lunes, 31 de mayo de 2010
lunes, 26 de abril de 2010
Actividad Extra de Lenguaje 2
Una vez visto este video,los invitamos a responder esta guía de preguntas.
Cuestionario
1.-¿Por qué se ocasionaría el fin de nuestra generación?
2.-¿Qué usan como combustible en la planta eléctrica?
3.-¿Qué pasará cuando se acabe el combustible en la planta eléctrica?
4.-¿Durará la energía producida por viento?
5.-¿Qué hace funcionar a la planta Huber?
6.-¿Para qué se usan los túneles subterráneos?
7.-¿Qué pasaría si hubieran personas que activen las bombas de agua?
8.-¿Qué harían los perros si quedaran encerrados en la casa?
9.-¿Qué les pasaría a los perros con patas cortas?
10.-Describe como crees que se vería Santa Cruz si no hubiera humanos. (Producir un texto descriptivo completo,coherente y creativo,desarrollado en 3 párrafos.Tomar en cuenta el texto VERDE,de Hanae N,publicado el año pasado en este blog)
Como siempre, esperamos a los 5 primeros!
¡Nos vemos!
Julio y Mauricio
martes, 20 de abril de 2010
lunes, 19 de abril de 2010
ZORAN VRANJICAN,ex alumno del Colegio Alemán.
Aquí amigos les dejo a nuetro ex compañero triunfando con la música .domingo, 18 de abril de 2010
Cosas de células, soldados y salud
1. El cuerpo humano, desde que nace está compuesto por células. Y desde que nace nuestro cuerpo, nuestras células tienen un CUIDADOR que es el sistema inmunológico; el sistema inmunológico es algo así como un "Ejército de Soldados" que nace con el cuerpo también y casi siempre puede cumplir su trabajo. ¿Cuál trabajo? Luchar constantemente. ¿Contra qué? Contra las cosas malas que le pueden suceder a nuestro cuerpo.
¿“Cosas” malas?
2. A nuestro cuerpo le pueden afectar enfermedades provocadas por cosas malas que hay afuera del cuerpo y enfermedades producidas por cosas malas que están dentro de nuestro cuerpo, desde el mismo momento en que nacemos.
¿Cuáles son esas “cosas” malas? Las células malas.
3. Todos los seres vivos estamos compuestos por células; células buenas y células malas. Las células buenas son parte de nuestra piel, huesos, tejidos, sangre. Las células malas también. Gracias a que nuestro Ejército de Soldados está luchando constantemente, casi siempre las células buenas les ganas a las malas, el ejército controla ,no permite que las malas ganen a las buenas. Pero no siempre se puede. A veces nuestro sistema no puede luchar, por culpa de nosotros mismos, de lo que comemos.
¿Qué sucede?
1. Lee este texto informativo y entenderás.
Cualquier persona que no ha sido correctamente educada, generalmente come sin pensar en su alimentación. Come para llenar su estómago, come para no tener hambre, come para tener energía y poder trabajar. ¡Uno de los productos que más consume la gente es el azúcar!
El azúcar es un producto que alimenta directamente a las células malas. El azúcar fortalece la proliferación de células cancerígenas, sobre todo si se consume como la mayoría de la gente pide: "bien dulce, por favor”.
Actualmente se aconseja consumir la miel de abeja y/o la melaza, pero siempre en pequeñas cantidades. También el azúcar morena. ¿Por qué es malo consumir azúcar? Porque contiene un químico (el que le da el color “blanco”,ese químico es un estimulante para el crecimiento de células cancerígenas).
Otro de los productos más consumidos por la gente es la leche.
1. La leche produce la formación de flemas, en la parte del intestino.
Las células malas se alimentan de flemas. Actualmente se sugiere reemplazar la leche ANIMAL ,consumiendo leche de soya sin azúcar ; este alimento hará que se nutran las células buenas y producirá que las células cancerígenas mueran de hambre.
Otro producto masivamente consumido es la carne.
Una dieta basada en hamburguesas, milanesas, chuletas y embutidos es ácida, el ambiente ácido ayuda a las células malas a multiplicarse .Por lo tanto se sugiere ingerir pescado,enlatados de pescado, y carnes blancas (pollo) en lugar de carne roja.
Entre los favoritos de la gente se encuentran el café, el té y el chocolate, los cuales contienen cafeína y son consumidos con azúcar. Malísimo. Se aconseja tomar Té verde, gracias a que posee propiedades que combaten el cáncer.
Y la mejor agua para beber es el agua purificada o filtrada. Esto evita conocidos tóxicos y metales pesados en el agua. Cuidado: El agua destilada es ácida, evítala.
¿ Qué debemos hacer para alimentar células buenas y matar células malas?
Primero:
Alimentar nuestras células buenas y mantenerlas en ambiente alcalino.(lo contrario de ácido) ¿Cómo se puede lograr eso? Consumiendo una dieta elaborada con un 80 % de vegetales frescos (espinacas,habas,arvejas,apio,perejil) en licuados, 2 a 3 veces por día, m
aíz, avena, frejoles,
semillas de girasol, nueces y un
poco de frutas. Alcalinidad es salud!.
Segundo:
Alimentar a nuestro Ejército de Soldados con suplementos alimenticios ayudan a construir y a fortalecer el sistema inmunológico: IP6, Flor-essence, Essiac, antioxidantes, vitaminas, minerales.Si alimentamos a nuestro Sistema Inmunológico, ellos podrán estar siempre atentos para
destruir las células malas.
Tercero:
Las células cancerígenas no pueden vivir con el oxígeno. Ejercicios diarios y respiración profunda contribuyen a que las células buenas reciban más oxígeno y las malas se debiliten. La terapia con oxígeno es otra forma para ir células cancerigenas.
Cuarto:
Evitar el stress, ya que este genera ambiente ácido en el cuerpo.
Quinto:
No utilice envases plásticos en el microondas.
No utilice papel de aluminio en el microondas.
No congele agua en botella plástica, esto libera dioxinas del plástico y del aluminio. Esto aumenta las células malas.
Texto adaptado de un artículo emitido recientemente por el Centro Médico Walter Reed del Ejército de los EE.UU.
sábado, 17 de abril de 2010
Actividad Extra de Lenguaje
Cuestionario:
1.- ¿Cuáles son y que hacían las hermanas que moraban en el Monte Olimpo?
2.-¿Qué cosas habían en ese tiempo, que hacían perdurar las historias griegas (mitológicas) ?
3.-¿En todas las aldeas se adoraba al mismo Dios ? ¿Por qué?
4.-¿Qué separaban las colinas?
5.-¿Cuáles eran los dioses de los que se habla y cuales son sus cualidades?
6.-¿Cuál era la relación (creencias,adoracion,limites,etc) entre lo griegos y los dioses?
7.-¿Por qué los dioses tomaban forma humana?
8.-¿Por qué habia que respetar a los dioses?
9.-¿Qué hizo Zeús despues de que trataron de imitarlo?
10.-¿Crees que los dioses griegos existían?. Justifica.
Esta respuesta debe escribirse en forma completa,con coherencia y cohesión,estructurada en párrafos que desarrollen los argumentos.
Puede ingresarse directamente a comentarios.Todas las participaciones serán controladas por Julio Alberto Añez,el bloggero de turno.
viernes, 9 de abril de 2010
martes, 9 de marzo de 2010
El caballero
El caballero era un guerrero a caballo en la Europa medieval , que servia al rey o a otro señor,y a cambio recibia una parcela de tierra, aunque tambien dinero y botines conquistados.
El caballero era por lo general un hombre de familia noble o real, que habiendo servido como paje y escudero, era luego ceremonialmente ascendido por sus superiores al rango caballero.
Durante la ceremonia el aspirante solia prestar un juramento al que no debia renunciar durante todo su vida.
Mandamientos inquebrantables de un caballero medieval:
1. Creer en todo lo que la Iglesia enseñe y observar todos sus mandamientos.
2. Proteger a la Iglesia.
3. Tener respeto por los debiles , defender a los necesitados.
4. Amar el pais en que se nace.
5. No retroceder ante el enemigo.
6. Hacer a los infieles una guerra sin cuartel.
7. Cumplir los deberes feudales sino no contradice la ley de Dios.
8. No mentir y ser fiel a su palabra.
9. Ser generoso
10. Mantener el bien siempre a la injusticia y el mal.
Caracteristicas de un caballero medieval
Los caballeros soportaban sacrificios personales por seguir sus ideales y servir a las personas necesitadas. Una de sus caracteristicas fundamentales era el valor; tener valor no significa no tener miedo, sino superar el miedo teniendo la voluntad de hacer lo correcto. Los cabelleros debian ser capaces de pelear con gran coraje contra seres que mantenian atemorizados a las personas de los pueblos.
Los cabelleros juraban defender a sus señores y a sus señoras, a su familia, a las viudas y a los huerfanos, y a la Iglesia, por lo que debian mantener la verdad a todo costa. Los buenos caballeros juraban defender fervientemente a sus aldeas,a su Iglesia, a sus señores, hasta dar su vida por eso.
Los caballeros eran los primeros en felicitar a las otras personas cuando estas llevaban a cabo hechos de heroicidad, dandoles en honor que merecian por sus buenos hechos. A l contrario cuando ellos eran lo protagonistas guardaban sielencio y ofrecian sus actos a Dios.
Los caballeros buscaban implantar la justicia. La justicia sin misericordia puede traer pena. La justicia buscada por los caballeros era una justicia basada en el respeto a la persona a la cual se le estaba aplicando la justicia en su contra.
La generosidad era una gran caracteristica de caballero. Para contrarrestar la debilidad de la avaricia, los caballeros eran tan generosos como sus recursos le permitian. Un caballero generoso repartia los bienes conseguidos en una batalla ganada entre sus soldados, y entre sus vencidos, si merecia que se le perdone a vida, los dotaba de lo necesario para subsistir.
El caballero deberia estar acostumbrado a comer y beber con moderacion. Ademas debia ser moderado con sus riquezas, esto no significaba abstenerse de ellas sino, no utilizarlas vanamente.
Sin templanza no se podia mantener el honor de la caballeria; las damas debian aceptar que un caballero fuera cortes pero no estuviera interesado en tener amorios.
Los caballeros debian ser corteses, honrados, estimables, generosos, ilustres, justos, veraces , leales, templados y humildes, estas eran la caracteristicas ideales de la caballeria.
Un caballero debia ser por siempre un ejemplo a seguir.
Las armas usadas en la caballeria
Arcos
El caballero era un guerrero a caballo en la Europa medieval , que servia al rey o a otro señor,y a cambio recibia una parcela de tierra, aunque tambien dinero y botines conquistados.
El caballero era por lo general un hombre de familia noble o real, que habiendo servido como paje y escudero, era luego ceremonialmente ascendido por sus superiores al rango caballero.
Durante la ceremonia el aspirante solia prestar un juramento al que no debia renunciar durante todo su vida.
Mandamientos inquebrantables de un caballero medieval:
1. Creer en todo lo que la Iglesia enseñe y observar todos sus mandamientos.
2. Proteger a la Iglesia.
3. Tener respeto por los debiles , defender a los necesitados.
4. Amar el pais en que se nace.
5. No retroceder ante el enemigo.
6. Hacer a los infieles una guerra sin cuartel.
7. Cumplir los deberes feudales sino no contradice la ley de Dios.
8. No mentir y ser fiel a su palabra.
9. Ser generoso
10. Mantener el bien siempre a la injusticia y el mal.
Caracteristicas de un caballero medieval
Los caballeros soportaban sacrificios personales por seguir sus ideales y servir a las personas necesitadas. Una de sus caracteristicas fundamentales era el valor; tener valor no significa no tener miedo, sino superar el miedo teniendo la voluntad de hacer lo correcto. Los cabelleros debian ser capaces de pelear con gran coraje contra seres que mantenian atemorizados a las personas de los pueblos.
