THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Ray Bradbury
He stopped the lawn mower in the middie of the yard, because he felt that the sun at just that moment had gone down and the stars come out. The fresh-cut grass that had showered his face and body died soft!y away. Yes, the stars were there, faint at first, but brightening in the clear desert sky. He heard the porch screen door tap shut and felt his wife watching him as he watched the night.
"Almost time," she said.He nodded; he did not have to check his watch. In the passing moments he felt very old, then very young, very cold, then very warm, now this, now that. Suddenly he was miles away. He was his own son talking steadily, moving briskly to cover his pounding heart and the resurgent panics as he felt himself slip into fresh uniform, check food supplies, oxygen flasks, pressure helmet, space-suiting, and turn as every man on earth tonight turned, to gaze at the swiftly filling sky.Then, quickly, he was back, once more the father of the son, hands gripped to the lawn-mower handle. His wife called, "Come sit on the porch.""I've got to keep busy!"
She came down the steps and across the lawn. "Don't worry about Robert; he'll be all right."
"But it's all so new," he heard himself say. "It's never been done before. Think of it - a manned rocket going up tonight to build the first space station. Good lord, it can't be done, it doesn't exist, there's no rocket, no proving ground, no take-off time, no technicians. For that matter, I don't even have a son named Bob. The whole thing's too much for me!""Then what are you doing out here, staring?"He shook his head. "Well, late this morning, walking to the office, I heard someone laugh out loud. It shocked me, so I froze in the middle of the street. It was me, laughing! Why? Because finally I really knew what Bob was going to do tonight; at last I believed it. Holy is a word I never use, but that's how I felt stranded in all that traffic. Then, middle of the afternoon I caught myself humming. You know the song. 'A wheel in a wheel. Way in the middle of the air.' I laughed again. The space station, of course, I thought. The big wheel with hollow spokes where Bob'll live six or eight months, then get along to the moon. Walking home, I remembered more of the song. 'Little wheel run by faith, Big wheel run by the grace of God.' I wanted to jump, yell, and flame-out myself!"His wife touched his arm. "If we stay out here, let's at least be comfortable."
They placed two wicker rockers in the center of the lawn and sat quietly as the stars dissolved out of darkness in pale crushings of rock salt strewn from horizon to horizon.
"Why," said his wife, at last, "it's like waiting for the fireworks at Sisley Field every year."
"Bigger crowd tonight . . ."
"I keep thinking - a billion people watching the sky right now, their mouths all open at the same time."
They waited, feeling the earth move under their chairs.
"What time is it now?"
"Eleven minutes to eight."
"You're always right; there must be a clock in your head."
"I can't be wrong tonight. I'll be able to tell you one second before they blast off. Look! The ten-minute warning!"
On the western sky they saw four crimson flares open out, float shimmering down the wind above the desert, then sink silently to the extinguishing earth.In the new darkness the husband and wife did not rock in their chairs.After a while he said, "Eight minutes." A pause. "Seven minutes." What seemed a much longer pause. "Six . . ."
His wife, her head back, studied the stars immediately above her and murmured, "Why?" She closed her eyes. "Why the rockets, why tonight? Why all this? I'd like to know."
He examined her face, pale in the vast powdering light of the Milky Way. He felt the stirring of an answer, but let his wife continue.
"I mean it's not that old thing again, is it, when people asked why men climbed Mt. Everest and they said, 'Because it's there'? I never understood. That was no answer to me."
Five minutes, he thought. Time ticking . . . his wrist watch . . . a wheel in a wheel . . . little wheel run by . . . big wheel run by . . . way in the middle of . . . four minutes! . . . The men snug in the rocket by now, the hive, the control board flickering with light.His lips moved.
"All I know is it's really the end of the beginning. The Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age; from now on we'll lump all those together under one big name for when we walked on Earth and heard the birds at morning and cried with envy. Maybe we'll call it the Earth Age, or maybe the Age of Gravity. Millions of years we fought gravity. When we were amoebas and fish we struggled to get out of the sea without gravity crushing us. Once safe on the shore we fought to stand upright without gravity breaking our new invention, the spine, tried to walk without stumbling, run without falling. A billion years Gravity kept us home, mocked us with wind and clouds, cabbage moths and locusts. That's what's so god-awful big about tonight . . . it's the end of old man Gravity and the age we'll remember him by, for once and all. I don't know where they'll divide the ages, at the Persians, who dreamt of flying carpets, or the Chinese, who all unknowing celebrated birthdays and New Years with strung ladyfingers and high skyrockets, or some minute, some incredible second the next hour. But we're in at the end of a billion years trying, the end of something long and to us humans, anyway, honorable."Three minutes . . . two minutes fifty-nine seconds . . . two minutes fifty-eight seconds . . .
