The Pedestrian- Ray Bradbury

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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 2053 A.D., 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.Sometimes he would walk for hours and miles and return only at midnight to his house. 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 tomb-like building was still open.Mr Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look, and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk. 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.On this particular evening he began his journey in a westerly direction, toward the hidden sea. There was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow. 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.'Hello, in there,' he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. 'What's up tonight on Channel 4, Channel 7, Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?'The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mid-country. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the street, for company.'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?'Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? 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. In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time.He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town. 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 turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home. 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.A metallic voice called to him:'Stand still. Stay where you are! Don't move!'He halted.'Put up your hands!''But-' he said.'Your hands up! Or we'll shoot!'The police, of course, but what a rare, incredible thing; in a city of three million, there was only one police car left, wasn't that correct? Ever since a year ago, 2052, the election year, the force had been cut down from three cars to one. Crime was ebbing; there was no need now for the police, save for this one lone car wandering and wandering the empty streets.'Your name?' said the police car in a metallic whisper. He couldn't see the men in it for the bright light in his eyes.'Leonard Mead,' he said.'Speak up!''Leonard Mead!'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.'You might say that,' said Mr Mead.He hadn't written in years. Magazines and books didn't sell anymore. Everything went on in the tomb-like 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 multi-colored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them.'No profession,' said the phonograph voice, hissing. 'What are you doing out?''Walking,' said Leonard Mead.'Walking!''Just walking,' he said simply, but his face felt cold.'Walking, just walking, walking?''Yes, sir.''Walking where? For what?''Walking for air. Walking to see.''Your address!''Eleven South Saint James Street.''And there is air in your house, you have an air conditioner, Mr Mead?'Yes.''And you have a viewing screen in your house to see with?''No.'No?' There was a crackling quiet that in itself was an accusation.'Are you married, Mr Mead?''No.''Not married,' said the police voice behind the fiery beam. The moon was high and dear among the stars and the houses were gray and silent.'Nobody wanted me,' said Leonard Mead with a smile.'Don't speak unless you're spoken to!'Leonard Mead waited in the cold night.'Just walking; Mr Mead?''Yes.'But you haven't explained for what purpose.''I explained; for air, and to see, and just to walk.''Have you done this often?'Every night for years.'The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming.'Well, Mr Mead', it said.''s that all?' he asked politely.'Yes,' said the voice. 'Here.' There was a sigh, a pop. The back doot of the police car sprang wide. 'Get in.''Wait a minute, 1 haven't done anything!''Get in.''I protest!''Mr Mead.'He walked like a man suddenly drunk. As he passed the front window of the car he looked in. As he had expected, there was no one in the front seat, no one in the car at all.'Get in.'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. There was nothing soft there.'Now if you had a wife to give you an alibi,' said the iron voice. 'But-'Uhere are you taking me?'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.'He got in. 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.'That's my house,' said Leonard Mead.No one answered him.The car moved down the empty riverbed streets and off away, leaving the empty streets with the empty sidewalks, and no sound and no motion all the rest of the chill November night.

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Short Story Inventory

Story title:

Authors name:

Authors Bio/Relevant Background:

state any details you discover PRIOR to or DURING reading that impact how you understand or interpret the story

Action before the story starts:

what action occurs before the first moment of the narrative (infer this- what events matter that you are not shown)

Plot summary:

briefly describe the different aspects of plot using appropriate literary language

exposition:

inciting incident:

rising action:

climax:

falling action:

denouement:

Setting details:

remember that there are four aspects of setting- comment on all four, and what impact they have together on the tone, plot and characters in the story

geography:

era:

landmarks:

ideas/issues:

Characters (add additional rows if necessary):

Name

Description (appearance, key characteristics)

How they change throughout the story

Conflict:

remember that conflict- the problem that drives plot in story- can be major or minor, and there are a number of different types. Be specific- use appropriate literary vocabulary!

Resolution of the story:

how/where does the central conflict of the story work out, especially in relation to the end of the story?

Narrative Point of View:

Identify the speaker of the story (the who that tells you the story) and use literary vocabulary to describe the perspective technique they use to do so

Theme:

What opinion or statement does the author make about a topic or idea? To whom is this statement directed (audience)? This should fit in two sentences or less- no one word answers!

Identities- W. D. Valgardson

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Normally, he goes clean-shaven into the world, but the promise of a Saturday liquid with sunshine draws him first from his study to the backyard, from there to

his front lawn. The smell of burning leaves stirs the memories of childhood car rides, narrow lanes adrift with yellow leaves, girls on plodding horses, unattended stands piled high with pumpkins, onions, or beets so that each one was, in its own way, a still life. Always, there were salmon tins glinting with silver, set above hand-painted signs instructing purchasers to deposit twenty-five or fifty cents. This act of faith containing all

the stories he has read in childhood about the North cabins left unlocked, filled with supplies for hapless wayfarers wakes in him a desire to temporarily abandon the twice-cut yards and hundred-year-old oaks.