Los cabelleros juraban defender a sus señores y a sus señoras, a su familia, a las viudas y a los huerfanos, y a la Iglesia, por lo que debian mantener la verdad a todo costa. Los buenos caballeros juraban defender fervientemente a sus aldeas,a su Iglesia, a sus señores, hasta dar su vida por eso.
Los caballeros eran los primeros en felicitar a las otras personas cuando estas llevaban a cabo hechos de heroicidad, dandoles en honor que merecian por sus buenos hechos. A l contrario cuando ellos eran lo protagonistas guardaban sielencio y ofrecian sus actos a Dios.
Los caballeros buscaban implantar la justicia. La justicia sin misericordia puede traer pena. La justicia buscada por los caballeros era una justicia basada en el respeto a la persona a la cual se le estaba aplicando la justicia en su contra.
La generosidad era una gran caracteristica de caballero. Para contrarrestar la debilidad de la avaricia, los caballeros eran tan generosos como sus recursos le permitian. Un caballero generoso repartia los bienes conseguidos en una batalla ganada entre sus soldados, y entre sus vencidos, si merecia que se le perdone a vida, los dotaba de lo necesario para subsistir.
El caballero deberia estar acostumbrado a comer y beber con moderacion. Ademas debia ser moderado con sus riquezas, esto no significaba abstenerse de ellas sino, no utilizarlas vanamente.
Sin templanza no se podia mantener el honor de la caballeria; las damas debian aceptar que un caballero fuera cortes pero no estuviera interesado en tener amorios.
Los caballeros debian ser corteses, honrados, estimables, generosos, ilustres, justos, veraces , leales, templados y humildes, estas eran la caracteristicas ideales de la caballeria.
Un caballero debia ser por siempre un ejemplo a seguir.
Las armas usadas en la caballeria
Arcos
- Arco grande: Era un arqueamiento mecánico de acero corto que tiraba flechas pqueñas. Tomaba un tiempo largo para cargarlo. Esta arma podía tirar docenas de flechas. Prohibida por la iglesia, la mayoria de los caballeros la consideraban uan arma que deshonraba, pero algunos soldados la utilizaron de todos modos. Es el famoso arco que usó Guillermo en la manzana que había en la cabeza de su hijo.
- Arco largo: Era un arqueamiento grande que era difícil de dominar, pero podía lanzar flechas mortales hasta 100 yardas.
- Arco común: Era el arqueamiento más comun de Europa, tiene un rango y una exactitud limitada, y se utilizaba a menudo más para la caza y la guerra.
Armas de mano
- Maza: Es una bola pesada con clavos, asociada directamente a una manija. Había Maza del lacayo (de largo mango) y del jinete (corto-dirigido).
- Espada: El arma más común del caballero para luchar mano-a-mano, era una lámina templada del acero que tiene apróximadamente 1,20 cm de longitud.
Bendecida por el sacerdote, la espada era generalmente el arma preferida de un caballero. la espada más que un arma, porque la lámina y el hilt mostraban la muestra sagrada de la luz.
La espada más común era la broadsword. Esta arma de doble filo era de 30 " a 42" pies en longitud, pero solamente 3 a 4 libras pesadas. Así un caballero podía manejarla ágilmente en una batalla. Una espada más grande era la esapda híbrida pero que consta su traslado y uso. La espada preferida de Cid, Tizona, fue enterrada con él.
Armas del personal
- Lanza - La segunda arma preferida de un caballero, fue hecha de hierro. La rectitud de la lanza simbolizó verdad al caballero, y su cabeza de hierro, fuerza. El arma más vieja del personal fue utiliizada generalmente para empujar o tirar al enemigo de su caballo. Los postes eran de 3 Mt de longitud y rematados con una punta de lanza que sería un triángulo.
- Luzio - Era una arma suiza que servia para defenderse de los caballeros: 5 m de largo. La utilizaban para herir a los caballos.
Armas de sitio
- Catapulta - Era una máquina para arrojar grandes rocas contra las paredes de los castillos. Arrojaba rocas, o basuras, vacas muertas, o el fuego griego, este fuego era muy dificil de apagar.
- Torre de ataque - Era una estructura de madera sobre ruedas que era para atacar a los castillos.
Epocas de la caballería
Heroica: Esta fue la época de máxima expresión, la cristiandad era el fin y objeto del hombre.
Se produjo en los Siglos XII y principios del XII. La caballería se caracterizaba por ser viril, austera y conquistadora.
Esta fue la época en que El Cid vivió.
Galante: Se produjo en los siglos a fines del XIII. Comienza a declinar la caballería. En esta época se registran poemas, juglares y relatos sobre la caballería. Como eran tan admirados por su valentía y cortesía, los caballeros cambian la guerra por andar en amoríos con las mujeres.
Decadencia: Las guerras santas ya no son importantes y se dedican al ocio. Además se abre la inscripción a la caballería a todos los jovenes, dignos o no.
Pero principalmente se habia perdido el espiritu religioso.
La obra de "Don Quijote de la Mancha es un importante ejemplo, que demuestra la decadencia de la caballeria. Era tal la decadencia que hasta se burlaban de ellos.
BERGIL EL CABALLERO PERDIDO DE BERLINDON
PRIMER CAPITULO
Bergil combatiria por primera vez en su vida en un campo abierto.
El capitan era un hombre con experiencia en la guerra, sabia imponer disciplina a los soldados, a la vez los cuidaba como si fuera su padre.
El reino del rey Arthagel estaba preparado para pelear con el ejercito enemigo.
En media guerra Bergil vio a uno de los de su caballeria, tenia sus ojos muy grisaceos, pelear con una tranaquilidad muy notable, pero tambien se le notaba una angustia muy fuerte.
Al final gano el reino de Arthegel porque ya se habian acabado las flechas del ejercito enemigo. Terminaron con una batalla bien ganada.
Trabajo realizado por Fabiana Rodas, alumna del P6c , con acompañamiento de la Prof. Marisol
miércoles, 24 de febrero de 2010
domingo, 7 de febrero de 2010
Mil grullas- Elsa Bornemann
Naomi Watanabe y Toshiro Ueda creían que el mundo era nuevo. Como todos los chicos.
Porque ellos eran nuevos en el mundo. Tambíen, como todos los chicos. Pero el mundo era ya muy viejo entonces, en el año 1945, y otra vez estaba en guerra. Naomi y Toshiro no entendían muy bien qué era lo que estaba pasando.
Desde que ambos recordaban, sus pequeñas vidas en la ciudad japonesa de Hiroshima se habían desarrollado del mismo modo: en un clima de sobresaltos, entre adultos callados y tristes, compartiendo con ellos los escasos granos de arroz que flotaban en la sopa diaria y el miedo que apretaba las reuniones familiares de cada anochecer en torno a la noticia de la radio, que hablaban de luchas y muerte por todas partes.
Sin embargo, creían que el mundo era nuevo y esperaban ansiosos cada día para descubrirlo.
¡Ah... y también se estaban descubriendo uno al otro!
Se contemplaban de reojo durante la caminata hacia la escuela, cuando suponían que sus miradas levantaban murallas y nadie más que ellos podían transitar ese imaginario senderito de ojos a ojos.
Apenas si habían intercambiado algunas frases. El afecto de los dos no buscaba las palabras. Estaban tan acostumbrados al silencio...
Pero Naomi sabía que quería a ese muchachito delgado, que más de una vez se quedaba sin almorzar por darle a ella la ración de batatas que había traído de su casa.
-No tengo hambre —le mentía Toshiro, cuando veía que la niña apenas si tenía dos o tres galletitas para pasar el mediodía—. Te dejo mi vianda —y se iba a corretear con sus compañeros hasta la hora de regreso a las aulas, para que Naomi no tuviera vergüenza de devorar la ración.
Naomi... Poblaba el corazón de Toshiro. Se le anudaba en los sueños con sus largas trenzas negras. Le hacía tener ganas de crecer de golpe para poder casarse con ella. Pero ese futuro quedaba tan lejos aún...
El futuro inmediato de aquella primavera de 1945 fue el verano, que llegó puntualmente el 21 de junio y anunció las vacaciones escolares.
Y con la misma intensidad con que otras veces habían esperado sus soleadas mañanas, ese año los ensombreció a los dos: ni Naomi ni Toshiro deseaban que empezara. Su comienzo significaba que tendrían que dejar de verse durante un mes y medio inacabable.
A pesar de que sus casas no quedaban demasiado lejos una de la otra, sus familias no se conocían. Ni siquiera tenían entonces la posibilidad de encontrarse en alguna visita. Había que esperar pacientemente la reanudación de las clases.
Acabó junio, y Toshiro arrancó contento la hoja del almanaque...
Se fue julio, y Naomi arrancó contenta la hoja del almanaque...
Y aunque no lo supieran: ¡Por fin llegó agosto! —pensaron los dos al mismo tiempo.
Fue justamente el primero de ese mes cuando Toshiro viajó, junto a sus padres, hacia la aldea de Miyashima. Iban a pasar una semana. Allí vivían los abuelos, dos ceramistas que veían apilarse vasijas en todos los rincones de su local.
Ya no vendían nada. No obstante, sus manos viejas seguían modelando la arcilla con la misma dedicación de otras épocas, -Para cuando termine la guerra... —decía el abuelo—. Todo acaba algún día... —comentaba la abuela por lo bajo. Y Toshiro sentía que la paz debía de ser algo muy hermoso, porque los ojos de su madre parecían aclararse fugazmente cada vez que se referían al fin de la guerra, tal como a él se le aclaraban los suyos cuando recordaba a Naomi.
¿Y Naomi?
El primero de agosto se despertó inquieta; acababa de soñar que caminaba sobre la nieve. Sola. Descalza. Ni casas ni árboles a su alrededor. Un desierto helado y ella atravesándolo.
Abandonó el tatami, se deslizó de puntillas entre sus dormidos hermanos y abrió la ventana de la habitación. ¡Qué alivio! Una cálida madrugada le rozó las mejillas. Ella le devolvió un suspiro.
El dos y el tres de agosto escribió, trabajosamente, sus primeros haikus:
Lento se apaga
El verano
Enciendo
Lámpara y sonrisas.
Pronto
Florecerán los crisantemos.
Espera,
Corazón.
Después, achicó en rollitos ambos papeles y los guardó dentro de una cajita de laca en la que escondía sus pequeños tesoros de la curiosidad de sus hermanos.
El cuatro y el cinco de agosto se lo pasó ayudando a su madre y a las tías ¡Era tanta la ropa para remendar!
Sin embargo, esa tarea no le disgustaba. Naomi siempre sabía hallar el modo de convertir en un juego entretenido lo que acaso resultaba aburridísimo para otras chicas. Cuando cosía, por ejemplo, imaginaba que cada doscientas veintidós puntadas podía sujetar un deseo para que se cumpliese.
La aguja iba y venía, laboriosa. Así, quedó en el pantalón de su hermano menor el ruego de que finalizara enseguida esa espantosa guerra, y en los puños de la camisa de su papá, el pedido de que Toshiro no la olvidara nunca...
Y los dos deseos se cumplieron.
Pero el mundo tenía sus propios planes...
Ocho de la mañana del seis de agosto en el cielo de Hiroshima.
