The Pedestrian, Ray Bradbury 1951




To enter out into that silence that was the city at eight o’clock of a mistyevening in November, to put your feet upon that buckling concrete walk, to stepover grassy streams and make your way, hands in pockets, through the silences,that was what Mr. Leonard Mead most dearly love to do. He would stand upon thecorner of an intersection and peer down long moonlit avenues of side walk infour directions, deciding which way to go, but it really made no difference; hewas alone in the world of 2053 A.D., or as good as alone, and with a finaldecision made, a path selected, he would stride off, sending patterns of frostyair before him like the smoke of a cigar. Sometimes he would walk for hours andmiles and return only at midnight to his house.

And on his way he would see the cottages and homes withtheir dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard whereonly the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind thewindows.  Sudden gray phantoms seemed tomanifest upon inner room walls where a curtain was still undrawn against thenight, or there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb-likebuilding was still open.

Mr. Leonard Mead would pause, cock his head, listen, look,and march on, his feet making no noise on the lumpy walk.  For long ago he had wisely changed tosneakers when strolling at night, because the dogs in intermittent squads wouldparallel his journey with barkings if he wore hard heels, and lights mightclick on and faces appear and an entire street be startled by the passing of alone figure, himself, in the early November evening.

On this particular occasion he began his journey in a westerly direction toward the hidden sea. There was a good crystal frost in the air; it cut the nose and made the lungs blaze like a Christmas tree inside; you could feel the cold light going on and off, all the branches filled with invisible snow. He listened to the faint push of his soft shoes through autumn leaves with satisfaction, and whistled a cold quiet whistle between his teeth, occasionally picking up a leaf as he passed, examining its skeletal pattern in the infrequent lamplights as he went on, smelling its rusty smell.

“Hello in there,” he whispered to every house on every side as he moved. “What’s up tonight on Channel 9? Where are the cowboys rushing, and do I see the United States Cavalry over the next hill to the rescue?”

The street was silent and long and empty, with only his shadow moving like the shadow of a hawk in mid-country. If he closed his eyes and stood very still, frozen, he could imagine himself upon the center of a plain, a wintry, windless Arizona desert with no house in a thousand miles, and only dry river beds, the streets for company. “What is it now? He asked the houses, noticing his wrist watch. “Eight-thirty P.M.? Time for a dozen assorted murders? A quiz? A revue? A comedian falling off the stage?”

Was that a murmur of laughter from within a moon-white house? He hesitated, but went on when nothing more happened. He stumbled over a particularly uneven section of the sidewalk. The cement was vanishing under flowers and grass. In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he had never met another person walking, not one in all that time.

He came to a cloverleaf intersection which stood silent where two main highways crossed the town. During the day is was a thunderous surge of cars, the gas stations open, a great insect rustling and a ceaseless jockeying for position as the scarab-beetles, a faint incense puttering from their exhausts, skimmed homeward to the far directions. But now these highways too, were like streams in a dry season, all stone and bed and moon radiance.

He turned back on a side street, circling around toward his home. He was within a block of his destination when the lone car turned a corner quite suddenly and flashed a fierce white cone of light upon him. He stood entranced, not unlike a night moth, stunned by the illumination, and then drawn toward it.

Extract from the Pedestrian, it is based on the character of Clarisse McClellan's uncle in Ray Bradburys's 1953 novel "Fahrenheit 451". Click on this link to download a full copy in PDF format.