"But," said his wife, "I still don't know why."
Two minutes, he thought. Ready? Ready? Ready? The far radio voice calling. Ready! Ready! Ready! The quick, faint replies from the humming rocket. Check! Check! Check!
Tonight, he thought, even if we fail with this first, we'll send a second and a third ship and move on out to all the planets and later, all the stars. We'll just keep going until the big words like immortal and forever take on meaning. Big words, yes, that's what we want. Continuity. Since our tongues first moved in our mouths we've asked, What does it all mean? No other question made sense, with death breathing down our necks. But just let us settle in on ten thousand worlds spinning around ten thousand alien suns and the question will fade away. Man will be endless and infinite, even as space is endless and infinite. Man will go on, as space goes on, forever. Individuals will die as always, but our history will reach as far as we'll ever need to see into the future, and with the knowledge of our survival for all time to come, we'll know security and thus the answer we've always searched for. Gifted with life, the least we can do is preserve and pass on the gift to infinity. That's a goal worth shooting for.The wicker chairs whispered ever so softly on the grass.
One minute.
"One minute," he said aloud.
"Oh!" His wife moved suddenly to seize his hands. "I hope that Bob . . ."
"He'll be all right!"
"Oh, God, take care . . ."
Thirty seconds.
"Watch now."
Fifteen, ten, five . . .
"Watch!"
Four, three, two, one.
"There! There! Oh, there, there!"
They both cried out. They both stood. The chairs toppled back, fell flat on the lawn. The man and his wife swayed, their hands struggled to find each other, grip, hold. They saw the brightening color in the sky and, ten seconds later, the great uprising comet burn the air, put out the stars, and rush away in fire flight to become another star in the returning profusion of the Milky Way. The man and wife held each other as if they had stumbled on the rim of an incredible cliff that faced an abyss so deep and dark there seemed no end to it. Staring up, they heard themselves sobbing and crying. Only after a long time were they able to speak.
"It got away, it did, didn't it?"
"Yes . . ."
"It's all right, isn't it?""Yes . . . yes . . .""It didn't fall back . . .?""No, no, it's all right, Bob's all right, it's all right."They stood away from each other at last.He touched his face with his hand and looked at his wet fingers. "I'll be damned," he said, "I'll be damned."
They waited another five and then ten minutes until the darkness in their heads, the retina, ached with a million specks of fiery salt. Then they had to close their eyes.
"Well," she said, "now let's go in."
He could not move. Only his hand reached a long way out by itself to find the lawn-mower handle. He saw what his hand had done and said, "There's just a little more to do . . ."
"But you can't see."
"Well enough," he said. "I must finish this. Then we'll sit on the porch awhile before we turn in."
He helped her put the chairs on the porch and sat her down and then walked back out to put his hands on the guide bar of the lawn mower. The lawn mower. A wheel in a wheel. A simple machine which you held in your bands, which you sent on ahead with a rush and a clatter while you walked behind with your quiet philosophy. Racket, followed by warm silence. Whirling wheel, then soft footfall of thought.
I'm a billion years old, he told himself; I'm one minute old. I'm one inch, no, ten thousand miles, tall. I look down and can't see my feet they're so far off and gone away below.
He moved the lawn mower. The grass showering up fell softly around him; he relished and savored it and felt that he was all mankind bathing at last in the fresh waters of the fountain of youth.
Thus bathed, he remembered the song again about the wheels and the faith and the grace of God being way up there in the middle of the sky where that single star, among a million motionless stars, dared to move and keep on moving.Then he finished cutting the grass.
[美]雷?布萊德伯里 著
他站在院子當(dāng)中，關(guān)掉了割草機(jī)，因為他感覺到，就在此刻，太陽消失在了地平線下，星星開始閃爍。包裹在周圍的鮮草碎屑漸漸落下。是啊，星星就在那兒，一開始還很黯淡，隨后就在這清麗的沙漠天空上閃閃發(fā)光。他聽到門廊邊中紗門關(guān)閉的聲音，感覺到妻子正看著他，就如同他正看著這滿天的星斗。
“快到時間了。”她說。
他點點頭，不用看表。上一分鐘他還覺得自己很老、很冷，這會兒忽然變得又年輕又暖和。忽然間，他就到了幾英里之外，仿佛就是自己的兒子，正在堅定地說這話，神采奕奕地戴著護(hù)具，在穿上新制服瞬間的那一絲恐慌，檢查補給、氧氣瓶，加壓頭盔，宇航服，然后像今晚地球上所有其他人一樣，抬頭仰望這浩瀚星海。
忽然間，他又成為了自己，手握著割草機(jī)的手柄。妻子叫道，“過來坐在門廊這兒吧。”
“我得忙活點什么!”