Naomi se ajusta el obi de su kimono y recuerda a su amigo: -¿Qué estará haciendo ahora?
"Ahora", Toshiro Pesca en la isla mientras se pregunta: -¿Qué estará haciendo Naomi?
En el mismo momento, un avión enemigo sobrevuela el cielo de Hiroshima.
En el avión, hombres blancos que pulsan botones y la bomba atómica surca por primera vez un cielo. El cielo de Hiroshima.
Un repentino resplandor ilumina extrañamente la ciudad.
En ella, una mamá amamanta a su hijo por última vez.
Dos viejos trenzan bambúes por última vez.
Una docena de chicos canturrea: "Donguri-Koro Koro- Donguri Ko..." por última vez.
Cientos de mujeres repiten sus gestos habituales por última vez.
Miles de hombres piensan en mañana por última vez.
Naomi sale para hacer unos mandados.
Silenciosa explota la bomba. Hierven, de repente, las aguas del río.
Y medio millón de japoneses, medio millón de seres humanos, se desintegran esa mañana. Y con ellos desaparecen edificios, árboles, calles, animales, puentes y el pasado de Hiroshima.
Ya ninguno de los sobrevivientes podrán volver a reflejarse en el mismo espejo, ni abrir nuevamente la puerta de su casa, ni retomar ningún camino querido.
Nadie será ya quien era.
Hiroshima arrasada por un hongo atómico.
Hiroshima es el sol, ese seis de agosto de 1945. Un sol estallando.
Recién en diciembre logró Toshiro averiguar donde estaba Naomi. ¡Y que aún estaba viva, Dios!
Ella y su familia, internados en el hospital ubicado en una localidad próxima a Hiroshima, como tantos otros cientos de miles que también habían sobrevivido al horror, aunque el horror estuviera ahora instalado dentro de ellos, en su misma sangre.
Y hacia ese hospital marchó Toshiro una mañana.
El invierno se insinuaba ya en el aire y el muchacho no sabía si era frío exterior o su pensamiento lo que le hacía tiritar.
Naomi se hallaba en una cama situada junto a la ventana. De cara al techo. Ya no tenía sus trenzas. Apenas una tenue pelusita oscura.
Sobre su mesa de luz, unas cuantas grullas de papel desparramadas.
-Voy a morirme, Toshiro... —susurró. No bien su amigo se paró, en silencio, al lado de su cama—. Nunca llegaré a plegar las mil grullas que me hacen falta...
Mil grullas... o "Semba-Tsuru", como se dice en japonés.
Con el corazón encogido, Toshiro contó las que se hallaban dispersas sobre la mesita. Sólo veinte. Después, las juntó cuidadosamente antes de guardarlas en un bolsillo de su chaqueta.
-Te vas a curar, Naomi —le dijo entonces, pero su amiga no le oía ya: se había quedado dormida.
El muchachito salió del hospital, bebiéndose las lágrimas.
Ni la madre, ni el padre, ni los tíos de Toshiro (en cuya casa se encontraban temporariamente alojados) entendieron aquella noche el porqué de la misteriosa desaparición de casi todos los papeles que, hasta ese día, había habido allí.
Hojas de diario, pedazos de papel para envolver, viejos cuadernos y hasta algunos libros parecían haberse esfumado mágicamente. Pero ya era tarde para preguntar. Todos los mayores se durmieron, sorprendidos.
En la habitación que compartía con sus primos, Toshiro velaba entre las sombras. Esperó hasta que tuvo la certeza de que nadie más que él continuaba despierto. Entonces, se incorporó con sigilo y abrió el armario donde se solían acomodar las mantas.
Mordiéndose la punta de la lengua, extrajo la pila de papeles que había recolectado en secreto y volvió a su lecho.
La tijera la llevaba oculta entre sus ropas.
Y así, en el silencio y la oscuridad de aquellas horas, Toshiro recortó primero novecientos ochenta cuadraditos y luego los plegó, uno por uno hasta completar las mil grullas que ansiaba Naomi, tras sumarles las que ella misma había hecho. Ya amanecía, el muchacho se encontraba pasando hilos a través de las siluetas de papel. Separó en grupos de diez las frágiles grullas del milagro y las aprestó para que imitaran el vuelo, suspendidas como estaban de un leve hilo de coser, una encima de la otra.
Con los dedos paspados y el corazón temblando, Toshiro colocó las cien tiras dentro de su furoshiki y partió rumbo al hospital antes de que su familia se despertara. Por esa única vez, tomó sin pedir permiso la bicicleta de sus primos.
No había tiempo que perder. Imposible recorrer a pie, como el día anterior, los kilómetros que lo separaban del hospital. La vida de Naomi dependía de esas grullas.
-Prohibidas las visitas a esta hora —le dijo una enfermera, impidiéndole el acceso a la enorme sala en uno de cuyos extremos estaba la cama de su querida amiga.
Toshiro insistió: -Sólo quiero colgar estas grullas sobre su lecho, Por favor...
Ningún gesto denunció la emoción de la enfermera cuando el chico le mostró las avecitas de papel. Con la misma aparentemente impasililidad con que momentos antes le había cerrado el paso, se hizo a un lado y le permitió que entrara: -Pero cinco minutos, ¿eh?
Naomi dormía.
Tratando de no hacer el mínimo ruidito, Toshiro puso una silla sobre la mesa de luz y luego se subió.
Tuvo que estirarse a más no poder para alcanzar el cielorraso. Pero lo alcanzó. Y en un rato estaban las mil grullas pendiendo del techo; los cien hilos entrelazados, firmemente sujetos con alfileres.
Fue al bajarse de su improvisada escalera cuando advirtió que Naomi lo estaba observando. Tenía la cabecita echada hacia un lado y una sonrisa en los ojos.
-Son hermosas, Tosí-can... Gracias...
-Hay un millar. Son tuyas, Naomi. Tuyas —y el muchacho abandonó la sala sin darse vuelta.
En la luminosidad del mediodía que ahora ocupaba todo el recinto, mil grullas empezaron a balancearse impulsadas por el viento que la enfermera también dejó colar, al entreabrir por unos instantes la ventana.
Los ojos de Naomi seguían sonriendo.
La niña murió al día siguiente. Un ángel a la intemperie frente a la impiedad de los adultos. ¿Cómo podían mil frágiles avecitas de papel vencer el horror instalado en su sangre?
Febrero de 1976.
Toshiro Ueda cumplió cuarenta y dos años y vive en Inglaterra. Se casó, tiene tres hijos y es gerente de sucursal de un banco establecido en Londres.
Serio y poco comunicativo como es, ninguno de sus empleados se atreve a preguntarle por qué, entre el aluvión de papeles con importantes informes y mensajes telegráficos que habitualmente se juntan sobre su escritorio, siempre se encuentran algunas grullas de origami dispersas al azar.
Grullas seguramente hechas por él, pero en algún momento en que nadie consigue sorprenderlo.
Grullas desplegando alas en las que se descubren las cifras de las máquina de calcular.
Grullas surgidas de servilletas con impresos de los más sofisticados restaurantes...
Grullas y más grullas. Y los empleados comentan, divertidos, que el gerente debe de creer en aquella superstición japonesa.
-Algún día completará las mil... —cuchicheaban entre risas— ¿Se animará entonces a colgarlas sobre su escritorio?
Ninguno sospechaba, siquiera, la entrañable relación que esas grullas tienen con la perdida Hiroshima de su niñez. Con su perdido amor primero.
miércoles, 13 de enero de 2010
sábado, 26 de diciembre de 2009
sábado, 24 de octubre de 2009
Crónicas Marcianas en inglés.
MARS IS HEAVEN
Ray Bradbury
The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and the black velocities, and the shining movements, and the silent gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm. In it were seventeen men, including a captain. The crowd at the Ohio field had shouted and waved their hands up into the sunlight, and the rocket had bloomed out great flowers of heat and color and run away into space on the third voyage to Mars!
Now it was decelerating with metal efficiency in the upper Martian atmospheres. It was still a thing of beauty and strength. It had moved in the midnight waters of space like a pale sea leviathan; it had passed the ancient Moon and thrown itself onward into one nothingness following another. The men within it had been battered, thrown about, sickened, made well again, each in his turn. One man had died, but now the remaining sixteen, with their eyes clear in their heads and their faces pressed to the thick glass ports, watched Mars swing up under them.
“Mars!” cried Navigator Lustig.
“Good old Mars!” said Samuel Hinkston, archaeologist.
“Well,” said Captain John Black.
The rocket landed on a lawn of green grass. Outside, upon this lawn, stood an iron deer. Further up on the green stood a tall brown Victorian house quiet in the sunlight, all covered with scrolls and rococo, its windows made of blue and pink and yellow and green colored glass. Upon the porch were hairy geraniums and an old swing which was hooked into the porch ceiling and which now swung back and forth, back and forth, in a little breeze. At the summit of the house was a cupola with diamond leaded-glass windows and a dunce-cap roof! Through the front window you could see a piece of music titled “Beautiful Ohio” sitting on the music rest.
Around the rocket in four directions spread the little town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church steeples with gold bells silent in them.
The rocket men looked out and saw this. Then they looked at one another and then they looked out again. They held to each other’s elbows, suddenly unable to breathe, it seemed. Their faces grew pale.
“I’ll be damned,” whispered Lustig, rubbing his face with his numb fingers. “I’ll be damned.”
“It just can’t be,” said Samuel Hinkston.
“Lord,” said John Black.
There was a call from the chemist. “Sir, the atmosphere is thin for breathing. But there’s enough oxygen. It’s safe.”
“Then we’ll go out,” said Lustig.
“Hold on,” said Captain John Black. “How do we know what this is?”
“It’s a small town with thin but breathable air in it, sir.”
“And it’s a small town the like of Earth towns,” said Hinkston, the archaeologist. “Incredible. It can’t be, but it is.”
Captain John Black looked at him idly. “Do you think that the civilization of two planets can progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way Hinkston?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, sir.”
Captain Black stood by the port. “Look out there. The geraniums. A specialized plant. That specific variety has only been known on Earth for fifty years. Think of the thousands of years it takes to evolve plants. Then tell me if it is logical that the Martians should have: one, leaded-glass windows; two, cupolas; three, porch swings; four, and instrument that looks like a piano and probably is a piano; and five, if you look closely through this telescopic lens here, is it logical that a Martian composer would have published a piece of music titled, strangely enough, ‘Beautiful Ohio’? All of which means that we have an Ohio River on Mars!”
“Captain Williams, of course!” cried Hinkston.
“What?”
“Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel York and his partner. That would explain it!”
“That would explain absolutely nothing. As far as we’ve been able to figure, the York expedition exploded the day it reached Mars, killing York and his partner. As for Williams and his three men, their ship exploded the second day after their arrival. At least the pulsations from their radios ceased at that time, so we figure that if the men were alive after that they’d have contacted us. And anyway, the York expedition was only a year ago, while Captain Williams and his men landed here some time during last August. Theorizing that they are still alive, could they, even with the help of a brilliant Martian race, have built such a town as this and aged it in so short a time? Look at that town out there; why, it’s been standing here for the last seventy years. Look at the wood on the porch newel; look at the trees, a century old, all of them! No, this isn’t York’s work or Williams’. It’s something else. I don’t like it. And I’m not leaving the ship until I know what it is.”
“For that matter,” said Lustig, nodding, “Williams and his men, as well as York, landed on the opposite side of Mars. We were very careful to land on this side.”