He does not hurry for he has no destination. He meanders, instead, through the neat suburban labyrinth of cul-de-sacs, bays and circles, losing and finding

himself endlessly. Becoming lost is made all the easier because the houses repeat themselves with superficial variations. There grows within him, however, a vague unease with symmetry, with nothing left to chance, no ragged edges, no unkempt vacant lots, no houses rendered unique by necessity and indifference.

The houses all face the sun. They have no artificial divisions. There is room enough for everyone. Now, as he passes grey stone gates, the yards are all proscribed by stiff picket fences and, quickly, a certain untidiness creeps in: a fragment of glass, a chocolate bar wrapper, a plastic horse, cracked sidewalks with ridges of stiff grass.

Although he has on blue jeans matching pants and jacket made in Paris he is driving a grey Mercedes Benz. Gangs of young men follow the car with their

unblinking eyes. The young men stand and lean in tired, watchful knots close to phone booths and seedy-looking grocery stores.

Their slick hair glistens. Their leather jackets gleam with studs. Eagles, tigers, wolves and serpents ride their backs.

He passes a ten-foot wire fence enclosing a playground bare of equipment and pounded flat. The gate is double locked, the fence cut and rolled into a

cone. Three boys throw stones at pigeons. Paper clogs the fence like drifted snow. The school is covered with heavy screens. Its yellow brick is pock-marked, chipped.

The houses are squat, as though they have been taller and have, slowly, sunk into the ground. Each has a band of dirt around the bottom. The blue glow of television sets lights the windows. On the front steps of a red-roofed house, a man sits. He wears black pants, a tartan vest, a brown snap-rimmed hat. Beside

him is a suitcase.

Fences here are little more than fragments. Cars jam the narrow streets and he worries that he might strike the unkempt children who dart back and forth like startled fish. Street lights come on. He takes them as a signal to return the way he came, but it has been a reckless, haphazard path. Retracing it is impossible. He is overtaken by sudden guilt. He has left no message for his wife.

There have been no trees or drifting leaves, no stands covered in produce, no salmon tins, but time has run away with him. His wife, he realizes, will have returned from bridge, his children gathered for supper. He also knows that, at first, they have explained his absence on a neighbours hospitality and gin. However, by the time he can return, annoyance will have blossomed into alarm. His safe return will, he knows from childhood and years of being locked in domestic grief, degenerate to recriminations and apology

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Faced with this, he decides to call the next time he sees a store or phone booth. So intent is he upon the future that he dangerously ignores the present and does not notice the police car, concealed in the shadows of a side street, nose out and follow him.

Ahead, there is a small store with windows covered in hand painted signs and vertical metal bars. On the edge of the light, three young men and a girl

slouch. One of them has a beard and, in spite of the advancing darkness, wears sunglasses. He has on a fringed leather vest. His companions wear leather

jackets. Their peaked caps make their heads seem flat, their foreheads nonexistent. The girl is better looking than she should be for such companions. She is long legged and wears a white turtle-necked sweater that accentuates her breasts.

In spite of his car, he hopes his day old beard which he strokes upward with the heel of his hand, will, when combined with his clothes, provide immunity. He slips his wallet into his shirt pocket, does up the metal buttons on his jacket and slips a ten dollar bill into his back pocket. Recalling a television show, he decides that if he is accosted, he will say that the ten is all hes got,

that he stole the car, and ask them if they know a buyer.

He eases out of the car, edges nervously along the fender and past the grille. The store window illuminates the sidewalk like a stage. Beyond the light,

everything is obscured by darkness. He is so intent upon the three men and the girl that he does not notice the police car drift against the curb, nor the officer who is advancing with a pistol in his hand.

When the officer, who is inexperienced, who is nervous because of the neighbour-hood, who is suspicious because of the car and because he has been

trained to see an unshaven man in blue jeans as a potential thief and not as a probable owner, orders him to halt, he is surprised. When he turns part way

around and recognizes the uniform, he does not feel fear but relief. Instinctively relaxing, certain of his safety, in the last voluntary movement of his life, he

reaches his hand not in the air as he was ordered to, but toward his wallet for his identity.

Short Story Inventory

Story title:

Authors name:

Authors Bio/Relevant Background:

state any details you discover PRIOR to or DURING reading that impact how you understand or interpret the story

Action before the story starts:

what action occurs before the first moment of the narrative (infer this- what events matter that you are not shown)

Plot summary:

briefly describe the different aspects of plot using appropriate literary language

exposition:

inciting incident:

rising action:

climax:

falling action:

denouement:

Setting details:

remember that there are four aspects of setting- comment on all four, and what impact they have together on the tone, plot and characters in the story

geography:

era:

landmarks:

ideas/issues:

Characters (add additional rows if necessary):

Name

Description (appearance, key characteristics)

How they change throughout the story

Conflict:

remember that conflict- the problem that drives plot in story- can be major or minor, and there are a number of different types. Be specific- use appropriate literary vocabulary!

Resolution of the story:

how/where does the central conflict of the story work out, especially in relation to the end of the story?

Narrative Point of View:

Identify the speaker of the story (the who that tells you the story) and use literary vocabulary to describe the perspective technique they use to do so

Theme:

What opinion or statement does the author make about a topic or idea? To whom is this statement directed (audience)? This should fit in two sentences or less- no one word answers!

The Pedestrian :