Selected Short Stories of Ray Bradbury: The Pedestrian

To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o'clock of a misty evening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to step over grassy seams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences, that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly loved to do.

He would stand upon the corner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of sidewalk in four directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; he was alone in this world of A.D. 2053, or as good as alone, and with a final decision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frosty air before him like the smoke of a cigar.

And on his way he would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.

Sudden gray phantoms seemed to manifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against the night, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomblike building was still open.

For long ago he had wisely changed to sneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads would parallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights might click on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of a lone figure, himself, in the early November evening.

He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.

"What is it now?" he asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch. "Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?"

He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened.

He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of sidewalk.

The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass.

During the day it was a thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarab-beetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions.

But now these highways, too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.

He was within a block of his destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him.

He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it.

"Stand still. Stay where you are! Don't move!"
He halted.

Crime was ebbing

there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.

"Business or profession?"
"I guess you'd call me a writer."
"No profession," said the police car, as if talking to itself.

The light held him fixed, like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest.

Magazines and books didn't sell any more. Everything went on in the tomblike houses at night now, he thought, continuing his fancy.

The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.

"No profession," said the phonograph voice, hissing. "What are you doing out?"

There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.

"Not married," said the police voice behind the fiery beam.

"Just walking, Mr. Mead?"
"Yes."
"But you haven't explained for what purpose."
"I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk."

He put his hand to the door and peered into the back seat, which was a little cell, a little black jail with bars.

It smelled of riveted steel.

It smelled of harsh antiseptic; it smelled too clean and hard and metallic.

"Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi," said the iron voice.

The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes.

"To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies."

The door shut with a soft thud.

The police car rolled through the night avenues, flashing its dim lights ahead.

They passed one house on one street a moment later, one house in an entire city of houses that were dark, but this one particular house had all of its electric lights brightly lit, every window a loud yellow illumination, square and warm in the cool darkness.

The car moved down the empty river-bed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty side-walks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.