“An excellent point. Just in case a hostile local tribe of Martians killed off York and Williams, we have instructions to land in a further region, to forestall a recurrence of such a disaster. So here we are, as far as we know, in a land that Williams and York never saw.”
“Damn it,” said Hinkston, “I want to get out into this town, sir, with your permission. It may be there are similar thought patterns, civilizations graphs on every planet in our sun system. We may be on the threshold of the greatest psychological and metaphysical discovery of our age!”
“I’m willing to wait a moment,” said Captain John Black.
“It may be, sir, that we’re looking upon a phenomenon that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence of God, sir.”
“There are many people who are of good faith without such proof, Mr. Hinkston.”
“I’m one myself, sir. But certainly a town like this could not occur without divine intervention. The detail. It fills me with such feelings that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“Do neither, then, until we know what we’re up against.”
“Up against?” Lustig broke in. “Against nothing, Captain. It’s a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one I was born in. I like the looks of it.”
“When were you born, Lustig?”
“Nineteen fifty, sir.”
“And you, Hinkston?”
“Nineteen fifty-five, sir. Grinnell, Iowa. And this looks like home to me.”
“Hinkston, Lustig, I could be either of your fathers. I’m just eighty years old. Born in 1920 in Illinois, and through the grace of God and a science that, in the last fifty years, knows how to make some old men young again, here I am on Mars, not any more tired than the rest of you, but infinitely more suspicious. This town out here looks very peaceful and cool, and so much like Green Bluff, Illinois, that it frightens me. It’s too much like Green Bluff.” He turned to the radioman. “Radio Earth. Tell them we’ve landed. That’s all. Tell them we’ll radio a full report tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Black looked out the rocket port with his face that should have been the face of a man eighty but seemed like the face of a man in his fortieth year. “Tell you what we’ll do, Lustig; you and I and Hinkston’ll look the town over. The other men’ll stay aboard. If anything happens they can get the hell out. A loss of three men’s better than a whole ship. If something bad happens, our crew can warn the next rocket. That’s Captain Wilder’s rocket, I think, due to be ready to take off next Christmas. If there’s something hostile about Mars we certainly want the next rocket to be well armed.”
“So are we. We’ve got a regular arsenal with us.”
“Tell the men to stand by the guns then. Come on, Lustig, Hinkston.”
The three men walked together down through the levels of the ship.
It was a beautiful spring day. A robin sat on a blossoming apple tree and sang continuously. Showers of petal snow sifted down when the wind touched the green branches, and the blossom scent drifted upon the air. Somewhere in the town someone was playing the piano and the music came and went, came and went, softly, drowsily. The song was “Beautiful Dreamer.” Somewhere else a phonograph, scratchy and faded, was hissing out a record of “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’,” sung by Harry Lauder.
The three men stood outside the ship. They sucked and gasped at the thin, thin air and moved slowly so as not to tire themselves.
Now the phonograph record being played was:
Oh, give me a June night
The moonlight and you . . .
Lustig began to tremble. Samuel Hinkston did likewise.
The sky was serene and quiet, and somewhere a stream of water ran through the cool caverns and tree shadings of a ravine. Somewhere a horse and wagon trotted and rolled by, bumping.
“Sir,” said Samuel Hinkston, “it must be, it has to be, that rocket travel to Mars began in the years before the First World War!”
“No.”
“How else can you explain these houses, the iron deer, the pianos, the music?” Hinkston took the captain’s elbow persuasively and looked into the captain’s face. “Say that there were people in the year 1905 who hated war and got together with some scientists in secret and built a rocket and came out here to Mars –”
“No, no, Hinkston.”
“Why not? The world was a different world in 1905; they could have kept it a secret much more easily.”
“But a complex thing like a rocket, no, you couldn’t keep it secret.”
“And they came up here to live, and naturally the houses they built were similar to Earth houses because they brought the culture with them.”
“And they’ve lived here all these year?” said the captain.
“In peace and quiet, yes. Maybe they made a few trips, enough to bring enough people here for one small town, and then stopped for fear of being discovered. That’s why this town seems so old-fashioned. I don’t see a thing, myself, older than the year 1927, do you? Or maybe, sir, rocket travel is older than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world centuries ago and was kept secret by the small number of men who came to Mars with only occasional visits to Earth over the centuries.”
“You make it sound almost reasonable.”
“It has to be. We’ve the proof here before us; all we have to do is find some people and verify it.”
Their boots were deadened of all sound in the thick green grass. It smelled from a fresh mowing. In spite of himself, Captain John Black felt a great peace come over him. It had been thirty years since he had been in a small town, and the buzzing of spring bees on the air lulled and quieted him, and the fresh look of things was a balm to the soul.
They set foot upon the porch. Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked to the screen door. Inside they could see a bead curtain hung across the hall entry, and a crystal chandelier and a Maxfield Parrish painting framed on one wall over a comfortable Morris chair. The house smelled old, and of the attic, and infinitely comfortable. You could hear the tinkle of ice in a lemonade pitcher. In a distant kitchen, because of the heat of the day, someone was preparing a cold lunch. Someone was humming under her breath, high and sweet.
Captain John Black rang the bell.
Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hall, and a kind-faced lady of some forty years, dressed in the sort of dress you might expect in the year 1909 peered out at them.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Beg your pardon,” said Captain Black uncertainly. “But we’re looking for – that is, could you help us –” He stopped. She looked out at him with dark, wondering eyes.
“If you’re selling something –” she began.
“No, wait!” he cried. “What town is this?”
She looked him up and down. “What do you mean, what town is it? How could you be in a town and not know the name?”
The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady apple tree. “We’re strangers here. We want to know how this town got here and how you got here.”
“Are you census takers?”
“No.”
“Everyone knows,” she said, “this town was built in 1868. Is this a game?”
“No, not a game!” cried the captain. “We’re from Earth.”
“Out of the ground, do you mean?” she wondered.
“No, we came from the third planet, Earth, in a ship. And we’ve landed here on the fourth planet, Mars –”
“This,” explained the woman, as if she were addressing a child, “is Green Bluff, Illinois, on the continent of America, surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on a place called the world, or, sometimes, the Earth. Go away now. Good-by.”
She trotted down the hall, running her fingers through the beaded curtains.
The three men looked at one another.
“Let’s knock the screen door in,” said Lustig.
“We can’t do that. This is private property. Good God!”
They went to sit down on the porch step.
“Did it ever strike you, Hinkston, that perhaps we got ourselves somehow, in some way, off track, and by accident came back and landed on Earth?”
“How could we have done that?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh God, let me think.”
Hinkston said, “But we checked every mile of the way. Our chronometers said so many miles. We went past the Moon and out into space, and here we are. I’m positive we’re on Mars.”
Lustig said, “But suppose, by accident, in space, in time, we got lost in the dimensions and landed on an Earth that is thirty or forty years ago.”
“Oh, go away, Lustig!”
Lustig went to the door, rang the bell, and called into the cool dim rooms: “What year is this?”
“Nineteen twenty-six, of course,” said the lady, sitting in a rocking chair, taking a sip of her lemonade.
“Did you hear that?” Lustig turned wildly to the others. “Nineteen twenty-six! We have gone back in time! This is Earth!”
Lustig sat down, and the three men let the wonder and terror of the thought afflict them. Their hands stirred fitfully on their knees. The captain said, “I didn’t ask for a thing like this. It scares the hell out of me. How can a thing like this happen? I wish we’d brought Einstein with us.”
“Will anyone in this town believe us?” said Hinkston. “Are we playing with something dangerous? Time, I mean. Shouldn’t we just take off and go home?”
“No. Not until we try another house.”
They walked three houses down to a little white cottage under an oak tree. “I like to be as logical as I can be,” said the captain. “And I don’t believe we’ve put our finger on it yet. Suppose, Hinkston, as you originally suggested, that rocket travel occurred years ago? And when the Earth people lived here a
number of years they began to get homesick for Earth. First a mild neurosis about it, then a full-fledged psychosis. Then threatened insanity. What would you do as a psychiatrist if faced with such a problem?”
Hinkston thought. “Well, I think I’d rearrange the civilization on Mars so it resembled Earth more and more each day. If there was any way of reproducing every plant, every road, and every lake, and even an ocean, I’d do so. Then by some vast crowd hypnosis I’d convince everyone in a town this size that this really was Earth, not Mars at all.”
“Good enough, Hinkston. I think we’re on the right track now. That woman in that house back there just thinks she’s living on Earth. It protects her sanity. She and all the others in this town are the patients of the greatest experiment in migration and hypnosis you will ever lay eyes on in your life.”
“That’s it sir!” cried Lustig.
“Right!” said Hinkston.
“Well.” The captain sighed. “Now we’ve got somewhere. I feel better. It’s all a bit more logical. That talk about time and going back and forth and traveling through time turns my stomach upside down. But this way –” The captain smiled. “Well, well, it looks as if we’ll be fairly popular here.”
“Or will we?” said Lustig. “After all, like the Pilgrims, these people came here to escape Earth. Maybe they won’t be too happy to see us. Maybe they’ll try to drive us out or kill us.”
“We have superior weapons. This next house now. Up we go.”
But they had hardly crossed the lawn when Lustig stopped and looked off across the town, down the quiet, dreaming afternoon street. “Sir,” he said.
“What is it, Lustig?”
“Oh, sir, sir, what I see – ” said Lustig, and he began to cry. His fingers came up, twisting and shaking, and his face was all wonder and joy and incredulity. He sounded as if at any moment he might go quite insane with happiness. He looked down the street and began to run, stumbling awkwardly, falling, picking himself up, and running on. “Look, look!”
“Don’t let him get away!” The captain broke into a run.
Now Lustig was running swiftly, shouting. He turned into a yard halfway down the shady street and leaped up upon the porch of a large green house with an iron rooster on the roof.
He was beating at the door, hollering and crying, when Hinkston and the captain ran up behind him. They were all gasping and wheezing, exhausted from their run in the thin air. “Grandma! Grandpa!” cried Lustig.
Two old people stood in the doorway.
“David!” their voices piped, and they rushed out to embrace and pat him on the back and move around him. “David, oh, David, it’s been so many years! How you’ve grown, boy; how big you are, boy. Oh, David boy, how are you?”
“Grandma, Grandpa!” sobbed David Lustig. “You look fine, fine!” He held them, turned them, kissed them, hugged them, cried on them, held them out again, blinking at the little old people. The sun was in the sky, the wind blew, the grass was green, the screen door stood wide.
“Come in, boy, come in. There’s iced tea for you, fresh, lots of it!”
“I’ve got friends here.” Lustig turned and waved at the captain and Hinkston frantically, laughing. “Captain, come on up.”
“Howdy,” said the old people. “Come in. Any friends of David’s are our friends too. Don’t stand there!”
In the living room of the old house it was cool, and a grandfather clock ticked high and long and bronzed in one corner. There were soft pillows on large couches and walls filled with books and a rug cut in a thick rose patter, and iced tea in the hand, sweating, and cool on the thirsty tongue.
“Here’s to our health.” Grandma tipped her glass to her porcelain teeth.
“How long you been here, Grandma?” said Lustig.
“Ever since we died,” she said tartly.
“Ever since you what?” Captain John Black set down his glass.
“Oh yes.” Lustig nodded. “They’ve been dead thirty years.”
“And you sit there calmly!” shouted the captain.
“Tush.” The old woman winked glitteringly. “Who are you to question what happens? Here we are. What’s life, anyway? Who does what for why and where? All we know is here we are alive again and no questions asked. A second chance.” She toddled over and held out her thin wrist. “Feel.” The captain felt. “Solid, ain’t it?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, then,” she said triumphantly, “why go around questioning?”
