, photos around my hometown

25 notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

"Science fiction is the art of the possible."

—Ray Bradbury, born on this day in 1920

1K notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, 1972

53 notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

30K notes View Post

bradburyworks

2 years ago

Comic Adaptation Of Ray Bradbury's The Fog Horn

comic adaptation of Ray Bradbury's The Fog Horn

Tags

comic ray bradbury the fog horn

50 notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

“That’s the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

29 notes View Post

bradburyworks

3 years ago

The Fog Horn

“That's life for you," said MacDunn. "Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can't hurt you no more.”

— Ray Bradbury

Tags

my art art artwork short story lighthouse ray bradbury bradbury bradburyworks the fog horn

10 notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

*when i say girlie i mean it truly in a non gender specific way, this poll is for everyone!

**obviously everyone gets both headaches and stomach problems on occasion, this is about if you suffer from one or other of them notably more often!

pls reblog to get a bigger sample size!

Tags

Both

12K notes View Post

bradburyworks

1 year ago

“It’s a long way back to sunset, a far way on to dawn, so you summon all the fool things of your life, the stupid lovely things done with people known so very well who are now so very dead...”

Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

Tags