{"id":22710,"date":"2025-06-15T21:51:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T01:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=22710"},"modified":"2025-06-15T23:25:30","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T03:25:30","slug":"ray-bradbury-the-long-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/ray-bradbury-the-long-years\/22710\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: The Long Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis<\/strong>: In “The Long Years<\/em>,” a short story by Ray Bradbury published on September 15, 1948, in Maclean’s<\/em> and later collected in The Martian Chronicles<\/em> (1950), Mr. Hathaway and his family are the only inhabitants of a desolate Mars. Twenty years ago, the Great War on Earth left the red planet a tomb. When Mars was evacuated, Hathaway and his family, who were engaged in archaeological studies in the mountains, were left behind. Since then, they have lived in a state of waiting, hoping for the return of a rocket to take them back to civilization. One day, a light in the sky seems to herald the end of their long wait, offering them renewed hope of rescue and a return home.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\n
\"Ray<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The Long Years<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

By Ray Bradbury
(Full story)<\/p>\n\n\n\n


APRIL 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever the wind came through the sky, he and his small family would sit in the stone hut and warm their hands over a wood fire. The wind would stir the canal waters and almost blow the stars out of the sky, but Mr Hathaway would sit contented and talk to his wife, and his wife would reply, and he would speak to his two daughters and his son about the old days on Earth, and they would all answer neatly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the twentieth year after the Great War. Mars was a tomb planet. Whether or not Earth was the same was a matter for much silent debate for Hathaway and his family on the long Martian nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This night one of the violent Martian dust-storms had come over the low Martian graveyards, blowing through ancient towns and tearing away the plastic walls of the newer, American-built city that was melting down into the sand, desolated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The storm abated. Hathaway went out into the cleared weather to see Earth burning green on the windy sky. He put his hand up as one might reach to adjust a dimly burning globe in the ceiling of a dark room. He looked across the long-dead sea-bottoms. Not another living thing on this entire planet, he thought. Just myself. And them<\/em>. He looked back within the stone hut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was happening on Earth now? He had seen no visible sign of change in Earth\u2019s aspect through his thirty-inch telescope. Well, he thought, I\u2019m good for another twenty years if I\u2019m careful. Someone might come. Either across the dead seas or out of space in a rocket on a little thread of red flame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He called into the hut, \u2018I\u2019m going to take a walk.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All right,\u2019 his wife said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He moved quietly down through a series of ruins. \u2018Made in New York,\u2019 he read from a piece of metal as he passed. \u2018And all these things from Earth will be gone long before the Old Martian towns.\u2019 He looked towards the fifty-centuries-old village that lay among the blue mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He came to a solitary Martian graveyard, a series of small hexagonal stones on a hill swept by the lonely wind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stood looking down at four graves with crude wooden crosses on them, and names. Tears did not come to his eyes. They had dried long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Do you forgive me for what I\u2019ve done?\u2019 he asked of the crosses. \u2018I was very much alone. You do understand, don\u2019t you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned to the stone hut and once more, just before going in, shaded his eyes, searching the black sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You keep waiting and waiting and looking,\u2019 he said, \u2018and one night perhaps\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a tiny red flame on the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stepped away from the light of the hut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018\u2014and you look again<\/em>,\u2019 he whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tiny red flame was still there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It wasn\u2019t there last night,\u2019 he whispered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stumbled and fell, picked himself up, ran behind the hut, swivelled the telescope, and pointed it at the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A minute later, after a long, wild staring, he appeared in the low door of the hut. The wife and the two daughters and the son turned their heads to him. Finally he was able to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I have good news,\u2019 he said, \u2018I have looked at the sky. A rocket is coming to take us all home. It will be here in the early morning.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He put his hands down and put his head into his hands and began to cry gently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He burned what was left of New New York that morning at three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took a torch and moved into the plastic city and with the flame touched the walls here or there. The city bloomed up in great tosses of heat and light. It was a square mile of illumination, big enough to be seen out in space. It would beckon the rocket down to Mr Hathaway and his family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His heart beating rapidly with pain, he returned to the hut. \u2018See?\u2019 he held up a dusty bottle into the light. \u2018Wine I saved, just for tonight. I knew that someday someone would find us! Well have a drink to celebrate!