These paper boats of mine are meant to dance on the ripples of hours, and not reach any destination... Rabindranath Tagore

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past...F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby

We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories.
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On the way to the river are the old dormitories, used for something else now, with their fairy-tale turrets, painted white and gold and blue. When we think of the past it's the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that.
--from Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.
- Joyce Carol Oates

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

A Little Journey


A Little Journey - Short story by Ray Bradbury
(Project Gutenberg e-book published February 10, 2016
Also available American Literature
- published in the August 1951 edition of the magazine, Galaxy Science Fiction.)



on her way to God's heaven
via Mars
on Mars
her room is like a cell
and
the whole Restorium smells of boiled cabbage and tennis shoes
but she has paid her way
her ticket is money invested

 not even her host of the Egyptian eyes
and Comedy Mask smile
can sway her from her quest

 not even the rocket
a mere battered copper pot
can sway her from her mission

 her rickety life
intends
to reach heaven
to reach her Lord
and revel in
His golden handshake

MY GOODREADS REVIEW
A Little JourneyA Little Journey by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A 'little journey' indeed...to Mars, to heavenly space...O the irony, right from the title...Old Mrs Bellowes wants to fly her rickety life 'up, up and away' on the one final, ultimate adventure...And ultimate it is. But ironically - far from a spiritual journey - the adventure is burdened with character masks and material values. Hindu mystics and Indian philosophers could not satisfy Mrs Bellowes' need to reach God. But the crafty Mr Thirkell offered her tangible transport - for a price - to the final golden handshake. This short story is a playful microcosm of worldly ethics and their possible, quirky outcomes.

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