Bradbury, Ray - Chapbook 13 (5 page)

"Of
the
oblivion Machines"

"Silence!" commanded Ahmed, guessing
from the
silent mouth of
Gonn
what to shout.
"Hold
still!"

And the thunder died and the half-seen, half-
guessed phantoms were
transfixed against a sky
half sight of moon, half glimpse of sun.

"Now," whispered
Gonn
.
"In all the beds
and all the rooms of the world."

"In all the beds," recited Ahmed.
"In all the
world's rooms, go to your windows to see what
must
be seen!"

And below now lay all the cities and towns
of sleeping dreamers.

"Wake!" cried Ahmed with
Gonn's
voice.
"Wake while the sky is full of shapes.
See!
Find!"

"Gods, oh, fellow gods," cried
Gonn
sud
denly, gasping, clutching his throat, his chest,
feeling his wrists,
his elbows and arms. "I fall,
oh, brother gods, I falter,
I
will fall!"

And great
Gonn
snatched at the wind with
his
 
fingers
,
 
his hands,
 
beat his
 
arms up
 
and
down, churned
the clouds with frantic legs,
glancing with fear down at the sleeping cities.

"They have buried me, killed me a
thousand
times
to fit in a thousand tombs with no
names."

"Who?" cried
Ahmed.

"The dreamers
that do not dream, the
dreamers that do not do.
The
doubters who kill
the dream.
The
walking dead who see
birdless
skies and
shipless
seas and horseless highways
with not a carriage, not a wheel.
Those who
bed early and rise
late and sleep at
noon
and
eat figs and drink
wine and cherish only flesh.
They, oh, they, they, them!"

Ahmed stared down, blinking wildly, trying
to find what was
described.

"But they're not doing anything! They're
all
asleep."

"Their silence stops my ears."
1 hey re snoring!

"They breathe in but not out. They take
air and give nothing! I die of it!"

And Ahmed saw the cause:

The cities slept and the dust buried the
sleep
ers,
who were as dust, and the dream died in
them, the bones of dreams with no flesh, with
no men
to man them, no pilots to steer and
guide them, no flesh for the bones of the
Obliv
ion
Machines. They were ghost kites, ruins in the sky destined to tatter and snow
into dino
saur
graves and elephant
tombyards
.

No man stirred.

"How can they hurt you,
Gonn
? They're not
even
moving."

"They play at Statues and would make me
one!'

"They don't know you
exist!"

"Truth!
And their not
knowing further di
minishes me. Witness, I lose substance, flesh,
and weight. I melt
with disbelief."

And as Ahmed watched, this, too, was true.

Great
Gonn
, as if
burned in a sluice of invisible flame, flailed out arms and legs that were
dwindling to shank
and marrow.
 
Where vast
balcony chest was, now ribs emerged.
His chin
sharpened to a sword,
his nose a razor, his lips
a waxen grin over death's-head teeth.

"Oh, great
Gonn
, stop!"
Ahmed cried.

"I am a
tombyard
god. Only living flesh and
blood and human dream can help. I, a whale, am now carp
and
minnowed
fingerling. Who
will save me?"

"
Gonn
, oh,
Gonn
:" The boy writhed to find
the words.
"Me!"

"You!?" shouted
Gonn
.
"Have you learned
the first lesson well?"

"Yes!" yelled Ahmed.

At which
Gonn's
face suffused with pinks
and crimson fires and his diminishment ceased
and his bones, his
ribs, sank back in refur
bished skin.

"How
dare
you!"

"Because I'm the
only one
awake
^!
Do you
see anyone
else?
I'm
up here,
Gonn
, but they
don't know
I
am here,
either!
Oh,
blast them,
Gonn
, and
burn
the fools!"

And
Gonn
gained
further weight. His lips
hid
his skull's teeth. His sunken eyes blossomed
in
fuller
lids.

"Would you be a
god
_;
then, like
Gonn
, and
forgotten and maybe
dead before your time?"

"Why not?"

"Courageous
boy."

"No, only mad!"

"Madness
is
courage! Your madness is a meal.
Fatten me!"

The boy seized
Gonn's
hand.
Gonn
, a bal
loon, ascended.

Ahmed stared at his hand gripped in the fist
of this sick deity
made well.

"It works!"

"Aye!"
laughed
Gonn
.
"Prayer builds a
mighty fortress upon
air!"

"I
never
pray!"