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He poured five glasses full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s been a long time,\u2019 he said, gravely looking into his drink. \u2018Remember the day the war broke? Twenty years and seven months ago. And all the rockets were called home from Mars. And you and I and the children were out in the mountains, doing archaeological work, research on the ancient surgical methods of the Martians. We ran our horses, almost killing them, remember? But we got here to the city a week late. Everyone was gone. America had been destroyed; every rocket had left without waiting for stragglers, remember, remember? And it turned out we were the only<\/em> ones left? Lord, Lord, how the years pass! I couldn\u2019t have stood it without you here, all of you. I\u2019d have killed myself without you. But with you, it was worth waiting. Here\u2019s to us, then.\u2019 He lifted his glass. \u2018And to our long wait together.\u2019 He drank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wife and the two daughters and the son raised their glasses to their lips.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wine ran down over the chins of all four of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By morning the city was blowing in great black soft flakes across the sea-bottom. The fire was exhausted, but it had served its purpose; the red spot on the sky grew larger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the stone hut came the rich brown smell of baked gingerbread. His wife stood over the table, setting down the hot pans of new bread as Hathaway entered. The two daughters were gently sweeping the bare stone floor with stiff brooms, and the son was polishing the silverware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ll have a huge breakfast for them,\u2019 laughed Hathaway. \u2018Put on your best clothes!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He hurried across his land to the vast metal storage shed. Inside was the cold-storage unit and power plant he had repaired and restored with his efficient, small, nervous fingers over the years, just as he had repaired clocks, telephones, and spool recorders in his spare time. The shed was full of things he had built, some senseless mechanisms, the functions of which were a mystery even to himself now as he looked upon them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the deep freeze he fetched rimed cartons of beans and strawberries, twenty years old. Lazarus come forth, he thought, and pulled out a cool chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The air was full of cooking odours when the rocket landed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a boy, Hathaway raced down the hill. He stopped once because of a sudden sick pain in his chest. He sat on a rock to regain his breath, then ran all the rest of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stood in the hot atmosphere generated by the fiery rocket. A port opened. A man looked down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hathaway shielded his eyes and at last said, \u2018Captain Wilder!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Who is it?\u2019 asked Captain Wilder, and jumped down and stood there looking at the old man. He put his hand out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Good Lord, it\u2019s Hathaway!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s right.\u2019 They looked into each other\u2019s faces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hathaway, from my old crew, from the Fourth Expedition.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It\u2019s been a long time, Captain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Too long. It\u2019s good to see you.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m old,\u2019 said Hathaway simply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m not young myself any more. I\u2019ve been out to Jupiter and Saturn and Neptune for twenty years.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I heard they had kicked you upstairs so you wouldn\u2019t interfere with colonial policy here on Mars.\u2019 The old man looked around. You\u2019ve been gone so long you don\u2019t know what\u2019s happened\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder said, \u2018I can guess. We\u2019ve circled Mars twice. Found only one other man, name of Walter Gripp, about ten thousand miles from here. We offered to take him with us, but he said no. The last we saw of him he was sitting in a rocking-chair in the middle of the highway, smoking a pipe, waving to us. Mars is pretty well dead, not even a Martian alive. What about Earth?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You know as much as I do. Once in a while I get the Earth radio, very faintly. But it\u2019s always in some other language. I\u2019m sorry to say I only know Latin. A few words come through. I take it most of Earth\u2019s a shambles, but the war goes on. Are you going back, sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes. We\u2019re curious, of course. We had no radio contact so far out in space. We\u2019ll want to see Earth, no matter what.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019ll take us with you?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The captain started. \u2018Of course, your wife, I remember her. Twenty-five years ago, wasn\u2019t it? When they opened First Town and you quit the service and brought her up here. And there were children\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018My son and two daughters.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, I remember. They\u2019re here?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Up at our hut. There\u2019s a fine breakfast waiting all of you up the hill. Will you come?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We would be honoured, Mr Hathaway.\u2019 Captain Wilder called to the rocket, \u2018Abandon ship!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They walked up the hill, Hathaway and Captain Wilder, the twenty crew members following, taking deep breaths of the thin, cool morning air. The sun rose and it was a good day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Do you remember Spender, Captain?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve never forgotten him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018About once a year I walk up past his tomb. It looks like he got his way at last. He didn\u2019t want us to come here, and I suppose he\u2019s happy now that we\u2019ve all gone away.