{"id":8524,"date":"2025-01-13T21:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-01-14T01:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lecturia.org\/?p=8524"},"modified":"2025-11-04T12:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T16:46:37","slug":"ray-bradbury-a-sound-of-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/short-stories\/ray-bradbury-a-sound-of-thunder\/8524\/","title":{"rendered":"Ray Bradbury: A Sound of Thunder"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Synopsis: <\/strong>\u201cA Sound of Thunder\u201d is a short story by Ray Bradbury, first published on June 28, 1952, in Collier\u2019s<\/em> magazine, and later included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun<\/em> (1953). In a future where time travel is possible, a company organizes safaris to the past. Eckels, an eager customer, pays a considerable sum to join an expedition that will take him millions of years back in time to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em>. Before departure, he is sternly warned: he must follow the instructions to the letter; even the slightest mistake could have irreversible consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n

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

A Sound of Thunder<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIME SAFARI, INC.
SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.
YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.
WE TAKE YOU THERE.
YOU SHOOT IT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A warm phlegm gathered in Eckels\u2019 throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars at the man behind the desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We guarantee nothing,\u2019 said the official, \u2018except the dinosaurs.\u2019 He turned. \u2018This is Mr Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He\u2019ll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there\u2019s a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle, a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes, at an aurora that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue. There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time, all the years and all the parchment calendars, all the hours piled high and set aflame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A touch of the hand and this burning would, on the instant, beautifully reverse itself. Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter. Out of chars and ashes, out of dust and coals, like golden salamanders, the old years, the green years, might leap; roses sweeten the air, white hair turn Irish-black, wrinkles vanish; all, everything fly back <\/a>to seed, flee death, rush down to their beginnings, suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts, moons eat themselves opposite to the custom, all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes, rabbits into hats, all and everything returning to the fresh death, the seed death, the green death, to the time before the beginning. A touch of a hand might do it, the merest touch of a hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hell and damn,\u2019 Eckels breathed, the light of the Machine on his thin face. \u2018A real Time Machine.\u2019 He shook his head. \u2018Makes you think. If the election had gone badly yesterday, I might be here now running away from the results. Thank God Keith won. He\u2019ll make a fine President of the United States.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes,\u2019 said the man behind the desk. \u2018We\u2019re lucky. If Deutscher had gotten in, we\u2019d have the worst kind of dictatorship. There\u2019s an anti-everything man for you, a militarist, anti-Christ, anti-human, anti-intellectual. People called us up, you know, joking but not joking. Said if Deutscher became President they wanted to go live in 1492. Of course it\u2019s not our business to conduct Escapes, but to form Safaris. Anyway, Keith\u2019s President now. All you got to worry about is\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Shooting my dinosaur.\u2019 Eckels finished it for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018A Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em>. The Thunder Lizard, the damndest monster in history. Sign this release. Anything happens to you, we\u2019re not responsible. Those dinosaurs are hungry.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels flushed angrily. \u2018Trying to scare me!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Frankly, yes. We don\u2019t want anyone going who\u2019ll panic at the first shot. Six Safari leaders were killed last year, and a dozen hunters. We\u2019re here to give you the damndest thrill a real<\/em>hunter ever asked for. Traveling you back sixty million years to bag the biggest damned game in all Time. Your personal check\u2019s still there. Tear it up.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Eckles looked at the check for a long time. His fingers twitched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Good luck,\u2019 said the man behind the desk. \u2018Mr Travis, he\u2019s all yours.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They moved silently across the room, taking their guns with them, toward the Machine, toward the silver metal and the roaring light.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First a day and then a night and then a day and then a night, then it was day-night-day-night-day. A week, a month, a year, a decade. A.D. 2055. A.D. 2019. 1999! 1957! Gone! the Machine roared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They put on their oxygen helmets and tested the intercoms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels swayed on the padded seat, his face pale, his jaw stiff. He felt the trembling in his arms and he looked down and found his hands tight on the new rifle. There were four other men in the Machine. Travis, the Safari leader, his assistant, Lesperance, and two other hunters. Billings and Kramer. They sat looking at each other, and the years blazed around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u2018Can these guns get a dinosaur cold?\u2019 Eckels felt his mouth saying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018If you hit them right,\u2019 said Travis on the helmet radio. \u2018Some dinosaurs have two brains, one in the head, another far down the spinal column. We stay away from those. That\u2019s stretching luck. Put your first two shots into the eyes, if you can, blind them, and go back into the brain.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Machine howled. Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them. \u2018Good God,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018Every hunter that ever lived would envy us today. This makes Africa seem like Illinois.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Machine slowed; its scream fell to a murmur. The Machine stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sun stopped in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fog that had enveloped the Machine blew away and they were in an old time, a very old time indeed, three hunters and two Safari Heads with their blue metal guns across their knees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Christ isn\u2019t born yet,\u2019 said Travis. \u2018Moses has not gone to the mountain to talk with God. The Pyramids are still in the earth, waiting to be cut out and put up. Remember<\/em> that. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Hitler\u2014none of them exists.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The men nodded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019\u2014Mr Travis pointed\u2014\u2018is the jungle of sixty million two thousand and fifty-five years before President Keith.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He indicated a metal path that struck off into green wilderness, over steaming swamp, among giant ferns and palms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And that,\u2019 he said, \u2018is the Path, laid by Time Safari for your use. It floats six inches above the earth. Doesn\u2019t touch so much as one grass blade, flower, or tree. It\u2019s an anti-gravity metal. Its purpose is to keep you from touching this world of the past in any way. Stay on the Path. Don\u2019t go off it. I repeat. Don\u2019t go off<\/em>. For any<\/em> reason! If you fall off, there\u2019s a penalty. And don\u2019t shoot any animal we don\u2019t okay.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Why?\u2019 asked Eckels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They sat in the ancient wilderness. Far birds\u2019 cries blew on a wind, and the smell of tar and an old salt sea, moist grasses, and flowers the color of blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We don\u2019t want to change the Future. We don\u2019t belong here in the Past. The government doesn\u2019t like<\/em> us here. We have to pay big graft to keep our franchise. A Time Machine is damn finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s not clear,\u2019 said Eckels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018All right,\u2019 Travis continued, \u2018say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Right.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! <\/a>With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion<\/em> possible mice!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So they\u2019re dead,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018So what?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018So what?\u2019 Travis snorted quietly. \u2018Well, what about the foxes that\u2019ll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes, a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a cave man, one of a dozen on the entire world<\/em>, goes hunting wild boar or saber-tooth tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped<\/em> on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one<\/em> single mouse. So the cave man starves. And the cave man, please note, is not just any<\/em> expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation<\/em>. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their<\/em> loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam\u2019s grandchildren. The stamp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our Earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one cave man, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never<\/em>step off!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I see,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018Then it wouldn\u2019t pay for us even to touch the grass?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Correct. Crushing certain plants could add up infinitesimally. A little error here would multiply in sixty million years, all out of proportion. Of course maybe our theory is wrong. Maybe Time can\u2019t<\/em> be changed by us. Or maybe it can be changed only in little subtle ways. A dead mouse here makes an insect imbalance there, a population disproportion later, a bad harvest further on, a depression, mass starvation, and, finally, a change in social<\/em> temperament in far-flung countries. Something much more subtle, like that. Perhaps only a soft breath, a whisper, a hair, pollen on the air, such a slight, slight change that unless you looked close you wouldn\u2019t see it. Who knows? Who really can say he knows? We don\u2019t know. We\u2019re guessing. But until we do know for certain whether our messing around in Time can<\/em> make a big roar or a little rustle in History, we\u2019re being damned careful. This Machine, this Path, your clothing and bodies, were sterilized, as you know, before the journey. We wear these oxygen helmets so we can\u2019t introduce our bacteria into an ancient atmosphere.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How do we know which animals to shoot?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u2018They\u2019re marked with red paint,\u2019 said Travis. \u2018Today, before our journey, we sent Lesperance here back with the Machine. He came to this particular era and followed certain animals.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Studying them?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Right,\u2019 said Lesperance. \u2018I track them through their entire existence, noting which of them lives longest. Not long. How many times they mate. Not often. Life\u2019s short. When I find one that\u2019s going to die when a tree falls on him, or one that drowns in a tar pit, I note the exact hour, minute, and second. I shoot a paint bomb. It leaves a red patch on his hide. We can\u2019t miss it. Then I correlate our arrival in the Past so that we meet the Monster not more than two minutes before he would have died anyway. This way, we kill only animals with no future, that are never going to mate again. You see how careful<\/em> we are?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018But if you came back this morning in Time,\u2019 said Eckels eagerly, \u2018you must\u2019ve bumped into us<\/em>, our Safari! How did it turn out? Was it successful? Did all of us get through\u2014alive?