“Well,” said the captain, “it’s simply that we never thought we’d find a thing like this on Mars.”
“And now you’ve found it. I dare say there’s lots on every planet that’ll show you God’s infinite ways.”
“Is this Heaven?” asked Hinkston.
“Nonsense, no. It’s a world and we get a second chance. Nobody told us why. But then nobody told us why we were on Earth, either. That other Earth, I mean. The one you came from. How do we know there wasn’t another before that one?”
“A good question,” said the captain.
Lustig kept smiling at his grandparents. “Gosh, it’s good to see you. Gosh, it’s good.”
The captain stood up and slapped his hand on his leg in a casual fashion. “We’ve got to be going. Thank you for the drinks.”
“You’ll be back, of course,” said the old people. “For supper tonight?”
“We’ll try to make it, thanks. There’s so much to be done. My men are waiting for me back at the rocket and –”
He stopped. He looked toward the door, startled.
Far away in the sunlight there was a sound of voices, a shouting and a great hello.
“What’s that?” asked Hinkston.
“We’ll soon find out.” And Captain John Black was out the front door abruptly, running across the green lawn into the street of the Martian town.
He stood looking at the rocket. The ports were open and his crew was streaming out, waving their hands. A crowd of people had gathered, and in and through and among these people the members of the crew were hurrying, talking, laughing, shaking hands. People did little dances. People swarmed. The rocket lay empty and abandoned.
A brass band exploded in the sunlight, flinging off a gay tune from upraised tubas and trumpets. There was a bang of drums and a shrill of fifes. Little girls with golden hair jumped up and down. Little boys shouted, “Hurray!” Fat men passed around ten-cent cigars. The town mayor made a speech. Then each member of the crew, with a mother on one arm, a father or sister on the other, was spirited off down the street into little cottages or big mansions.
“Stop!” cried Captain Black.
The doors slammed shut.
The head rose in the clear spring sky, and all was silent. The brass band banged off around a corner, leaving the rocket to shine and dazzle alone in the sunlight.
“Abandoned!” said the captain. “They abandoned the ship, they did! I’ll have their skins, by God! They had orders!”
“Sir, said Lustig, “don’t be too hard on them. Those were all old relatives and friends.”
“That’s no excuse!”
“Think how they felt, Captain, seeing familiar faces outside the ship!”
“They had their orders, damn it!”
“But how would you have felt, Captain?”
“I would have obeyed orders –” The captain’s mouth remained open.
Striding along the sidewalk under the Martian sun, tall, smiling, eyes amazingly clear and blue, came a young man of some twenty-six years. “John!” the man called out, and broke into a trot.
“What?” Captain John Black swayed.
“John, you old son of a bitch!”
The man ran up and gripped his hand and slapped him on the back.
“It’s you,” said Captain Black.
“Of course, who’d you think it was?”
“Edward!” The captain appealed now to Lustig and Hinkston, holding the stranger’s hand. “This is my brother Edward. Ed, meet my men, Lustig, Hinkston! My brother!”
They tugged at each other’s hands and arms and then finally embraced. “Ed!” “John, you bum, you!” “You’re looking fine, Ed, but Ed, what is this? You haven’t changed over the years. You died, I remember, when you were twenty-six and I was nineteen. Good God, so many years ago, and here you are and, Lord, what goes on?”
“Mom’s waiting,” said Edward Black, grinning.
“Mom?”
“And Dad too.”
“Dad?” The captain almost fell as if he had been hit by a mighty weapon. He walked stiffly and without co-ordination. “Mom and Dad alive? Where?”
“At the old house on Oak Knoll Avenue.”
“The old house.” The captain stared in delighted amaze. “Did you hear that, Lustig, Hinkston?”
Hinkston was gone. He had seen his own house down the street and was running for it. Lustig was laughing. “You see, Captain, what happened to everyone on the rocket? They couldn’t help themselves.”
“Yes. Yes.” The captain shut his eyes. “When I open my eyes you’ll be gone.” He blinked. “You’re still there. God, Ed, but you look fine!”
“Come on, lunch’s waiting. I told Mom.”
Lustig said, “Sir, I’ll be with my grandfolks if you need me.”
“What? Oh, fine, Lustig. Later, then.”
Edward seized his arm and marched him. “There’s the house. Remember it?”
“Hell! Bet I can beat you to the front porch!”
They ran. The trees roared over Captain Black’s head; the earth roared under his feet. He saw the golden figure of Edward Black pull ahead of hi in the amazing dream of reality. He saw the house rush forward, the screen door swing wide. “Beat you!” cried Edward. “I’m an old man,” panted the captain, “and you’re still young. But then, you always beat me, I remember!”
In the doorway, Mom, pink, plump, and bright. Behind her, pepper-gray, Dad, his pipe in his hand.
“Mom, Dad!”
He ran up the steps like a child to meet them.
It was a fine long afternoon. They finished a late lunch and they sat in the parlor and he told them all about his rocket and they nodded and smiled upon him and Mother was just the same and Dad bit the end off a cigar and lighted it thoughtfully in his old fashion. There was a big turkey dinner at night and time flowing on. When the drumsticks were sucked clean and lay brittle upon the plates, the captain leaned back and exhaled his deep satisfaction. Night was in all the trees and coloring the sky, and the lamps were halos of pink light in the gentle house. From all the other houses down the street came sounds of music, pianos playing, doors slamming.
Mom put a record on the Victrola, and she and Captain John Black had a dance. She was wearing the same perfume he remembered from the summer when she and Dad had been killed in the train accident. She was very real in his arms as they danced lightly to the music. “It’s not every day,” she said, “ you get a second chance to live.”
“I’ll wake in the morning,” said the captain. “And I’ll be in my rocket, in space, and all this will be gone.”
“No, don’t think that,” she cried softly. “Don’t question. God’s good to us. Let’s be happy.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
The record ended in a circular hissing.
“You’re tired, Son.” Dad pointed with his pipe. “Your old bedroom’s waiting for you, brass bed and all.”
“But I should report my men in.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, I don’t know. No reason, I guess. No, none at all. They’re all eating or in bed. A good night’s sleep won’t hurt them.”
“Good night, Son.” Mom kissed his cheek. “It’s good to have you home.”
“It’s good to be home.”
He left the land of cigar smoke and perfume and books and gentle light and ascended the stairs, talking, talking with Edward. Edward pushed a door open, and there was the yellow brass bed and the old semaphore banners from college and a very musty raccoon coat which he stroked with muted affection. “It’s too much,” said the captain. “I’m numb and I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.”
Edward slapped wide the snowy linens and flounced the pillows. He slid the window up and let the night-blooming jasmine float in. There was moonlight and the sound of distant dancing and whispering.
“So this is Mars,” said the captain, undressing.
“This is it.” Edward undressed in idle, leisurely moves, drawing his shirt off over his head, revealing golden shoulders and the good muscular neck.
The lights were out; they were in bed, side by side, as in the days how many decades ago? The captain lolled and was nourished by the scent of jasmine pushing the lace curtains in upon the dark air of the room. Among the trees, upon a lawn, someone had cranked up a portable phonograph and now it was playing softly, “Always.”
The thought of Marilyn came to his mind.
“Is Marilyn here?”
His brother, lying straight out in the moonlight from the window, waited and then said, “Yes. She’s out of town. But she’ll be here in the morning.”
The captain shut his eyes. “I want to see Marilyn very much.”
The room was square and quiet except for their breathing.
“Good night, Ed.”
A pause. “Good night, John.”
He lay peacefully, letting his thoughts float. For the first time the stress of the day was moved aside; he could think logically now. It had all been emotion. The bands playing, the familiar faces. But now . . .
How? he wondered. How was all this made? And why? For what purpose? Out of the goodness of some divine intervention? Was God, then, really that thoughtful of his children? How and why and what for?
He considered the various theories advanced in the first heat of the afternoon by Hinkston and Lustig. He let all kinds of new theories drop in lazy pebbles down through his mind, turning, throwing out dull flashes of light. Mom. Dad. Edward. Mars. Earth. Mars. Martians.
Who had lived here a thousand years ago on Mars? Martians? Or had this always been the way it was today?
Martians. He repeated the word idly, inwardly.
He laughed out loud almost. He had the most ridiculous theory quite suddenly. It gave him a kind of chill. It was really nothing to consider, of course. Highly improbable. Silly. Forget it. Ridiculous.
But, he thought, just suppose . . . Just suppose, now, that there were Martians living on Mars and they saw our ship coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us. Supposed, now, just for the hell of it, that they wanted to destroy us, as invaders, as unwanted ones, and they wanted to do it in a very clever
way, so that we would be taken off guard. Well, what would the best weapon be that a Martian could use against Earth Men with atomic weapons?
The answer was interesting. Telepathy, hypnosis, memory, and imagination.
Suppose all of these houses aren’t real at all, this bed not real, but only figments of my own imagination, given substance by telepathy and hypnosis through the Martians, thought Captain John Black. Suppose these houses are really some other shape, a Martian shape, but, by playing on my own desire and wants, these Martians have made this seem like my old home town, my old house, to lull me out of my suspicions. What better way to fool a man, using his own mother and father as bait?
And this town, so old, from the year 1926, long before any of my men were born. From a year when I was six years old and there were records of Harry Lauder, and Maxfield Parrish paintings still hanging, and bead curtains, and “Beautiful Ohio,” and turn-of-the-century architecture. What if the Martians took the memories of a town exclusively from my mind? They say childhood memories are the clearest. And after they built the town from my mind, they populated it with the most-loved people from all the minds of the people on the rocket!
And suppose those two people in the next room, asleep, are not my mother and father at all. But two Martians, incredibly brilliant, with the ability to keep me under this dreaming hypnosis all of the time.
And that brass band today? What a startlingly wonderful plan it would be. First, fool Lustig, then Hinkston, then gather a crowd; and all the men in the rocket, seeing mothers, aunts, uncles, sweethearts, dead ten, twenty years ago, naturally, disregarding orders, rush out and abandon ship. What more natural? What more unsuspecting? What more simple? A man doesn’t ask too many questions when his mother is suddenly brought back to life; he’s much too happy. And here we all are tonight, in various houses, in various beds, with no weapons to protect us, and the rocket lies in the moonlight, empty. And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night, perhaps, my brother here on this bed will change form, melt, shift, and become another thing, a terrible thing, a Martian. It would be very simple for him just to turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart. And in all those other houses down the street, a dozen other brothers or fathers suddenly melting away and taking knives and doing things to the unsuspecting, sleeping men of Earth. . . .
His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very afraid.
He lifted himself in bed and listened. The night was very quiet. The music had stopped. The wind had died. His brother lay sleeping beside him.
Carefully he lifted the covers, rolled them back. He slipped from bed and was walking softly across the room when his brother’s voice said, “Where are you going?”
“What?”
His brother’s voice was quite cold. “I said, where do you think you’re going?”
“For a drink of water.”
“But you’re not thirsty.”
“Yes, yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
Captain John Black broke and ran across the room. He screamed. He screamed twice.
He never reached the door.
In the morning the brass band played a mournful dirge. From every house in the street came little solemn processions bearing long boxes, and along the sun-filled street, weeping, came the grandmas and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and fathers, walking to the churchyard, where there were new holes freshly dug and new tombstones installed. Sixteen holes in all, and sixteen tombstones.
The mayor made a little sad speech, his face sometimes looking like the mayor, sometimes looking like something else.