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What about \u2013 what was his name? \u2013 Parkhill, Sam Parkhill?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He opened a hot-dog stand.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It sounds just like<\/em> him.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And went back to Earth the next week for the war.\u2019 Hathaway put his hand to his chest and sat down abruptly upon a boulder. \u2018I\u2019m sorry. The excitement. Seeing you again after all these years. Have to rest.\u2019 He felt his heart pound. He counted the beats. It was very bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ve got a doctor,\u2019 said Wilder. \u2018Excuse me, Hathaway, I know you are one, but we\u2019d better check you with our own\u2014\u2019 The doctor was summoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ll be all right,\u2019 insisted Hathaway. \u2018The waiting, the excitement.\u2019 He could hardly breathe. His lips were blue. \u2018You know,\u2019 he said as the doctor placed a stethoscope to him, \u2018it\u2019s as if I kept alive all these years just for this day, and now you\u2019re here to take me back to Earth, I\u2019m satisfied and I can just lie down and quit.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Here.\u2019 The doctor handed him a yellow pellet. \u2018We\u2019d better let you rest.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nonsense. Just let me sit a moment. It\u2019s good to see all of you. Good to hear new voices again.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Is the pellet working?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fine. Here we go!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They walked on up the hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Alice, come see who\u2019s here!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hathaway frowned and bent into the hut. \u2018Alice, did you hear?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His wife appeared. A moment later the two daughters, tall and gracious, came out followed by an even taller son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Alice, you remember Captain Wilder?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She hesitated and looked at Hathaway as if for instructions and then smiled. \u2018Of course, Captain Wilder!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I remember, we had dinner together the night before I took off for Jupiter, Mrs Hathaway.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She shook his hand vigorously. \u2018My daughters, Marguerite and Susan. My son, John. You remember the captain, surely?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hands were shaken amid laughter and much talk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Captain Wilder sniffed the air, \u2018Is that gingerbread<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Will you have some?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone moved. Folding tables were hurried out while hot foods were rushed forth and plates and fine damask napkins and good silverware were laid. Captain Wilder stood looking first at Mrs Hathaway and then at her son and her two tall, quiet-moving daughters. He looked into their faces as they darted past and he followed every move of their youthful hands and every expression of their wrinkleless faces. He sat upon a chair the son brought. \u2018How old are you, John?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The son replied, \u2018Twenty-three.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder shifted his silverware clumsily. His face was suddenly pale. The man next to him whispered, \u2018Captain Wilder, that can\u2019t be right.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The son moved away to bring more chairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What\u2019s that, Williamson?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m forty-three myself, Captain. I was in school the same time as young John Hathaway there, twenty years ago. He says he\u2019s only twenty-three now; he only looks<\/em> twenty-three. But that\u2019s wrong. He should be forty-two, at least. What\u2019s it mean, sir?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You look kind of sick, sir.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t feel well. The daughters, too, I saw them twenty years or so ago; they haven\u2019t changed, not a wrinkle. Will you do me a favour? I want you to run an errand, Williamson. I\u2019ll tell you where to go and what to check. Late in the breakfast, slip away. It should take you only ten minutes. The place isn\u2019t far from here. I saw it from the rocket as we landed.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Here! What are you talking about so seriously?\u2019 Mrs Hathaway ladled quick spoons of soup into their bowls. \u2018Smile now; we\u2019re all together, the trip\u2019s over, and it\u2019s like home!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes.\u2019 Captain Wilder laughed. \u2018You certainly look very well and young, Mrs Hathaway!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Isn\u2019t that like a man!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He watched her drift away, drift with her pink face warm, smooth as an apple, unwrinkled and colourful. She chimed her laugh at every joke, she tossed salads neatly, never once pausing for breath. And the bony son and curved daughters were brilliantly witty, like their father, telling of the long years and their secret life, while their father nodded proudly to each.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williamson slipped off down the hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Where\u2019s he<\/em> going?\u2019 asked Hathaway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Checking the rocket,\u2019 said Wilder. \u2018But, as I was saying, Hathaway, there\u2019s nothing on Jupiter, nothing at all for men. That includes Saturn and Pluto.\u2019 Wilder talked mechanically, not hearing his words, thinking only of Williamson running down the hill and climbing back to tell what he had found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thanks.\u2019 Marguerite Hathaway was filling his water-glass. Impulsively he touched her arm. She did not even mind. Her flesh was warm and soft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hathaway, across the table, paused several times, touched his chest with his fingers, painfully, then went on listening to the murmuring talk and sudden loud chattering, glancing now and again with concern at Wilder, who did not seem to like chewing his gingerbread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williamson returned. He sat picking at his food until the captain whispered aside to him, \u2018Well?