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis and Lesperance gave each other a look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019d be a paradox,\u2019 said the latter. \u2018Time doesn\u2019t permit that sort of mess\u2014a man meeting himself. When such occasions threaten, Time steps aside. Like an airplane hitting an air pocket. You felt the Machine jump just before we stopped? That was us passing ourselves on the way back to the Future. We saw nothing. There\u2019s no way of telling if<\/em> this expedition was a success, if<\/em>we got our Monster, or whether all of us\u2014meaning you<\/em>, Mr Eckels\u2014got out alive.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels smiled palely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Cut that,\u2019 said Travis sharply. \u2018Everyone on his feet!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They were ready to leave the Machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jungle was high and the jungle was broad and the jungle was the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats out of a delirium and a night fever. Eckels, balanced on the narrow Path, aimed his rifle playfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Stop that!\u2019 said Travis. \u2018Don\u2019t even aim for fun, damn it! If your gun should go off\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels flushed. \u2018Where\u2019s our Tyrannosaurus?<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesperance checked his wristwatch. \u2018Up ahead. We\u2019ll bisect his trail in sixty seconds. Look for the red paint, for Christ\u2019s sake. Don\u2019t shoot till we give the word. Stay on the Path. Stay on the Path!<\/em>\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They moved forward in the wind of morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Strange,\u2019 murmured Eckels. \u2018Up ahead, sixty million years, Election Day over. Keith made President. Everyone celebrating. And here we are, a million years lost, and they don\u2019t exist. The things we worried about for months, a lifetime, not even born or thought about yet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u2018Safety catches off, everyone!\u2019 ordered Travis. \u2018You, first shot, Eckels. Second, Billings. Third, Kramer.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019ve hunted tiger, wild boar, buffalo, elephant, but Jesus, this is it<\/em>,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018I\u2019m shaking like a kid.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Ah,\u2019 said Travis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis raised his hand. \u2018Ahead,\u2019 he whispered. \u2018In the mist. There he is. There\u2019s His Royal Majesty now.\u2019

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jungle was wide and full of twitterings, rustlings, murmurs, and sighs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly it all ceased, as if someone had shut a door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sound of thunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the mist, one hundred yards away, came Tyrannosaurus rex<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Jesus God,\u2019 whispered Eckels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Shh!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It came on great oiled, resilient, striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker\u2019s claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of muscle, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body, those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight. It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit arena warily, its beautifully reptile hands feeling the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018My God!\u2019 Eckels twitched his mouth. \u2018It could reach up and grab the Moon.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Shh!\u2019 Travis jerked angrily. \u2018He hasn\u2019t seen us yet.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It can\u2019t be killed.\u2019 Eckels pronounced this verdict quietly, as if there could be no argument. He had weighed the evidence and this was his considered opinion. The rifle in his hands seemed a cap gun. \u2018We were fools to come. This is impossible.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Shut up!\u2019 hissed Travis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Nightmare.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Turn around,\u2019 commanded Travis. \u2018Walk quietly to the Machine. We\u2019ll remit one-half your fee.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>\u2018I didn\u2019t realize it would be this big<\/em>,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018I miscalculated, that\u2019s all. And now I want out.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018It sees<\/em> us!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There\u2019s the red paint on its chest!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Thunder Lizard raised itself. Its armored flesh glittered like a thousand green coins. The coins, crusted with slime, steamed. In the slime, tiny insects wriggled, so that the entire body seemed to twitch and undulate, even while the Monster itself did not move. It exhaled. The stink of raw flesh blew down the wilderness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Get me out of here,\u2019 said Eckels. \u2018It was never like this before. I was always sure I\u2019d come through alive. I had good guides, good safaris, and safety. This time, I figured wrong. I\u2019ve met my match and admit it. This is too much for me to get hold of.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t run,\u2019 said Lesperance. \u2018Turn around. Hide in the Machine.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Yes.\u2019 Eckels seemed to be numb. He looked at his feet as if trying to make them move. He gave a grunt of helplessness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Eckels!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took a few steps, blinking, shuffling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Not that<\/em> way!