Mother and Father Black were there, with Brother Edward, and they cried, their faces melting now from a familiar face into something else.
Grandpa and Grandma Lustig were there, weeping, their faces shifting like wax, shimmering as all things shimmer on a hot day.
The coffins were lowered. Someone murmured about “the unexpected and sudden deaths of sixteen fine men during the night –”
Earth pounded down on the coffin lids.
The brass band, playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” marched and slammed back into town, and everyone took the day off.
Ray Bradbury
The ship came down from space. It came from the stars and the black velocities, and the shining movements, and the silent gulfs of space. It was a new ship; it had fire in its body and men in its metal cells, and it moved with a clean silence, fiery and warm. In it were seventeen men, including a captain. The crowd at the Ohio field had shouted and waved their hands up into the sunlight, and the rocket had bloomed out great flowers of heat and color and run away into space on the third voyage to Mars!
Now it was decelerating with metal efficiency in the upper Martian atmospheres. It was still a thing of beauty and strength. It had moved in the midnight waters of space like a pale sea leviathan; it had passed the ancient Moon and thrown itself onward into one nothingness following another. The men within it had been battered, thrown about, sickened, made well again, each in his turn. One man had died, but now the remaining sixteen, with their eyes clear in their heads and their faces pressed to the thick glass ports, watched Mars swing up under them.
“Mars!” cried Navigator Lustig.
“Good old Mars!” said Samuel Hinkston, archaeologist.
“Well,” said Captain John Black.
The rocket landed on a lawn of green grass. Outside, upon this lawn, stood an iron deer. Further up on the green stood a tall brown Victorian house quiet in the sunlight, all covered with scrolls and rococo, its windows made of blue and pink and yellow and green colored glass. Upon the porch were hairy geraniums and an old swing which was hooked into the porch ceiling and which now swung back and forth, back and forth, in a little breeze. At the summit of the house was a cupola with diamond leaded-glass windows and a dunce-cap roof! Through the front window you could see a piece of music titled “Beautiful Ohio” sitting on the music rest.
Around the rocket in four directions spread the little town, green and motionless in the Martian spring. There were white houses and red brick ones, and tall elm trees blowing in the wind, and tall maples and horse chestnuts. And church steeples with gold bells silent in them.
The rocket men looked out and saw this. Then they looked at one another and then they looked out again. They held to each other’s elbows, suddenly unable to breathe, it seemed. Their faces grew pale.
“I’ll be damned,” whispered Lustig, rubbing his face with his numb fingers. “I’ll be damned.”
“It just can’t be,” said Samuel Hinkston.
“Lord,” said John Black.
There was a call from the chemist. “Sir, the atmosphere is thin for breathing. But there’s enough oxygen. It’s safe.”
“Then we’ll go out,” said Lustig.
“Hold on,” said Captain John Black. “How do we know what this is?”
“It’s a small town with thin but breathable air in it, sir.”
“And it’s a small town the like of Earth towns,” said Hinkston, the archaeologist. “Incredible. It can’t be, but it is.”
Captain John Black looked at him idly. “Do you think that the civilization of two planets can progress at the same rate and evolve in the same way Hinkston?”
“I wouldn’t have thought so, sir.”
Captain Black stood by the port. “Look out there. The geraniums. A specialized plant. That specific variety has only been known on Earth for fifty years. Think of the thousands of years it takes to evolve plants. Then tell me if it is logical that the Martians should have: one, leaded-glass windows; two, cupolas; three, porch swings; four, and instrument that looks like a piano and probably is a piano; and five, if you look closely through this telescopic lens here, is it logical that a Martian composer would have published a piece of music titled, strangely enough, ‘Beautiful Ohio’? All of which means that we have an Ohio River on Mars!”
“Captain Williams, of course!” cried Hinkston.
“What?”
“Captain Williams and his crew of three men! Or Nathaniel York and his partner. That would explain it!”
“That would explain absolutely nothing. As far as we’ve been able to figure, the York expedition exploded the day it reached Mars, killing York and his partner. As for Williams and his three men, their ship exploded the second day after their arrival. At least the pulsations from their radios ceased at that time, so we figure that if the men were alive after that they’d have contacted us. And anyway, the York expedition was only a year ago, while Captain Williams and his men landed here some time during last August. Theorizing that they are still alive, could they, even with the help of a brilliant Martian race, have built such a town as this and aged it in so short a time? Look at that town out there; why, it’s been standing here for the last seventy years. Look at the wood on the porch newel; look at the trees, a century old, all of them! No, this isn’t York’s work or Williams’. It’s something else. I don’t like it. And I’m not leaving the ship until I know what it is.”
“For that matter,” said Lustig, nodding, “Williams and his men, as well as York, landed on the opposite side of Mars. We were very careful to land on this side.”
“An excellent point. Just in case a hostile local tribe of Martians killed off York and Williams, we have instructions to land in a further region, to forestall a recurrence of such a disaster. So here we are, as far as we know, in a land that Williams and York never saw.”
“Damn it,” said Hinkston, “I want to get out into this town, sir, with your permission. It may be there are similar thought patterns, civilizations graphs on every planet in our sun system. We may be on the threshold of the greatest psychological and metaphysical discovery of our age!”
“I’m willing to wait a moment,” said Captain John Black.
“It may be, sir, that we’re looking upon a phenomenon that, for the first time, would absolutely prove the existence of God, sir.”
“There are many people who are of good faith without such proof, Mr. Hinkston.”
“I’m one myself, sir. But certainly a town like this could not occur without divine intervention. The detail. It fills me with such feelings that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
“Do neither, then, until we know what we’re up against.”
“Up against?” Lustig broke in. “Against nothing, Captain. It’s a good, quiet green town, a lot like the old-fashioned one I was born in. I like the looks of it.”
“When were you born, Lustig?”
“Nineteen fifty, sir.”
“And you, Hinkston?”
“Nineteen fifty-five, sir. Grinnell, Iowa. And this looks like home to me.”
“Hinkston, Lustig, I could be either of your fathers. I’m just eighty years old. Born in 1920 in Illinois, and through the grace of God and a science that, in the last fifty years, knows how to make some old men young again, here I am on Mars, not any more tired than the rest of you, but infinitely more suspicious. This town out here looks very peaceful and cool, and so much like Green Bluff, Illinois, that it frightens me. It’s too much like Green Bluff.” He turned to the radioman. “Radio Earth. Tell them we’ve landed. That’s all. Tell them we’ll radio a full report tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Black looked out the rocket port with his face that should have been the face of a man eighty but seemed like the face of a man in his fortieth year. “Tell you what we’ll do, Lustig; you and I and Hinkston’ll look the town over. The other men’ll stay aboard. If anything happens they can get the hell out. A loss of three men’s better than a whole ship. If something bad happens, our crew can warn the next rocket. That’s Captain Wilder’s rocket, I think, due to be ready to take off next Christmas. If there’s something hostile about Mars we certainly want the next rocket to be well armed.”
“So are we. We’ve got a regular arsenal with us.”
“Tell the men to stand by the guns then. Come on, Lustig, Hinkston.”
The three men walked together down through the levels of the ship.
It was a beautiful spring day. A robin sat on a blossoming apple tree and sang continuously. Showers of petal snow sifted down when the wind touched the green branches, and the blossom scent drifted upon the air. Somewhere in the town someone was playing the piano and the music came and went, came and went, softly, drowsily. The song was “Beautiful Dreamer.” Somewhere else a phonograph, scratchy and faded, was hissing out a record of “Roamin’ in the Gloamin’,” sung by Harry Lauder.
The three men stood outside the ship. They sucked and gasped at the thin, thin air and moved slowly so as not to tire themselves.
Now the phonograph record being played was:
Oh, give me a June night
The moonlight and you . . .
Lustig began to tremble. Samuel Hinkston did likewise.
The sky was serene and quiet, and somewhere a stream of water ran through the cool caverns and tree shadings of a ravine. Somewhere a horse and wagon trotted and rolled by, bumping.
“Sir,” said Samuel Hinkston, “it must be, it has to be, that rocket travel to Mars began in the years before the First World War!”
“No.”
“How else can you explain these houses, the iron deer, the pianos, the music?” Hinkston took the captain’s elbow persuasively and looked into the captain’s face. “Say that there were people in the year 1905 who hated war and got together with some scientists in secret and built a rocket and came out here to Mars –”
“No, no, Hinkston.”
“Why not? The world was a different world in 1905; they could have kept it a secret much more easily.”
“But a complex thing like a rocket, no, you couldn’t keep it secret.”
“And they came up here to live, and naturally the houses they built were similar to Earth houses because they brought the culture with them.”
“And they’ve lived here all these year?” said the captain.
“In peace and quiet, yes. Maybe they made a few trips, enough to bring enough people here for one small town, and then stopped for fear of being discovered. That’s why this town seems so old-fashioned. I don’t see a thing, myself, older than the year 1927, do you? Or maybe, sir, rocket travel is older than we think. Perhaps it started in some part of the world centuries ago and was kept secret by the small number of men who came to Mars with only occasional visits to Earth over the centuries.”
“You make it sound almost reasonable.”
“It has to be. We’ve the proof here before us; all we have to do is find some people and verify it.”
Their boots were deadened of all sound in the thick green grass. It smelled from a fresh mowing. In spite of himself, Captain John Black felt a great peace come over him. It had been thirty years since he had been in a small town, and the buzzing of spring bees on the air lulled and quieted him, and the fresh look of things was a balm to the soul.
They set foot upon the porch. Hollow echoes sounded from under the boards as they walked to the screen door. Inside they could see a bead curtain hung across the hall entry, and a crystal chandelier and a Maxfield Parrish painting framed on one wall over a comfortable Morris chair. The house smelled old, and of the attic, and infinitely comfortable. You could hear the tinkle of ice in a lemonade pitcher. In a distant kitchen, because of the heat of the day, someone was preparing a cold lunch. Someone was humming under her breath, high and sweet.
Captain John Black rang the bell.
Footsteps, dainty and thin, came along the hall, and a kind-faced lady of some forty years, dressed in the sort of dress you might expect in the year 1909 peered out at them.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Beg your pardon,” said Captain Black uncertainly. “But we’re looking for – that is, could you help us –” He stopped. She looked out at him with dark, wondering eyes.
“If you’re selling something –” she began.
“No, wait!” he cried. “What town is this?”
She looked him up and down. “What do you mean, what town is it? How could you be in a town and not know the name?”
The captain looked as if he wanted to go sit under a shady apple tree. “We’re strangers here. We want to know how this town got here and how you got here.”
“Are you census takers?”
“No.”
“Everyone knows,” she said, “this town was built in 1868. Is this a game?”
“No, not a game!” cried the captain. “We’re from Earth.”
“Out of the ground, do you mean?” she wondered.
“No, we came from the third planet, Earth, in a ship. And we’ve landed here on the fourth planet, Mars –”
“This,” explained the woman, as if she were addressing a child, “is Green Bluff, Illinois, on the continent of America, surrounded by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on a place called the world, or, sometimes, the Earth. Go away now. Good-by.”
She trotted down the hall, running her fingers through the beaded curtains.
The three men looked at one another.
“Let’s knock the screen door in,” said Lustig.
“We can’t do that. This is private property. Good God!”
They went to sit down on the porch step.
“Did it ever strike you, Hinkston, that perhaps we got ourselves somehow, in some way, off track, and by accident came back and landed on Earth?”
“How could we have done that?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Oh God, let me think.”
Hinkston said, “But we checked every mile of the way. Our chronometers said so many miles. We went past the Moon and out into space, and here we are. I’m positive we’re on Mars.”