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I found it, sir.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williamson\u2019s cheeks were white. He kept his eyes on the laughing people. The daughters were smiling gravely and the son was telling a joke. Williamson said, \u2018I went into the graveyard.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The four crosses were there?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The four crosses were there, sir. The names were still on them. I wrote them down to be sure.\u2019 He read from a white paper: \u2018Alice, Marguerite, Susan, and John Hathaway. Died of unknown virus. July 2007.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Thank you, Williamson.\u2019 Wilder closed his eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nineteen years ago, sir.\u2019 Williamson\u2019s hand trembled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Then who are these<\/em>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What are you going to do?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know that either.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Will we tell the other men?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Later. Go on with your food as if nothing happened.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m not very hungry now, sir.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The meal ended with wine brought from the rocket. Hathaway arose. \u2018A toast to all of you; it\u2019s good to be with friends again. And to my wife and children, without whom I couldn\u2019t have survived alone. It is only through their kindness in caring for me that I\u2019ve lived on, waiting for your arrival.\u2019 He moved his wine-glass towards his family, who looked back self-consciously, lowering their eyes at last as everyone drank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hathaway drank down his wine. He did not cry out as he fell forward on to the table and slipped to the ground. Several men eased him to rest. The doctor bent to him and listened. Wilder touched the doctor\u2019s shoulder. The doctor looked up and shook his head. Wilder knelt and took the old man\u2019s hand. \u2018Wilder?\u2019 Hathaway\u2019s voice was barely audible. \u2018I spoiled the breakfast.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nonsense.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Say good-bye to Alice and the children for me.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Just a moment, I\u2019ll call them.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, no, don\u2019t!\u2019 gasped Hathaway. \u2018They wouldn\u2019t understand. I wouldn\u2019t want them to understand! Don\u2019t!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder did not move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hathaway was dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder waited for a long time. Then he arose and walked away from the stunned group around Hathaway. He went to Alice Hathaway, looked into her face, and said, \u2018Do you know what has just happened?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Something about my husband?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He\u2019s just passed away; his heart,\u2019 said Wilder, watching her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How do you feel?\u2019 he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He didn\u2019t want us to feel badly. He told us it would happen one day and he didn\u2019t want us to cry. He didn\u2019t teach us how, you know. He didn\u2019t want us to know. He said it was the worst thing that could happen to a man to know how to be lonely and know how to be sad and then to cry. So we\u2019re not to know what crying is, or being sad.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder glanced at her hands, the soft warm hands and the fine manicured nails and the tapered wrists. He saw her slender, smooth white neck and her intelligent eyes. Finally he said, \u2018Mr Hathaway did a fine job on you and your children.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018He would have liked to hear you say that. He was so proud of us. After a while he even forgot that he had made us. At the end he loved and took us as his real wife and children. And, in a way, we are,<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You gave him a good deal of comfort.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes, for years on end we sat and talked. He so much loved to talk. He liked the stone hut and the open fire. We would have lived in a regular house in the town, but he liked it up here, where he could be primitive if he liked, or modern if he liked. He told me all about his laboratory and the things he did in it. He wired the entire dead American town below with sound speakers. When he pressed a button the town lit up and made noises as if ten thousand people lived in it. There were airplane noises and car noises and the sounds of people talking. He would sit and light a cigar and talk to us, and the sounds of the town would come up to us, and once in a while the phone would ring and a recorded voice would ask Mr Hathaway scientific and surgical questions and he would answer them. With the phone ringing and us here and the sounds of the town and his cigar, Mr Hathaway was quite happy. There\u2019s only one thing he couldn\u2019t make us do,\u2019 she said. \u2018And that was to grow old. He got older every day, but we stayed the same. I guess he didn\u2019t mind. I guess he wanted us this way.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We\u2019ll bury him down in the yard where the other four crosses are. I think he would like that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She put her hand on his wrist, lightly. \u2018I\u2019m sure he would.