她走下臺階，穿過草坪，“別為羅伯特?fù)?dān)心了，他會沒事的。”
“但這一切都是這么的全新。”他聽到自己在說，“以前從來沒有人做過。想想看―― 一架載人的火箭今晚會升上天空，建造第一座空間站。上帝啊，多么神奇。以前從來沒有過火箭、試驗場，也沒有起飛時間，沒有航空技師。在這個意義上，我根本沒有一個叫羅伯特的兒子，這整件事對我來說太難接受了!”
“那你在這外面干什么，看什么呢?”
他搖搖頭，“嗯，今天早些時候，在去辦公室的路上，我聽到有人在大笑。把我給震住了，我就這么站在大路當(dāng)中。笑的就是我!為什么?因為我終于明白羅伯特今晚要做的事情的意義了。 至少我相信是這樣。神圣這個詞我以前從來都沒有用過，但這就是我站在川流不息地人群中時的感覺。下午的時候，我又發(fā)現(xiàn)自己在哼歌兒。‘輪子是輪子，正在半空中。’你也知道這首歌。然后我又笑了。空間站，當(dāng)然了，我想。帶著輪輻的大輪子，羅伯特要在那兒住六到八個月，然后登上月球。
“回到家，我又記起了這首歌的其余部分，‘信念驅(qū)動小輪，上帝轉(zhuǎn)動大輪’。我想要跳躍，想要大叫，渾身充滿了力量!”
妻子撫摸著他的手臂，“如果要待在外面的話，至少換個舒服些的姿勢。”
他們搬出兩把搖椅放在草坪中央，靜靜地坐了下來。星星正在天邊閃爍。
“這一切意義何在?”妻子最后問，“這就像是每年新年時等待西斯利菲爾德的焰火一樣。”
“今夜會更盛大……”
“我一直在想――十多億人此刻正在看著天空，所有人都在翹首以盼。”
他們就這樣等著，感覺著椅子下大地的轉(zhuǎn)動。
“幾點了?”
“差十一分八點。”
“你從來都不會錯;腦子里一定有一個鐘表。”
“今晚我一定錯不了。我會精確到他們發(fā)射的那一秒。看!十分鐘警報!”
在西邊的天空，他們看到四個發(fā)著紅光的信號彈射向空中，然后緩緩落向沙漠，最終熄滅在地面上。
黑暗再次降臨，夫妻二人沒有再搖動他們的搖椅。
幾分鐘后，他說：“八分鐘。”停頓。“七分鐘。”似乎停頓了更長的時間。“六分――”
妻子轉(zhuǎn)過頭，研究著天上的星星，低語道，“意義何在呢?”她閉上眼睛，“為什么發(fā)射火箭?為什么是今晚?這一切意義何在?我想知道。”
他仔細(xì)地看著妻子的臉，那張臉在銀河昏暗的光芒下顯得有些蒼白。一個激動人心的答案就要脫口而出，但他還是讓妻子繼續(xù)。
“我是說，這不是舊話重提，是吧?每次有人問為什么要爬珠穆朗瑪峰時，被問的人回答：‘因為山就在那兒。’我從來都沒明白過。這對我來說根本不是一個答案。”
五分鐘，他想道。時間在流逝……他的手表……輪子套著輪子……小輪、大輪……空中……四分鐘!……他們應(yīng)該已經(jīng)在火箭里了，儀表盤上的燈光正在一閃一閃。
他動了動嘴唇。
“我只知道，這只是萌芽期的終結(jié)。石器時代、青銅器時代、鐵器時代;從今以后這些人類站在地面上羨慕鳥兒的時代都將被冠以一個名字，也許可以叫地面時代，或者叫重力時代。億萬年來我們一直在和重力抗?fàn)帯．?dāng)我們還是阿米巴原蟲，還是魚類的時候，我們掙扎著離開海洋，沒讓重力給壓垮。剛在地面站住腳我們就掙扎著要站立起來，不讓重力壓垮我們的脊梁，努力地獨立行走、奔跑而不要摔倒。十多億年來，重力一直將我們束縛在地面上，用云朵、清風(fēng)、菜蛾和蝗蟲來嘲笑我們。正因如此，今晚才會如此地重要……這將是重力時代的終結(jié)，我們都會記住這個時代。我不知道他們會從何處來劃分這個時代。是從波斯人夢想著飛毯的時候來劃分，還是從中國人發(fā)明節(jié)慶用的焰火時算起。或者，這個時代將從下一個小時的某一分鐘開始。但是，在這個榮耀的時刻，結(jié)束了十億年來的努力，結(jié)束了一個如此久長的時代，在這個時候，我們都是其中的一分子。”
三分鐘……兩分五十九秒……兩分五十八……
“但是――”妻子說，“我還是不明白這究竟是為什么。”
兩分鐘，他想。準(zhǔn)備好了嗎?準(zhǔn)備好了嗎?準(zhǔn)備好了嗎?無線電問訊。準(zhǔn)備好了!準(zhǔn)備好了!準(zhǔn)備好了!嗡嗡作響的火箭傳來微弱的回答。檢查無誤!檢查無誤!檢查無誤!