Lustig said, “But suppose, by accident, in space, in time, we got lost in the dimensions and landed on an Earth that is thirty or forty years ago.”
“Oh, go away, Lustig!”
Lustig went to the door, rang the bell, and called into the cool dim rooms: “What year is this?”
“Nineteen twenty-six, of course,” said the lady, sitting in a rocking chair, taking a sip of her lemonade.
“Did you hear that?” Lustig turned wildly to the others. “Nineteen twenty-six! We have gone back in time! This is Earth!”
Lustig sat down, and the three men let the wonder and terror of the thought afflict them. Their hands stirred fitfully on their knees. The captain said, “I didn’t ask for a thing like this. It scares the hell out of me. How can a thing like this happen? I wish we’d brought Einstein with us.”
“Will anyone in this town believe us?” said Hinkston. “Are we playing with something dangerous? Time, I mean. Shouldn’t we just take off and go home?”
“No. Not until we try another house.”
They walked three houses down to a little white cottage under an oak tree. “I like to be as logical as I can be,” said the captain. “And I don’t believe we’ve put our finger on it yet. Suppose, Hinkston, as you originally suggested, that rocket travel occurred years ago? And when the Earth people lived here a
number of years they began to get homesick for Earth. First a mild neurosis about it, then a full-fledged psychosis. Then threatened insanity. What would you do as a psychiatrist if faced with such a problem?”
Hinkston thought. “Well, I think I’d rearrange the civilization on Mars so it resembled Earth more and more each day. If there was any way of reproducing every plant, every road, and every lake, and even an ocean, I’d do so. Then by some vast crowd hypnosis I’d convince everyone in a town this size that this really was Earth, not Mars at all.”
“Good enough, Hinkston. I think we’re on the right track now. That woman in that house back there just thinks she’s living on Earth. It protects her sanity. She and all the others in this town are the patients of the greatest experiment in migration and hypnosis you will ever lay eyes on in your life.”
“That’s it sir!” cried Lustig.
“Right!” said Hinkston.
“Well.” The captain sighed. “Now we’ve got somewhere. I feel better. It’s all a bit more logical. That talk about time and going back and forth and traveling through time turns my stomach upside down. But this way –” The captain smiled. “Well, well, it looks as if we’ll be fairly popular here.”
“Or will we?” said Lustig. “After all, like the Pilgrims, these people came here to escape Earth. Maybe they won’t be too happy to see us. Maybe they’ll try to drive us out or kill us.”
“We have superior weapons. This next house now. Up we go.”
But they had hardly crossed the lawn when Lustig stopped and looked off across the town, down the quiet, dreaming afternoon street. “Sir,” he said.
“What is it, Lustig?”
“Oh, sir, sir, what I see – ” said Lustig, and he began to cry. His fingers came up, twisting and shaking, and his face was all wonder and joy and incredulity. He sounded as if at any moment he might go quite insane with happiness. He looked down the street and began to run, stumbling awkwardly, falling, picking himself up, and running on. “Look, look!”
“Don’t let him get away!” The captain broke into a run.
Now Lustig was running swiftly, shouting. He turned into a yard halfway down the shady street and leaped up upon the porch of a large green house with an iron rooster on the roof.
He was beating at the door, hollering and crying, when Hinkston and the captain ran up behind him. They were all gasping and wheezing, exhausted from their run in the thin air. “Grandma! Grandpa!” cried Lustig.
Two old people stood in the doorway.
“David!” their voices piped, and they rushed out to embrace and pat him on the back and move around him. “David, oh, David, it’s been so many years! How you’ve grown, boy; how big you are, boy. Oh, David boy, how are you?”
“Grandma, Grandpa!” sobbed David Lustig. “You look fine, fine!” He held them, turned them, kissed them, hugged them, cried on them, held them out again, blinking at the little old people. The sun was in the sky, the wind blew, the grass was green, the screen door stood wide.
“Come in, boy, come in. There’s iced tea for you, fresh, lots of it!”
“I’ve got friends here.” Lustig turned and waved at the captain and Hinkston frantically, laughing. “Captain, come on up.”
“Howdy,” said the old people. “Come in. Any friends of David’s are our friends too. Don’t stand there!”
In the living room of the old house it was cool, and a grandfather clock ticked high and long and bronzed in one corner. There were soft pillows on large couches and walls filled with books and a rug cut in a thick rose patter, and iced tea in the hand, sweating, and cool on the thirsty tongue.
“Here’s to our health.” Grandma tipped her glass to her porcelain teeth.
“How long you been here, Grandma?” said Lustig.
“Ever since we died,” she said tartly.
“Ever since you what?” Captain John Black set down his glass.
“Oh yes.” Lustig nodded. “They’ve been dead thirty years.”
“And you sit there calmly!” shouted the captain.
“Tush.” The old woman winked glitteringly. “Who are you to question what happens? Here we are. What’s life, anyway? Who does what for why and where? All we know is here we are alive again and no questions asked. A second chance.” She toddled over and held out her thin wrist. “Feel.” The captain felt. “Solid, ain’t it?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, then,” she said triumphantly, “why go around questioning?”
“Well,” said the captain, “it’s simply that we never thought we’d find a thing like this on Mars.”
“And now you’ve found it. I dare say there’s lots on every planet that’ll show you God’s infinite ways.”
“Is this Heaven?” asked Hinkston.
“Nonsense, no. It’s a world and we get a second chance. Nobody told us why. But then nobody told us why we were on Earth, either. That other Earth, I mean. The one you came from. How do we know there wasn’t another before that one?”
“A good question,” said the captain.
Lustig kept smiling at his grandparents. “Gosh, it’s good to see you. Gosh, it’s good.”
The captain stood up and slapped his hand on his leg in a casual fashion. “We’ve got to be going. Thank you for the drinks.”
“You’ll be back, of course,” said the old people. “For supper tonight?”
“We’ll try to make it, thanks. There’s so much to be done. My men are waiting for me back at the rocket and –”
He stopped. He looked toward the door, startled.
Far away in the sunlight there was a sound of voices, a shouting and a great hello.
“What’s that?” asked Hinkston.
“We’ll soon find out.” And Captain John Black was out the front door abruptly, running across the green lawn into the street of the Martian town.
He stood looking at the rocket. The ports were open and his crew was streaming out, waving their hands. A crowd of people had gathered, and in and through and among these people the members of the crew were hurrying, talking, laughing, shaking hands. People did little dances. People swarmed. The rocket lay empty and abandoned.
A brass band exploded in the sunlight, flinging off a gay tune from upraised tubas and trumpets. There was a bang of drums and a shrill of fifes. Little girls with golden hair jumped up and down. Little boys shouted, “Hurray!” Fat men passed around ten-cent cigars. The town mayor made a speech. Then each member of the crew, with a mother on one arm, a father or sister on the other, was spirited off down the street into little cottages or big mansions.
“Stop!” cried Captain Black.
The doors slammed shut.
The head rose in the clear spring sky, and all was silent. The brass band banged off around a corner, leaving the rocket to shine and dazzle alone in the sunlight.
“Abandoned!” said the captain. “They abandoned the ship, they did! I’ll have their skins, by God! They had orders!”
“Sir, said Lustig, “don’t be too hard on them. Those were all old relatives and friends.”
“That’s no excuse!”
“Think how they felt, Captain, seeing familiar faces outside the ship!”
“They had their orders, damn it!”
“But how would you have felt, Captain?”
“I would have obeyed orders –” The captain’s mouth remained open.
Striding along the sidewalk under the Martian sun, tall, smiling, eyes amazingly clear and blue, came a young man of some twenty-six years. “John!” the man called out, and broke into a trot.
“What?” Captain John Black swayed.
“John, you old son of a bitch!”
The man ran up and gripped his hand and slapped him on the back.
“It’s you,” said Captain Black.
“Of course, who’d you think it was?”
“Edward!” The captain appealed now to Lustig and Hinkston, holding the stranger’s hand. “This is my brother Edward. Ed, meet my men, Lustig, Hinkston! My brother!”
They tugged at each other’s hands and arms and then finally embraced. “Ed!” “John, you bum, you!” “You’re looking fine, Ed, but Ed, what is this? You haven’t changed over the years. You died, I remember, when you were twenty-six and I was nineteen. Good God, so many years ago, and here you are and, Lord, what goes on?”
“Mom’s waiting,” said Edward Black, grinning.
“Mom?”
“And Dad too.”
“Dad?” The captain almost fell as if he had been hit by a mighty weapon. He walked stiffly and without co-ordination. “Mom and Dad alive? Where?”
“At the old house on Oak Knoll Avenue.”
“The old house.” The captain stared in delighted amaze. “Did you hear that, Lustig, Hinkston?”
Hinkston was gone. He had seen his own house down the street and was running for it. Lustig was laughing. “You see, Captain, what happened to everyone on the rocket? They couldn’t help themselves.”
“Yes. Yes.” The captain shut his eyes. “When I open my eyes you’ll be gone.” He blinked. “You’re still there. God, Ed, but you look fine!”
“Come on, lunch’s waiting. I told Mom.”
Lustig said, “Sir, I’ll be with my grandfolks if you need me.”
“What? Oh, fine, Lustig. Later, then.”
Edward seized his arm and marched him. “There’s the house. Remember it?”
“Hell! Bet I can beat you to the front porch!”
They ran. The trees roared over Captain Black’s head; the earth roared under his feet. He saw the golden figure of Edward Black pull ahead of hi in the amazing dream of reality. He saw the house rush forward, the screen door swing wide. “Beat you!” cried Edward. “I’m an old man,” panted the captain, “and you’re still young. But then, you always beat me, I remember!”
In the doorway, Mom, pink, plump, and bright. Behind her, pepper-gray, Dad, his pipe in his hand.
“Mom, Dad!”
He ran up the steps like a child to meet them.
It was a fine long afternoon. They finished a late lunch and they sat in the parlor and he told them all about his rocket and they nodded and smiled upon him and Mother was just the same and Dad bit the end off a cigar and lighted it thoughtfully in his old fashion. There was a big turkey dinner at night and time flowing on. When the drumsticks were sucked clean and lay brittle upon the plates, the captain leaned back and exhaled his deep satisfaction. Night was in all the trees and coloring the sky, and the lamps were halos of pink light in the gentle house. From all the other houses down the street came sounds of music, pianos playing, doors slamming.
Mom put a record on the Victrola, and she and Captain John Black had a dance. She was wearing the same perfume he remembered from the summer when she and Dad had been killed in the train accident. She was very real in his arms as they danced lightly to the music. “It’s not every day,” she said, “ you get a second chance to live.”
“I’ll wake in the morning,” said the captain. “And I’ll be in my rocket, in space, and all this will be gone.”
“No, don’t think that,” she cried softly. “Don’t question. God’s good to us. Let’s be happy.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
The record ended in a circular hissing.
“You’re tired, Son.” Dad pointed with his pipe. “Your old bedroom’s waiting for you, brass bed and all.”
“But I should report my men in.”
“Why?”
“Why? Well, I don’t know. No reason, I guess. No, none at all. They’re all eating or in bed. A good night’s sleep won’t hurt them.”
“Good night, Son.” Mom kissed his cheek. “It’s good to have you home.”
“It’s good to be home.”
He left the land of cigar smoke and perfume and books and gentle light and ascended the stairs, talking, talking with Edward. Edward pushed a door open, and there was the yellow brass bed and the old semaphore banners from college and a very musty raccoon coat which he stroked with muted affection. “It’s too much,” said the captain. “I’m numb and I’m tired. Too much has happened today. I feel as if I’d been out in a pounding rain for forty-eight hours without an umbrella or a coat. I’m soaked to the skin with emotion.”