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orders were given. The family followed the little procession down the hill. Two men carried Hathaway on a covered stretcher. They passed the stone hut and the storage shed where Hathaway, many years before, had begun his work, Wilder paused within the workshop door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How would it be, he wondered, to live on a planet with a wife and three children and have them die, leaving you alone with the wind and silence? What would a person do? Bury them with crosses in the graveyard and then come back up to the workshop and, with all the power of mind and memory and accuracy of finger and genius, put together, bit by bit, all those things that were wife, son, daughter. With an entire American city below from which to draw needed supplies, a brilliant man might do anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound of their footsteps was muffled in the sand. At the graveyard, as they turned in, two men were already spading out the earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They returned to the rocket in the late afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Williamson nodded at the stone hut. \u2018What are we going to do about them<\/em>?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I don\u2019t know,\u2019 said the captain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Are you going to turn them off?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Off?\u2019 The captain looked faintly surprised. \u2018It never entered my mind.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You\u2019re not taking them back with us?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018No, it would be useless.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You mean you\u2019re going to leave them here, like that<\/em>, as they are<\/em>!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The captain handed Williamson a gun. \u2018If you can do anything about this, you\u2019re a better man than I.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five minutes later Williamson returned from the hut, sweating. \u2018Here, take your gun. I understand what you mean now. I went in the hut with the gun. One of the daughters smiled at me. So did the others. The wife offered me a cup of tea. Lord, it\u2019d be murder!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder nodded. \u2018There\u2019ll never be anything as fine as them again. They\u2019re built to last; ten, fifty, two hundred years. Yes, they\u2019ve as much right to \u2013 to life as you or I or any of us.\u2019 He knocked out his pipe. \u2018Well, get aboard. We\u2019re taking off. This city\u2019s done for, we\u2019ll not be using it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was late in the day. A cold wind was rising. The men were aboard. The captain hesitated. Williamson said, \u2018Don\u2019t tell me you\u2019re going back to say \u2013 good-bye \u2013 to them?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The captain looked at Williamson coldly. \u2018None of your business.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wilder strode up towards the hut through the darkening wind. The men in the rocket saw his shadow lingering in the stone-hut doorway. They saw a woman\u2019s shadow. They saw the captain shake her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moments later he came running back to the rocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


On nights when the wind comes over the dead sea-bottoms and through the hexagonal graveyard, over four old crosses and one new one, there is a light burning in the low stone hut, and in that hut, as the wind roars by and the dust whirls and the cold stars burn, are four figures, a woman, two daughters, a son, tending a low fire for no reason and talking and laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Night after night for every year and every year, for no reason at all, the woman comes out and looks at the sky, her hands up, for a long moment, looking at the green burning of Earth, not knowing why she looks, and then she goes back and throws a stick on the fire, and the wind comes up and the dead sea goes on being dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE END<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In “The Long Years,” a short story by Ray Bradbury published on September 15, 1948, in Maclean’s and later collected in The Martian Chronicles (1950), Mr. Hathaway and his family are the only inhabitants of a desolate Mars. Twenty years ago, the Great War on Earth left the red planet a tomb. When Mars was evacuated, Hathaway and his family, who were engaged in archaeological studies in the mountains, were left behind. Since then, they have lived in a state of waiting, hoping for the return of a rocket to take them back to civilization. One day, a light in the sky seems to herald the end of their long wait, offering them renewed hope of rescue and a return home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[574,552,570],"class_list":["post-22710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-stories","tag-ray-bradbury-en","tag-science-fiction","tag-united-states","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-33"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":559,"label":"Short stories"}],"post_tag":[{"value":574,"label":"Ray Bradbury"},{"value":552,"label":"Science fiction"},{"value":570,"label":"United States"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/lecturia.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Ray-Bradbury-Los-largos-anos.jpg",1024,1024,false],"author_info":{"display_name":"Juan Pablo Guevara","author_link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/author\/spartakku\/"},"comment_info":"","category_info":[{"term_id":559,"name":"Short stories","slug":"short-stories","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":559,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":420,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":559,"category_count":420,"category_description":"","cat_name":"Short stories","category_nicename":"short-stories","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":574,"name":"Ray Bradbury","slug":"ray-bradbury-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":574,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":43,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":552,"name":"Science fiction","slug":"science-fiction","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":552,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":121,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":570,"name":"United States","slug":"united-states","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":570,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":294,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}