Ray Bradbury Fullscreen The Martian Chronicles (1950)

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And if you wondered what Time sounded like it sounded like water running in a dark cave and voices crying and dirt dropping down upon hollow box lids, and rain.

And, going further, what did Time look like?

Time looked like snow dropping silently into a black room or it looked like a silent film in an ancient theater, one hundred billion faces falling like those New Year balloons, down and down into nothing.

That was how Time smelled and looked and sounded.

And tonight — Tomas shoved a hand into the wind outside the truck — tonight you could almost touch Time.

He drove the truck between hills of Time.

His neck prickled and he sat up, watching ahead.

He pulled into a little dead Martian town, stopped the engine, and let the silence come in around him.

He sat, not breathing, looking out at the white buildings in the moonlight. Uninhabited for centuries.

Perfect, faultless, in ruins, yes, but perfect, nevertheless.

He started the engine and drove on another mile or more before stopping again, climbing out, carrying his lunch bucket, and walking to a little promontory where he could look back at that dusty city.

He opened his thermos and poured himself a cup of coffee.

A night bird flew by.

He felt very good, very much at peace.

Perhaps five minutes later there was a sound.

Off in the hills, where the ancient highway curved, there was a motion, a dim light, and then a murmur.

Tomas turned slowly with the coffee cup in his hand.

And out of the hills came a strange thing.

It was a machine like a jade-green insect, a praying mantis, delicately rushing through the cold air, indistinct, countless green diamonds winking over its body, and red jewels that glittered with multifaceted eyes.

Its six legs fell upon the ancient highway with the sounds of a sparse rain which dwindled away, and from the back of the machine a Martian with melted gold for eyes looked down at Tomas as if he were looking into a well.

Tomas raised his hand and thought Hello! automatically but did not move his lips, for this was a Martian.

But Tomas had swum in blue rivers on Earth, with strangers passing on the road, and eaten in strange houses with strange people, and his weapon had always been his smile.

He did not carry a gun.

And he did not feel the need of one now, even with the little fear that gathered about his heart at this moment

The Martian’s hands were empty too.

For a moment they looked across the cool air at each other.

It was Tomis who moved first.

“Hello!” he called.

“Hello!” called the Martian in his own language.

They did not understand each other.

“Did you say hello?” they both asked.

“What did you say?” they said, each in a different tongue.

They scowled.

“Who are you?” said Tomas in English.

“What are you doing here?” In Martian; the stranger’s lips moved.

“Where are you going?” they said, and looked bewildered.

“I’m Tomas Gomez.”

“I’m Muhe Ca.”

Neither understood, but they tapped their chests with the words and then it became clear.

And then the Martian laughed.

“Wait!”

Tomas felt his head touched, but no hand had touched him.

“There!” said the Martian in English.

“That is better!”

“You learned my language, so quick!”

“Nothing at all!”

They looked, embarrassed with a new silence, at the steaming coffee he had in one hand.

“Something different?” said the Martian, eying him and the coffee, referring to them both, perhaps.

“May I offer you a drink?” said Tomas.

“Please.”