Edward slapped wide the snowy linens and flounced the pillows. He slid the window up and let the night-blooming jasmine float in. There was moonlight and the sound of distant dancing and whispering.
“So this is Mars,” said the captain, undressing.
“This is it.” Edward undressed in idle, leisurely moves, drawing his shirt off over his head, revealing golden shoulders and the good muscular neck.
The lights were out; they were in bed, side by side, as in the days how many decades ago? The captain lolled and was nourished by the scent of jasmine pushing the lace curtains in upon the dark air of the room. Among the trees, upon a lawn, someone had cranked up a portable phonograph and now it was playing softly, “Always.”
The thought of Marilyn came to his mind.
“Is Marilyn here?”
His brother, lying straight out in the moonlight from the window, waited and then said, “Yes. She’s out of town. But she’ll be here in the morning.”
The captain shut his eyes. “I want to see Marilyn very much.”
The room was square and quiet except for their breathing.
“Good night, Ed.”
A pause. “Good night, John.”
He lay peacefully, letting his thoughts float. For the first time the stress of the day was moved aside; he could think logically now. It had all been emotion. The bands playing, the familiar faces. But now . . .
How? he wondered. How was all this made? And why? For what purpose? Out of the goodness of some divine intervention? Was God, then, really that thoughtful of his children? How and why and what for?
He considered the various theories advanced in the first heat of the afternoon by Hinkston and Lustig. He let all kinds of new theories drop in lazy pebbles down through his mind, turning, throwing out dull flashes of light. Mom. Dad. Edward. Mars. Earth. Mars. Martians.
Who had lived here a thousand years ago on Mars? Martians? Or had this always been the way it was today?
Martians. He repeated the word idly, inwardly.
He laughed out loud almost. He had the most ridiculous theory quite suddenly. It gave him a kind of chill. It was really nothing to consider, of course. Highly improbable. Silly. Forget it. Ridiculous.
But, he thought, just suppose . . . Just suppose, now, that there were Martians living on Mars and they saw our ship coming and saw us inside our ship and hated us. Supposed, now, just for the hell of it, that they wanted to destroy us, as invaders, as unwanted ones, and they wanted to do it in a very clever
way, so that we would be taken off guard. Well, what would the best weapon be that a Martian could use against Earth Men with atomic weapons?
The answer was interesting. Telepathy, hypnosis, memory, and imagination.
Suppose all of these houses aren’t real at all, this bed not real, but only figments of my own imagination, given substance by telepathy and hypnosis through the Martians, thought Captain John Black. Suppose these houses are really some other shape, a Martian shape, but, by playing on my own desire and wants, these Martians have made this seem like my old home town, my old house, to lull me out of my suspicions. What better way to fool a man, using his own mother and father as bait?
And this town, so old, from the year 1926, long before any of my men were born. From a year when I was six years old and there were records of Harry Lauder, and Maxfield Parrish paintings still hanging, and bead curtains, and “Beautiful Ohio,” and turn-of-the-century architecture. What if the Martians took the memories of a town exclusively from my mind? They say childhood memories are the clearest. And after they built the town from my mind, they populated it with the most-loved people from all the minds of the people on the rocket!
And suppose those two people in the next room, asleep, are not my mother and father at all. But two Martians, incredibly brilliant, with the ability to keep me under this dreaming hypnosis all of the time.
And that brass band today? What a startlingly wonderful plan it would be. First, fool Lustig, then Hinkston, then gather a crowd; and all the men in the rocket, seeing mothers, aunts, uncles, sweethearts, dead ten, twenty years ago, naturally, disregarding orders, rush out and abandon ship. What more natural? What more unsuspecting? What more simple? A man doesn’t ask too many questions when his mother is suddenly brought back to life; he’s much too happy. And here we all are tonight, in various houses, in various beds, with no weapons to protect us, and the rocket lies in the moonlight, empty. And wouldn’t it be horrible and terrifying to discover that all of this was part of some great clever plan by the Martians to divide and conquer us, and kill us? Sometime during the night, perhaps, my brother here on this bed will change form, melt, shift, and become another thing, a terrible thing, a Martian. It would be very simple for him just to turn over in bed and put a knife into my heart. And in all those other houses down the street, a dozen other brothers or fathers suddenly melting away and taking knives and doing things to the unsuspecting, sleeping men of Earth. . . .
His hands were shaking under the covers. His body was cold. Suddenly it was not a theory. Suddenly he was very afraid.
He lifted himself in bed and listened. The night was very quiet. The music had stopped. The wind had died. His brother lay sleeping beside him.
Carefully he lifted the covers, rolled them back. He slipped from bed and was walking softly across the room when his brother’s voice said, “Where are you going?”
“What?”
His brother’s voice was quite cold. “I said, where do you think you’re going?”
“For a drink of water.”
“But you’re not thirsty.”
“Yes, yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
Captain John Black broke and ran across the room. He screamed. He screamed twice.
He never reached the door.
In the morning the brass band played a mournful dirge. From every house in the street came little solemn processions bearing long boxes, and along the sun-filled street, weeping, came the grandmas and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and fathers, walking to the churchyard, where there were new holes freshly dug and new tombstones installed. Sixteen holes in all, and sixteen tombstones.
The mayor made a little sad speech, his face sometimes looking like the mayor, sometimes looking like something else.
Mother and Father Black were there, with Brother Edward, and they cried, their faces melting now from a familiar face into something else.
Grandpa and Grandma Lustig were there, weeping, their faces shifting like wax, shimmering as all things shimmer on a hot day.
The coffins were lowered. Someone murmured about “the unexpected and sudden deaths of sixteen fine men during the night –”
Earth pounded down on the coffin lids.
The brass band, playing “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” marched and slammed back into town, and everyone took the day off.
sábado, 17 de octubre de 2009
jueves, 15 de octubre de 2009
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sábado, 10 de octubre de 2009
SECCIÓN ESTUDIANTES Nobel de Literatura para una mujer alemana.
Escritora alemana gana Premio Nobel de Literatura 2009
La escritora alemana Herta Muller ha ganado el Premio Nobel de Literatura 2009, anunció el jueves la Academia Sueca. La escritora, que vive en Berlín desde 1987, nació en Nytzkydorf (Rumania) en 1953, en el seno de una familia de la minoría alemana que vive en Rumania y desde muy pequeña trató de tender puentes entre las dos culturas a las que pertenecía.
Herta Müller estudió filología germánica y filología rumana simultáneamente, tratando de profundizar los conocimientos de las dos literaturas a las que sentía que pertenecía.
Su primer libro, "Niederungen" (En tierras bajas, Siruela), tardó cuatro años en la editorial antes de que finalmente pudiese publicarse, en 1982, con recortes impuestos por la censura rumana.
Se trata de la primera vez desde 2003 que el Nobel de Literatura recae en una autora en lengua alemana, tras el recibido por la austríaca Elfriede Jelinek, ese año, mientras que el último alemán que lo ganó fue Günter Grass, en 1999.
La Academia galardonó con este premio a una escritora "quien, con la concentración de su poesía y la franqueza de su prosa, describe el panorama de las personas que no tienen nada."
Los premios se entregan anualmente desde 1901 a "aquellos que hayan conferido grandes beneficios a la humanidad durante el año anterior."En 2008, el prestigioso galardón fue para el francés Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.
Los Premios Nobel se anuncian normalmente en octubre y se entregan el 10 de diciembre, el aniversario de la muerte de Alfred Nobel en 1896, un industrial sueco e inventor de la dinamita.
Cada premio consiste en una medalla, un diploma personal y un premio en metálico de 10 millones de coronas suecas (unos 1,41 millones de dólares USA). (Xinhua)
Este es el cuarto Nobel que se anuncia esta semana, con los premios de Química, Física y Medicina hechos públicos en los últimos tres días.
martes, 6 de octubre de 2009
Cuento breve presentado por Alexandra Prado de P6a
Katia despertó de aquel sueño
Alexandra Prado
Eran las cuatro de la mañana cuando ella abrió sus ojos, con tal rapidez lo hizo
que era como encender un foco nuevo.
Se levantó se su cama y se dio cuenta de que no había nadie en casa.
Se quedó pensando en sus sentimientos de miedo y horror. Volvió a su cama
pensando dónde se habían ido todos.
Intentó llamar a su padre pensando que lo podría contactar, pero sin suerte.
Era tal su miedo que salió a la calle ;entonces se dio cuenta que todo estaba oscuro,
no veía nada, ni el reflejo de la luna.
Gritó lo más fuerte que pudo para ver
si alguien venía a ayudarla,
mas no se escuchó nada después
de su fuerte grito. Se sentó a llorar
en el mismo lugar donde estaba parada,
sin esperanzas de nada.
Un minuto después ella empezó a escuchar
suavemente y cada vez más fuerte
unos gritos de reproche retumbando a su alrededor,
¡casi se vuelve loca!
Era su madre llamándola para desayunar.
que era como encender un foco nuevo.
Se levantó se su cama y se dio cuenta de que no había nadie en casa.
Se quedó pensando en sus sentimientos de miedo y horror. Volvió a su cama
pensando dónde se habían ido todos.
Intentó llamar a su padre pensando que lo podría contactar, pero sin suerte.
Era tal su miedo que salió a la calle ;entonces se dio cuenta que todo estaba oscuro,
no veía nada, ni el reflejo de la luna.
Gritó lo más fuerte que pudo para ver
si alguien venía a ayudarla,
mas no se escuchó nada después
de su fuerte grito. Se sentó a llorar
en el mismo lugar donde estaba parada,
sin esperanzas de nada.
Un minuto después ella empezó a escuchar
suavemente y cada vez más fuerte
unos gritos de reproche retumbando a su alrededor,
¡casi se vuelve loca!
Era su madre llamándola para desayunar.
LA VIDA MIA Poema presentado por Fabiana Rodas Medina de P5c
En contra del tiempo avanzando,
rechazando lo que no es mejor.
Desconforme y parcialmente
conformado en la vida mía,
siempre buscando.
He encontrado algunas cosas,
he ganado y perdido otras;
pero conservo la más bella, aún...
bajo el sol y la luna.
Mirando hacia atrás,
veo miradas que no volverán,
recuerdos que han pasado,
del que era y ya no soy más.
Si... transcurren los años.
El artista aflora siempre.
Aunque no fielmente,
es el fénix y es la flor.
En la vida mía contemplo,
escucho lo que hacen
y dicen héroes y vagabundos.
Las voces perduran en el tiempo,
los actos, te convierten en algo.
Mi poema de la vida, tiene principio y no final.
El río sigue su camino, continuo, hacia la mar....
rechazando lo que no es mejor.
Desconforme y parcialmente
conformado en la vida mía,
siempre buscando.
He encontrado algunas cosas,
he ganado y perdido otras;
pero conservo la más bella, aún...
bajo el sol y la luna.
Mirando hacia atrás,
veo miradas que no volverán,
recuerdos que han pasado,
del que era y ya no soy más.
Si... transcurren los años.
El artista aflora siempre.
Aunque no fielmente,
es el fénix y es la flor.
En la vida mía contemplo,
escucho lo que hacen
y dicen héroes y vagabundos.
Las voces perduran en el tiempo,
los actos, te convierten en algo.
Mi poema de la vida, tiene principio y no final.
El río sigue su camino, continuo, hacia la mar....
sábado, 26 de septiembre de 2009
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