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Storage of stories written for The Bradbury, 2025. |
| Various stories created at the (hopeful) rate of one a week for the year 2025, |
 Old Man Ray Burlingham was tired. This was nothing new for he had been tired many times before. But it was a special brand of weariness that had become familiar over the years. At the age of sixty-seven he had been aware that old age was catching up to him. And the main component of this was the feeling of being bone weary as never before. Ten years later he was worse. He felt exhausted by the process of living through day after day, time stretching before him into a grey, insubstantial future with nothing to look forward to but more weariness on the brink of exhaustion. Aches and pains came and went but this perpetual tiredness was getting him down. Not that he had nothing to do. Most of his waking moments were spent at the computer, allowing his curiosity to lead him into diverse areas of knowledge, some new and others lifelong, always expanding his vision of a world now closed to him. It was a poor substitute for living, however. At eighty-seven the memory of his grandmother returned to him during one of his attempts at escape into the past. Once again he saw her lifting her frail frame from the easy chair with pain, then making her slow way across the floor to peer at the mantelpiece clock. “What time is it?” The familiar words hung in the air as they did every day, a ritual of the beginning of every bedtime. She had lived to the age of ninety-seven. The prospect of repeating that performance was too much for Ray. He already felt that his existence was so dogged by fatigue that life was hardly worth living. There was no way he could imagine living another ten years to experience life at his grandmother’s age. It really was time to go. And that, of course, was the problem. Easy enough to say it out loud like that, not so easy to somehow make it happen. Apart from the sheer difficulty of the mechanics involved, he knew it was forbidden, an escape route expressly denied to one who knew the Living God. It seemed that the only recourse was to wait for the body to give up, to surrender at last whatever feeble drive to live remained and to release this grip upon a life that had surely run its course by now. A pity then that his annual visits to his doctor invariably returned much the same results from the samples submitted for examination. The man was determined to keep him healthy regardless of Ray’s waning interest in the matter, and it seemed that his body had reached some sort of plateau where degeneration became so slow that it could hardly be detected. The doctor smiled in satisfaction while Ray contemplated another year of sheer, monotonous lethargy. Ray stood at the window, staring out at the world beyond the narrow boundaries of his dwindling life. Not much was happening out there as well. A last leaf separated itself from its grasp on the branch and drifted down in erratic course to the ground. Across the street, Mrs Darnley was sweeping the dust from her doorstep. Otherwise nothing moved in the dull landscape under an overcast sky. The old man turned away to his thoughts again. He supposed that he could go to the source with his problem. After all, God should know best about the reason for the prohibition. Not that Ray had no idea on the subject but it would be good to at least discuss it with someone. If that were at all possible. It had been a long time since Ray had heard from The Horse’s Mouth. Oh, he knew that was entirely down to himself, that even his tiredness militated against reopening conversation in that area. But that did not help. The truth was that he was afraid to try, scared of the possibility that communication was no longer an option. In fact, Ray suspected that he’d blown it somehow. His mind went back to the days when he had been close to God and their conversation had been daily. That was when his faith was young and his enthusiasm still strong. Without understanding of the right way to go about such communication with the divine, he had been so open and uninhibited with his new friend that nothing seemed unworthy of inspection and consideration. Ray understood now that such intensity and pace could not be maintained forever. In time he found that they spoke together less and less until it was only in periods of extreme pressure that he turned to the deity. And hearing became so hard as well. He blamed it all on old age. It was promised that things were different according to one’s age, after all. “Your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions,” he remembered. That seemed appropriate, after all. Old age no longer had the strength and energy to pursue visions. “Yet both dreams and vision concern the future,” said a voice. The words were clear but more written in his mind than spoken. It was familiar in spite of the decades since he had last heard it. This was his chance to ask a few questions. “That’s true, but what sort of future can I have at my age?” He thought the words. “That would be telling,” came the response. “But it’s hard when the future seems empty. It’s like I’ve bought my ticket and now await a train with no idea of its arrival time.” “Same for everyone. You might call it the human condition.” Ray changed tack. “It seems so pointless now. Having no purpose since my abilities are so limited these days.” “Have you no purpose?” “None that I know of.” “You still have the same purpose you’ve always had.” “I do? And what might that be?” “To learn.” Ray thought of his endless explorations of the internet in search of knowledge. That was hardly a purpose. He thought of it more as a way to pass the time. “That’s a hobby,” he said. “I meant something more fulfilling, important.” “Everything is made for a purpose,” replied the voice. “And learning is yours. It seems easy for you because that’s what you’re for. Don’t despise it.” Ray pondered the thought. All the things he’d learned over the last few days passed in array through his memory, unlikely aircraft designs of the second world war, the latest discoveries in the evolution of mankind, the week’s football scores, stuff that would never be more useful to him than interesting nonsense. This was what he was made for? The answer came before he could ask the question. “Yes. Curiosity will have its satisfaction, whether that be bread or caviar. The tool must do what it was designed for.” Ray exclaimed aloud in frustration, “But it seems so pointless!” “You will find no satisfaction in anything else. The tool is only useful when doing what it’s designed for.” There was silence while Ray digested this fact. Then the voice spoke again. “What have you learned today, for instance?” Suddenly Ray knew the answer. “That I have a purpose and I’m doing it.” “Exactly. And now you have fulfilled it. Come, Ray, it’s time to go.” Ray smiled as never before in his long life. Word count: 1,224 For The Bradbury, Week 1, 2025 |
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