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Monster, at the first motion, lunged forward with a terrible scream. It covered one hundred yards in four seconds. The rifles jerked up and blazed fire. A windstorm from the beast\u2019s mouth engulfed them in the stench of slime and old blood. The Monster roared, teeth glittering with sun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels, not looking back, walked blindly to the edge of the Path, his gun limp in his arms, stepped off the Path, and walked, not knowing it, in the jungle. His feet sank into green moss. His legs moved him, and he felt alone and remote from the events behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rifles cracked again. Their sound was lost in shriek and lizard thunder. The great lever of the reptile\u2019s tail swung up, lashed sideways. Trees exploded in clouds of leaf and branch. The Monster twitched its jeweler\u2019s hands down to fondle at the men, to twist them in half, to crush them like berries, to cram them into its teeth and its screaming throat. Its boulder-stone eyes leveled with the men. They saw themselves mirrored. They fired at the metallic eyelids and the blazing black iris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like a stone idol, like a mountain avalanche, Tyrannosaurus<\/em> fell. Thundering, it clutched trees, pulled them with it. It wrenched and tore the metal Path. The men flung themselves back and away. The body hit, ten tons of cold flesh and stone. The guns fired. The Monster lashed its armored tail, twitched its snake jaws, and lay still. A fount of blood spurted from its throat. Somewhere inside, a sac of fluids burst. Sickening gushes drenched the hunters. They stood, red and glistening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thunder faded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The jungle was silent. After the avalanche, a green peace. After the nightmare, morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Billings and Kramer sat on the pathway and threw up. Travis and Lesperance stood with smoking rifles, cursing steadily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Time Machine, on his face, Eckels lay shivering. He had found his way back to the Path, climbed into the Machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis came walking, glanced at Eckels, took cotton gauze from a metal box, and returned to the others, who were sitting on the Path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Clean up.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They wiped the blood from their helmets. They began to curse too. The Monster lay, a hill of solid flesh. Within, you could hear the sighs and murmurs as the furthest chambers of it died, the organs malfunctioning, liquids running a final instant from pocket to sac to spleen, everything shutting off, closing up forever. It was like standing by a wrecked locomotive or a steam shovel at quitting time, all valves being released or levered tight. Bones cracked, the tonnage of its own flesh, off-balance, dead weight, snapped the delicate forearms, caught underneath. The meat settled, quivering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another cracking sound. Overhead, a gigantic tree branch broke from its heavy mooring, fell. It crashed upon the dead beast with finality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018There.\u2019 Lesperance checked his watch. \u2018Right on time. That\u2019s the giant tree that was scheduled to fall and kill this animal originally.\u2019 He glanced at the two hunters. \u2018You want the trophy picture?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018What?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We can\u2019t take a trophy back to the Future. The body has to stay right here where it would have died originally, so the insects, birds, and bacteria can get at it, as they were intended to. Everything in balance. The body stays. But we can<\/em> take a picture of you standing near it.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two men tried to think, but gave up, shaking their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They let themselves be led along the metal Path. They sank wearily into the Machine cushions. They gazed back at the ruined Monster, the stagnating mound, where already strange reptilian birds and golden insects were busy at the steaming armor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A sound on the floor of the Time Machine stiffened them. Eckels sat there, shivering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m sorry,\u2019 he said at last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Get up!\u2019 cried Travis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels got up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Go out on that Path alone,\u2019 said Travis. He had his rifle pointed. \u2018You\u2019re not coming back in the Machine. We\u2019re leaving you here!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lesperance seized Travis\u2019s arm. \u2018Wait\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Stay out of this!\u2019 Travis shook his hand away. \u2018This son of a bitch nearly killed us. But it isn\u2019t that<\/em> so much. Hell, no. It\u2019s his shoes<\/em>! Look at them! <\/a>He ran off the Path. My God, that ruins<\/em> us! Christ knows how much we\u2019ll forfeit! Tens of thousands of dollars of insurance! We guarantee no one leaves the Path. He left it. Oh, the damn fool! I\u2019ll have to report to the government. They might revoke our license to travel. God knows what<\/em> he\u2019s done to Time, to History!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Take it easy, all he did was kick up some dirt.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018How do we know<\/em>?\u2019 cried Travis. \u2018We don\u2019t know anything! It\u2019s all a damn mystery! Get out there, Eckels!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckles fumbled his shirt. \u2018I\u2019ll pay anything. A hundred thousand dollars!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis glared at Eckels\u2019 checkbook and spat. \u2018Go out there. The Monster\u2019s next to the Path. Stick your arms up to your elbows in his mouth. Then you can come back with us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018That\u2019s unreasonable!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018The Monster\u2019s dead, you yellow bastard. The bullets! The bullets can\u2019t be left behind. They don\u2019t belong in the Past; they might change something. Here\u2019s my knife. Dig them out!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The jungle was alive again, full of the old tremorings and bird cries. Eckels turned slowly to regard that primeval garbage dump, that hill of nightmares and terror. After a long time, like a sleepwalker, he shuffled out along the Path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He returned, shuddering, five minutes later, his arms soaked and red to the elbows. He held out his hands. Each held a number of steel bullets. Then he fell. He lay where he fell, not moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You didn\u2019t have to make him do that,\u2019 said Lesperance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Didn\u2019t I? It\u2019s too early to tell.\u2019 Travis nudged the still body. \u2018He\u2019ll live. Next time he won\u2019t go hunting game like this. Okay.\u2019 He jerked his thumb wearily at Lesperance. \u2018Switch on. Let\u2019s go home.\u2019

