Read Online Bradbury, Ray - SSC 13 by S is for Space (v2.1) - Free Book Online Page B

           The
rest of the night he walked far enough off the highway so that if a beetle
rushed by he had time to vanish in the underbrush. At dawn he crept into an
empty dry water drain and closed his eyes.
                 The dream was as perfect as a rimed
snowflake.
                 He saw the graveyard where he had lain deep
and ripe over the centuries. He heard the early morning footsteps of the
laborers returning to finish their work.
                 “Would you mind passing me the shovel, Jim?”
                 “Here you go.”
                 “Wait a minute, wait a minute!”
                 “What’s up?”
                 “Look here. We didn’t finish last night, did
we?”
                 “No.”
                 There was one more coffin, wasn’t there?”
                 “Yes.”
                 “Well, here it is, and open!”
                 “You’ve got the wrong hole.”
                 “What’s the name say on the gravestone?”
                 “Lantry. William Lantry.”
                 “That’s him, that’s the one! Gone!”
                 “What could have happened to it?”
                 “How do I know. The body was here last
night.”
                 “We can’t be sure, we didn’t look.”
                 “God man, people don’t bury empty coffins.
He was in his box. Now he isn’t.”
                 “Maybe this box was empty.”
                 “Nonsense. Smell that smell? He was here all
right.”
                 A pause.
                 “Nobody would have taken the body, would
they?”
                 “What for?”
                 “A curiosity, perhaps.”
                 “Don’t be ridiculous. People just don’t
steal. Nobody steals.”
                 “Well, then, there’s only one solution.”
                 “And?”
                 “He got up and walked away.”
                 A pause. In the dark dream, Lantry expected
to hear laughter. There was none. Instead, the voice of the grave-digger, after
a thoughtful pause, said, “Yes. That’s it, indeed. He got up and walked away.”
                 “That’s interesting to think about,” said
the other .
                 “Isn’t it, though!”
                 Silence.
                 Lantry
awoke. It had all been a dream, but, how realistic. How strangely the two men
had carried on. But not unnaturally, oh, no. That was exactly how you expected
men of the future to talk. Men of the future. Lantry grinned wryly. That was an
anachronism for you. This was the
future. This was happening now . It
wasn’t three hundred years from now, it was now, not then, or any other time.
This wasn’t the twentieth century. Oh, how calmly those two men in the dream
had said, “He got up and walked away.” “—interesting to think about.” “ Isn’t it, though?” With never a quaver
in their voices. With not so much as a glance over their shoulders or a tremble
of spade in hand. But, of course, with their perfectly honest, logical minds,
there was but one explanation; certainly nobody had stolen the corpse. “ Nobody steals.” The corpse had simply got up and walked off. The corpse was the only
one who could have possibly moved the
corpse. By the few casual slow words of the gravediggers Lantry knew what they
were thinking. Here was a man that had lain in suspended animation, not really
dead, for hundreds of years. The jarring about, the activity, had brought him
back.
                 Everyone
had heard of those little green toads that are sealed for centuries inside mud
rocks or in ice patties, alive, alive oh! And how when scientists chipped them
out and warmed them