A Pleasure to Burn by Ray Bradbury Read Free Book Online

boy.
    â€œThe dark,” said Lantry.
    â€œHo ho,” said the boy. “Why should I be?”
    â€œWell,” said Lantry. “It’s black, it’s dark. And after all, street lights were invented to take away the dark and take away fear.”
    â€œThat’s silly. Street lights were made so you could see where you were walking. Outside of that there’s nothing.”
    â€œYou miss the whole point—” said Lantry. “Do you mean to say you would sit in the middle of an empty lot all night and not be afraid?”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œOf what, of what, of what, you little ninny! Of the dark!”
    â€œHo ho.”
    â€œWould you go out in the hills and stay all night in the dark?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œWould you stay in a deserted house alone?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œAnd not be afraid?”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œYou’re a liar!”
    â€œDon’t you call me nasty names!” shouted the boy. Liar was the improper noun, indeed. It seemed to be the worst thing you could call a person.
    Lantry was completely furious with the little monster. “Look,” he insisted. “Look into my eyes …”
    The boy looked.
    Lantry bared his teeth slightly. He put out his hands, making a claw-like gesture. He leered and gesticulated and wrinkled his face into a terrible mask of horror.
    â€œHo ho,” said the boy. “You’re funny.”
    â€œ What did you say?”
    â€œYou’re funny. Do it again. Hey, gang, c’mere! This man does funny things!”
    â€œNever mind.”
    â€œDo it again, sir.”
    â€œNever mind, never mind. Good night!” Lantry ran off.
    â€œGood night, sir. And mind the dark, sir!” called the little boy.
    Of all the stupidity, of all the rank, gross, crawling, jelly-mouthed stupidity! He had never seen the like of it in his life! Bringing the children up without so much as an ounce of imagination! Where was the fun in being children if you didn’t imagine things?
    He stopped running. He slowed and for the first time began to appraise himself. He ran his hand over his face and bit his finger and found that he himself was standing midway in the block and he felt uncomfortable. He moved up to the street corner where there was a glowing lantern. “That’s better,” he said, holding his hands out like a man to an open warm fire.
    He listened. There was not a sound except the night breathing of the crickets. Faintly there was a fire-hush as a rocket swept the sky. It was the sound a torch might make brandished gently on the dark air.
    He listened to himself and for the first time he realized what there was so peculiar to himself. There was not a sound in him. The little nostril and lung noises were absent. His lungs did not take nor give oxygen or carbon-dioxide; they did not move. The hairs in his nostrils did not quiver with warm combing air. That faint purling whisper of breathing did not sound in his nose. Strange. Funny. A noise you never heard when you were alive, the breath that fed your body, and yet, once dead, oh how you missed it!
    The only other time you ever heard it was on deep dreamless awake nights when you wakened and listened and heard first your nose taking and gently poking out the air, and then the dull deep dim red thunder of the blood in your temples, in your eardrums, in your throat, in your aching wrists, in your warm loins, in your chest. All of those little rhythms, gone. The wrist beat gone, the throat pulse gone, the chest vibration gone. The sound of the blood coming up down around and through, up down around and through. Now it was like listening to a statue.
    And yet he lived. Or, rather, moved about. And how was this done, over and above scientific explanations, theories, doubts?
    By one thing, and one thing alone.
    Hatred.
    Hatred was a blood in him, it went up down around and through, up down around and through. It was a heart in