{"id":25250,"date":"2025-11-25T18:53:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:53:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=25250"},"modified":"2025-11-25T18:53:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T22:53:35","slug":"ray-bradbury-the-last-night-of-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/ray-bradbury-the-last-night-of-the-world\/25250\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: The Last Night of the World"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis:<\/strong> \u201cThe Last Night of the World\u201d<\/em> is a short story by Ray Bradbury first published in Esquire<\/em> in February 1951 and later included in the anthology The Illustrated Man<\/em> (1951). It tells the story of a married couple facing the possibility that humanity may end that very night. On an afternoon that unfolds with complete normalcy, while their daughters play, the husband shares with his wife a premonitory dream about the apocalypse\u2014one that, intriguingly, has also been experienced by his coworkers and many others. The narrative explores how they and their community confront the imminent certainty that they are living their final hours on Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

The Last Night of the World<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cWHAT would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat would I do? You mean seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. I hadn\u2019t thought.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He poured some coffee. In the background the two girls were playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of the brewed coffee in the evening air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, better start thinking about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t mean it!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA war?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He shook his head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot the hydrogen or atom bomb?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOr germ warfare?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone of those at all,\u201d he said, stirring his coffee slowly. \u201cBut just, let\u2019s say, the closing of a book.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I understand.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, nor do I, really; it\u2019s just a feeling. Sometimes it frightens me, sometimes I\u2019m not frightened at all but at peace.\u201d He glanced in at the girls and their yellow hair shining in the lamplight. \u201cI didn\u2019t say anything to you. It first happened about four nights ago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA dream I had. I dreamed that it was all going to be over, and a voice said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway, and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn\u2019t think too much about it the next day, but then I went to the office and caught Stan Willis looking out the window in the middle of the afternoon, and I said a penny for your thoughts, Stan, and he said, I had a dream last night, and before he even told me the dream I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me and I listened to him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was the same dream?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe same. I told Stan I had dreamed it too. He didn\u2019t seem surprised. He relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through the office, for the hell of it. It wasn\u2019t planned. We didn\u2019t say, \u2018Let\u2019s walk around.\u2019 We just walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks or their hands or out windows. I talked to a few. So did Stan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd they all had dreamed?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of them. The same dream, with no difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you believe in it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes. I\u2019ve never been more certain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd when will it stop? The world, I mean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometime during the night for us, and then as the night goes on around the world, that\u2019ll go too. It\u2019ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo we deserve this?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a matter of deserving; it\u2019s just that things didn\u2019t work out. I notice you didn\u2019t even argue about this. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019ve a reason,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe same one everyone at the office had?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She nodded slowly. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to say anything. It happened last night. And the women on the block talked about it, among themselves, today. They dreamed. I thought it was only a coincidence.\u201d She picked up the evening paper. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing in the paper about it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone knows, so there\u2019s no need.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He sat back in his chair, watching her. \u201cAre you afraid?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo. I always thought I would be, but I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere\u2019s that spirit called self-preservation they talk so much about?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know. You don\u2019t get too excited when you feel things are logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from the way we\u2019ve lived.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t been too bad, have we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, nor enormously good. I suppose that\u2019s the trouble\u2014we haven\u2019t been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was busy being lots of quite awful things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The girls were laughing in the parlor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always thought people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess not. You don\u2019t scream about the real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you know, I won\u2019t miss anything but you and the girls. I never liked cities or my work or anything except you three. I won\u2019t miss a thing except perhaps the change in the weather, and a glass of ice water when it\u2019s hot, and I might miss sleeping. How can we sit here and talk this way?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause there\u2019s nothing else to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it, of course; for if there were, we\u2019d be doing it. I suppose this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has known just what they were going to do during the night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGo to a show, listen to the radio, watch television, play cards, put the children to bed, go to bed themselves, like always.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn a way that\u2019s something to be proud of\u2014like always.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They sat a moment and then he poured himself another coffee. \u201cWhy do you suppose it\u2019s tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy not some other night in the last century, or five centuries ago, or ten?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s because it was never October 19, 1969, ever before in history, and now it is and that\u2019s it; because this date means more than any other date ever meant; because it\u2019s the year when things are as they are all over the world and that\u2019s why it\u2019s the end.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are bombers on their schedules both ways across the ocean tonight that\u2019ll never see land.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s part of the reason why.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said, getting up, \u201cwhat shall it be? Wash the dishes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They washed the dishes and stacked them away with special neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left open just a trifle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wonder,\u201d said the husband, coming from the bedroom and glancing back, standing there with his pipe for a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the door will be shut all the way, or if it\u2019ll be left just a little ajar so some light comes in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wonder if the children know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, of course not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio music and then sat together by the fireplace watching the charcoal embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleven-thirty. They thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their evening, each in his own special way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he said at last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He kissed his wife for a long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been good for each other, anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you want to cry?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They moved through the house and turned out the lights and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness undressing and pushing back the covers. \u201cThe sheets are so clean and nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m tired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re  all  tired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They got into bed and lay back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust a moment,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He heard her get out of bed and go into the kitchen. A moment later, she returned. \u201cI left the water running in the sink,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Something about this was so very funny that he had to laugh. She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed, their hands clasped, their heads together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood night,\u201d he said, after a moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood night,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

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