今夜，他想，即使這第一次嘗試失敗，我們也還會發(fā)射第二艘、第三艘飛船，會踏上前往其他行星的旅途，不久的將來，就是其他的恒星。我們會一直繼續(xù)，就像“永恒”和“不朽”這兩個詞語所表達(dá)的意思一樣。這就是我們所要的。持之以恒。自從舌頭可以在嘴里移動的那一刻起，我們就在問，這一切意義何在?只要死亡還在，就沒有其他更有意義的問題。就讓我們遷移向那成千上萬個環(huán)繞著其他恒星運行的行星吧，到時候，這個問題自然就會消失。
人類將會永生不朽，就如同這宇宙一般。人類將會繼續(xù)生存，就如同這宇宙。個體還是會死去，但是我們的歷史將會變得無限久遠(yuǎn)，直到未來終結(jié)，伴隨著長久以來積累的知識，我們將會得到長久以來那個問題的答案。生命是一種恩賜，但至少我們可以保護(hù)、傳遞這種恩賜，直到永遠(yuǎn)。這是個值得爭取的目標(biāo)。搖椅在草地上輕輕地?fù)u動。
一分鐘。
“一分鐘。”他大聲說。
“哦!”妻子忽然攥緊了雙手，“希望羅伯特――”
“他會平安無事的!”
“哦，上帝啊，保佑――”
三十秒。
“看吧。”
十五、十、五。
“看!”
四、三、二、一。
“那兒!那兒!哦，在那邊!那邊!”
他們都叫了出來，兩個人都站了起來。搖椅搖向身后，倒在了草坪上。男人和他的妻子搖擺著，激動地緊握著彼此的手。他們看到了天上的那束亮光，十秒鐘后，明亮的上升彗星點亮了空氣、使得星星黯然失色，隨后又像其他星星一樣隱沒在銀河中作為報償。
男人和妻子緊握著彼此的手，就好像他們忽然發(fā)現(xiàn)自己正站在懸崖邊，前面就是無底的深淵。抬起頭，他們聽到了自己哭泣的聲音。很久很久，他們都說不出話來。
“走了，飛走了。是吧?”
“是……”
“一切正常，是吧?”
“是……是……”
“沒有掉下來……?”
“沒有，沒有，一切正常，羅伯特沒事，一切正常。”
最終，他們互相走開了一段距離。
他摸了摸自己的臉，看著濕漉漉的手指。“我一定是糟透了，糟透了。”
他們又等了五分鐘、十分鐘，仰望著星空，直到空氣中的鹽粒讓眼睛覺得難受才閉上眼睛。
“那么――”她說，“我們進(jìn)去吧。”
他動不了，只有他的雙手還在移動，握住了割草機(jī)的手柄?？吹阶约旱膭幼骱螅f，“還差一點點……”
“但是都已經(jīng)看不見了。”
“還可以。”他說，“一定得弄完。然后我們在門廊再坐一會兒，之后再進(jìn)去。”
他幫著妻子把搖椅搬進(jìn)門廊，讓她坐下來，然后又走回草坪，握住割草機(jī)的手柄。割草機(jī)。大輪子套小輪子。握在手中的簡單機(jī)器。想著自己那簡單的哲學(xué)，推在前面走的機(jī)器。火箭，熱浪和寂靜。轉(zhuǎn)動的輪子，然后是這夜晚輕柔的腳步。
我有十億多歲了，他告訴自己;但我只剛剛誕生了一分鐘，我有一英寸，不，一萬英里高。我低頭看不到自己的腳，因為它們離的太遠(yuǎn)。
他推著割草機(jī)。碎草屑像雨滴一樣包裹著他;他品味著，覺得自己就是全人類的代表，正在最后一次沐浴著青春之泉的泉水。
沐浴著這泉水，他又一次想起了那首關(guān)于輪子、信仰和恩典的歌。上帝正站在云端，看著億萬顆群星中那一顆勇往直前的星。
他修整完了整片草地。
(完)
