The Day it Rained Forever Read Online Free PDF Page A

shut and felt his wife watching him as he watched the night.
    â€˜Almost time,’ she said.
    He nodded; he did not have to check his watch. In the passing moments he felt very old, then very young, very cold, then very warm, now this, now that. Suddenly, he was miles away. He was his own son talking steadily, moving briskly to cover his pounding heart and the resurgent panics as he felt himself slip into fresh uniform, check food supplies, oxygen-flasks, pressure helmet, space-suiting and turn, as every man on earth tonight turned, to gaze at the swiftly filling sky.
    Then, quickly, he was back, once more, the father of the son, hands gripped to the lawnmower handle. His wife called, ‘Come sit on the porch.’
    â€˜I’ve got to keep busy!’
    She came down the steps and across the lawn. ‘Don’t worry about Robert; he’ll be all right.’
    â€˜But it’s all so new,’ he heard himself say. ‘It’s never been done before. Think of it – a manned rocket going up tonight to build the first space-station. Good Lord, it can’t be done, it doesn’t exist, there’s no rocket, no proving-ground, no take-off time, no technicians. For that matter, I don’t even have a son named Bob. The whole thing’s too much for me!’
    â€˜Then what are you doing out here, staring?’
    He shook his head. ‘Well, late this morning, walking to the office, I heard someone laugh out loud. It shocked me so I froze in the middle of the street. It was me , laughing! Why? Because finally I really knew what Bob was going to do tonight; at last I believed it. Holy is a word I never use, but that’s how I felt stranded in all that traffic. Then, middle of the afternoon I caught myself humming. You know the song. A wheel in a wheel. Way in the middle of the air. I laughed again. The space-station, of course, I thought. The big wheel with hollow spokes where Bob’ll live six or eight months, then get along to the moon. Walking home, I remembered more of the song. Little wheel run by faith, Big wheel run by the grace of God. I wanted to jump, yell, and flame-out myself!’
    His wife touched his arm. ‘If we stay out here, let’s at least be comfortable.’
    They placed two wicker rockers in the centre of the lawn and sat quietly as the stars dissolved out of darkness in pale crushings of rock-salt strewn from horizon to horizon.
    â€˜Why,’ said his wife, at last, ‘it’s like waiting for the fireworks at Sisley Field every year.’
    â€˜Bigger crowd tonight….’
    â€˜I keep thinking – a billion people watching the sky right now, their mouths all open at the same time.’
    They waited, feeling the earth move under their chairs.
    â€˜What time is it now?’
    â€˜Eleven minutes to eight.’
    â€˜You’re always right; there must be a clock in your head.’
    â€˜I can’t be wrong, tonight. I’ll be able to tell you one second before they blast off. Look! The ten-minute warning!’
    On the western sky they saw four crimson flares open out, float shimmering down the wind, above the desert, then sink silently to the extinguishing earth.
    In the new darkness, the husband and wife did not rock in their chairs.
    After a while, he said, ‘Eight minutes.’ A pause. ‘Seven minutes.’ What seemed a much longer pause. ‘Six …’
    His wife, her head back, studied the stars immediately above her and murmured, ‘Why?’ She closed her eyes. ‘Why the rockets, why tonight? Why all this? I’d like to know.’
    He examined her face, pale in the vast powdering light of the Milky Way. He felt the stirring of an answer, but let his wife continue.
    â€˜I mean it’s not that old thing again, is it, when people asked why men climbed Mount Everest and they said, “Because it’s there”? I never understood. That was no answer to me.’
    Five