Read Online A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury - Free Book Online Page A

billion people on this world tonight have beds. Why, I ask the saints, not us?”
    â€œThis,” said Antonio gently, “is a bed.” He plucked a little tune on the imitation brass harp behind his head. To his ears it was “Santa Lucia.”
    â€œThis bed has humps like a herd of camels was under it.”
    â€œNow, Mama,” Antonio said. He called her Mama when she was mad, though they had no children. “You were never this way,” he went on, “until five months ago when Mrs. Brancozzi downstairs bought her new bed.”
    Maria said wistfully, “Mrs. Brancozzi’s bed. It’s like snow. It’s all flat and white and smooth.”
    â€œI don’t want any damn snow, all flat and white and smooth!These springs—feel them!” he cried angrily. “They know me. They recognize that this hour of night I lie thus , at two o’clock, so! Three o’clock this way, four o’clock that . We are like a tumbling act, we’ve worked together for years and know all the holds and falls.”
    Maria sighed, and said, “Sometimes I dream we’re in the taffy machine at Bartole’s candy store.”
    â€œThis bed,” he announced to the darkness, “served our family before Garibaldi! From this wellspring alone came precincts of honest voters, a squad of clean-saluting Army men, two confectioners, a barber, four second leads for Il Trovatore and Rigoletto , and two geniuses so complex they never could decide what to do in their lifetime! Not to forget enough beautiful women to provide ballrooms with their finest decoration. A cornucopia of plenty, this bed! A veritable harvesting machine!”
    â€œWe have been married two years,” she said with dreadful control over her voice. “Where are our second leads for Rigoletto , our geniuses, our ballroom decorations?”
    â€œPatience, Mama.”
    â€œDon’t call me Mama! While this bed is busy favoring you all night, never once has it done for me. Not even so much as a baby girl! ”
    He sat up. “You’ve let these women in this tenement ruin you with their dollar-down, dollar-a-week talk. Has Mrs. Brancozzi children? Her and her new bed that she’s had for five months?”
    â€œNo! But soon! Mrs. Brancozzi says … and her bed, so beautiful.”
    He slammed himself down and yanked the covers over him. The bed screamed like all the Furies rushing through the night sky, fading away toward the dawn.
    The moon changed the shape of the window pattern on the floor. Antonio awoke. Maria was not beside him.
    He got up and went to peer through the half-open door of the bathroom. His wife stood at the mirror looking at her tired face.
    â€œI don’t feel well,” she said.
    â€œWe argued.” He put out his hand to pat her. “I’m sorry. We’ll think it over. About the bed, I mean. We’ll see how the money goes. And if you’re not well tomorrow, see the doctor, eh? Now, come back to bed.”
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    At noon the next day, Antonio walked from the lumberyard to a window where stood fine new beds with their covers invitingly turned back.
    â€œI,” he whispered to himself, “am a beast.”
    He checked his watch. Maria, at this time, would be going to the doctor’s. She had been like cold milk this morning; he had told her to go. He walked on to the candy-store window and watched the taffy machine folding and threading and pulling. Does taffy scream? he wondered. Perhaps, but so high we cannot hear it. He laughed. Then, in the stretched taffy, he saw Maria. Frowning, he turned and walked back to the furniture store. No. Yes. No. Yes! He pressed his nose to the icy window. Bed, he thought, you in there, new bed, do you know me? Will you be kind to my back, nights?”
    He took out his wallet slowly, and peered at the money. He sighed, gazed for a long time at that flat marbletop, that unfamiliar enemy, that new bed. Then,