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1492. 1776. 1812.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They cleaned their hands and faces. Their changed their caking shirts and pants. Eckels was up and around again, not speaking. Travis glared at him for a full ten minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Don\u2019t look at me,\u2019 cried Eckels. \u2018I haven\u2019t done anything.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Who can tell?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Just ran off the Path, that\u2019s all, a little mud on my shoes\u2014what do you want me to do\u2014get down and pray?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018We might need it. I\u2019m warning you, Eckels, I might kill you yet. I\u2019ve got my gun ready.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018I\u2019m innocent. I\u2019ve done nothing!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1999. 2000. 2055.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Machine stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Get out,\u2019 said Travis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The room was there as they had left it. But not the same as they had <\/a>left it. The same man sat behind the same desk. But the same man did not quite sit behind the same desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis looked around swiftly. \u2018Everything okay here?\u2019 he snapped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Fine. Welcome home!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis did not relax. He seemed to be looking at the very atoms of the air itself, at the way the sun poured through the one high window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Okay, Eckels, get out. Don\u2019t ever come back.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels could not move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018You heard me,\u2019 said Travis. \u2018What\u2019re you staring<\/em> at?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels stood smelling of the air, and there was a thing to the air, a chemical taint so subtle, so slight, that only a faint cry of his subliminal senses warned him it was there. The colors, white, gray, blue, orange, in the wall, in the furniture, in the sky beyond the window, were\u2026were\u2026And there was a feel<\/em>. His flesh twitched. His hands twitched. He stood drinking the oddness with the pores of his body. Somewhere, someone must have been screaming one of those whistles that only a dog can hear. His body screamed silence in return. Beyond this room, beyond this wall, beyond this man who was not quite the same man seated at this desk that was not quite the same desk\u2026lay an entire world of streets and people. What sort of world it was now, there was no telling. He could feel them moving there, beyond the walls, almost, like so many chess pieces blown in a dry wind\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the immediate thing was the sign painted on the office wall, the same sign he had read earlier today on first entering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somehow, the sign had changed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TYME SEFARI INC.
SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.
YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.
WEE TAEK YU THAIR.
YU SHOOT ITT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels felt himself fall into a chair. He fumbled crazily at the thick slime on his boots. He held up a clod of dirt, trembling. \u2018No, it can\u2019t<\/em> be. Not a little<\/em> thing like that. No!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful, and very dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Not a little thing like that<\/em>! Not a butterfly!\u2019 cried Eckels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels\u2019 mind whirled. It couldn\u2019t<\/em> change things. Killing one butterfly couldn\u2019t be that<\/em>important! Could it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>His face was cold. His mouth trembled, asking: \u2018Who\u2014who won the presidential election yesterday?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man behind the desk laughed. \u2018You joking? You know damn well. Deutscher, of course! Who else? Not that damn weakling Keith. We got an iron man now, a man with guts, by God!\u2019 The official stopped. \u2018What\u2019s wrong?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eckels moaned. He dropped to his knees. He scrabbled at the golden butterfly with shaking fingers. \u2018Can\u2019t we,\u2019 he pleaded to the world, to himself, to the officials, to the Machine, \u2018can\u2019t we take it back<\/em>, can\u2019t we make<\/em> it alive again? Can\u2019t we start over? Can\u2019t we\u2014\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He did not move. Eyes shut, he waited, shivering. He heard Travis breathe loud in the room; he heard Travis shift his rifle, click the safety catch, and raise the weapon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a sound of thunder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

\u201cA Sound of Thunder\u201d is a short story by Ray Bradbury, first published on June 28, 1952, in Collier\u2019s magazine, and later included in the collection The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953). In a future where time travel is possible, a company organizes safaris to the past. Eckels, an eager customer, pays a considerable sum to join an expedition that will take him millions of years back in time to hunt a Tyrannosaurus rex. Before departure, he is sternly warned: he must follow the instructions to the letter; even the slightest mistake could have irreversible consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18515,"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-8524","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\/2019\/05\/Ray-Bradbury-El-ruido-de-un-trueno3.webp",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\/8524","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=8524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lecturia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}