The Martian Chronicles

We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.

“We won’t ruin Mars,” said the captain. “It’s too big and too good.”

“You think not? We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose. And Egypt is a small part of Earth.

In the distance she heard her husband playing his book steadily, his fingers never tired of the old songs. Quietly she wished he might one day again spend as much time holding and touching her like a little harp as he did his incredible books.

There was a reason for each man. They were leaving bad wives or bad jobs or bad towns; they were coming to find something or leave something or get something, to dig up something or bury something or leave something alone.

Mrs. Ttt threw the door open. “Well?”
“You speak English!” The man standing there was astounded.
“I speak what I speak,” she said.
“It’s wonderful English!”

“It’s only a dream.” She was amused.
“Keep your silly, feminine dreams to yourself!”

predawn half-dreams

Now, with her message sent, the words said, she wanted to call them back, to censor, to rearrange them, to make a prettier sentence, a fairer explanation of her soul. But already the words were hung between planets and if, by some cosmic radiation, they could have been illuminated, caught fire in vaporous wonder there, her love would have lit a dozen worlds and startled the night side of Earth into a premature dawn, she thought.

ohed and ahed

cleared his throat