"You
do
¹
.
He who speaks
tomorrows prays!"

Ahmed scanned the sullen dunes and
sunken rums.

"
Peach
me more,
Gonn
. How to fly higher
and
longer
and swifter so—"

"So?"

"I can fly over these ruins and towns
and
shout."

"To waken the
dead?"

"Some
must
hear, mustn't they?
Some will
wake,
yes?
If I keep on shouting."

"A lifetime of
shouting?
To tell them what?"

"Look here. How high. How great. What
joy.
You,
too!"

"The simplest songs are best. You have
sung
one.
So now you are
Gonn
the insignificant on
his way to being son
of
Gonn
, and a mighty
god."

"I just want the
world
to be
mighty]"

"Unselfishness;
that earns you another thou
sand years in
Paradise
."

"Not
Paradise
] I just want people
out of bed.
And I want to be with you,
Gonn
,
forever!"

"
Nol
For
now that he has a son,
Gonn
must
partake
of Time. Take me back to where you
wept me awake. Bury me.
This
time with
happy
tears."

"Oh,
Gonn
,
don't be dead!"

"Ah," laughed the god. "I will
not die! In
the moment of your birth, child, did you not know that my symbol was
stamped on your
brow?"

"Here?" Ahmed touched his brow.

"My immense
thumbprint, which hides in
the maze of your secret self.
What you can
bel
That
thumbprint is all
your future life, dream,
and doing if you act. But in the hour of birth,
that great thumbprint
vanished, sank down into
your brow to hide unseen—"

"Unless?"

"You seek a lifetime's days for it, in
mirrors
where
you drink deeply to find the you that
is
truly you, and be a
being born into this earth
to
become."

"And what if I do not find my brow's
thumbprint?"

"You need but look each day to find a
line;
at
dark, another line; until, full grown, you gaze
into your glass and
all
is
there. Is your brow
large enough to share space? Is there
room for
my body, arms,
legs, head, and clamorous
mouth
in that skull?
Permission to hide?"

"Oh,
Gonn
."
The boy laughed. "Welcome!"

"Then hide me so I'll live, child, behind
your
eyes.
Quick, a few last lessons. So!"

And hand in hand through clouds and sky,
Gonn
shadowed the
tombyard
cities
and ave
nues
of dust, and gave the boy more flesh and
mightier if unseen wings, and Ahmed cried
down at the vanished
places.

"I'll be back! I won't let you
rest!"

And fly they did until, exhausted, they sim
mered down to the
volcanic pit where
Gonn
had ascended to shadow
the heavens.

"The sun sets. Before it does, you will
find
your
caravan, child."

"But I am lost!"

"Once, yes, some
hours ago.
But fly high
enough, look long, and there it will be."

"I can't leave you here," the boy
wailed.

"Come back many years from now when, as
a man,
you have invented air and swum in
clouds and moved the world from place to
place in your own Oblivion Machine. And dig
and find your great
Gonn's
golden face, as it
was just at dawn this day, and fix it as medallion
to your lightning device and
we
shall
fly again.
Done,
Ahmed?"

"Done!"

"Now weep to wet the sand and lubricate
my way."

And Ahmed loosed his final tears, which did
just that.

And
Gonn
, with a
mighty laugh and winking
both his golden eyes, sank down and down like
a massive spike
driven by a last blow of light, until his own wet eyes were gone and then his
brow and then his
windblown hair and the sand
settled, blowing with the breeze of dusk.

Ahmed wiped his eyes, searching the sky.

"I've
forgotten already."

'No,"
  
came
  
the
  
whisper
  
from
  
the
  
sand.
"First
left.”

Ahmed lifted his left arm.

"Now
right."

Ahmed lifted his right arm.

"Now left and right, right and left, up,
down,
down,
up, left, right.
Sol
Ah
¹
."

And Ahmed flew.

And, exhaling, Ahmed thrust himself across a
desert span to be gentled down where the
caravan lay asleep with beasts and where his
father, awake and
grieving for his lost son,
plunged from his tent to stumble in surprise
upon that very son
and not know him in the
dark and, knowing him, fall to his knees and
crush Ahmed with weeping
and praise God who is the One God.

"Son, oh, my son, where have you
been?"

"I flew, Father. See.
Above
to the north.
Those clouds.
I lived there a
while. There were
a thousand ships around me in the air that
crossed the moon. I was lost, but he
led the
way
across the night."