The Day It Rained Forever

‘All right then,’ he said, swaying. ‘See that you don’t.’

Everything was normal.

The pebbles were getting hot. The sky was big and dark. He looked at his fingers and saw the way the sun burned on every black hair. He looked at his boots and the dust on them. Suddenly he felt very happy because he made a decision. I won’t go to sleep, he thought. I’m having nightmares, so why sleep? There’s your solution.

He made a routine. From nine o’clock in the morning, which was this minute, until twelve, he would walk around and see the planetoid. He would write on a pad with a yellow pencil everything he saw. Then he would sit down and open a can of oily sardines, and some canned fresh bread with good butter on it, and pass it in through the helmet airlocks. From twelve-thirty until four he would read nine chapters of War and Peace. He took the book from the wreckage, and laid it where he might find it later. There was a book of T. S. Eliot’s poetry, too. That might be nice.

Supper would come at five-thirty and then from six until ten he would listen to the radio from Earth. There would be a couple of bad comedians telling jokes and a bad singer singing some songs, and the latest news flashes, signing off at midnight with the U.N. anthem.

After that?

He felt sick.

I’ll play solitaire until dawn, he thought. I’ll sit up and drink hot black coffee and play solitaire, no cheating, until sunrise.

Ho, ho, he thought.

‘What did you say?’ he asked himself, aloud.

‘I said "Ha ha",’ he replied. ‘Some time, you’ll have to sleep.’

‘I’m wide awake,’ he said.

‘Liar!’ he retorted, enjoying the conversation.

‘I feel fine,’ he said.

‘Hypocrite,’ he replied.

‘I’m not afraid of the night or sleep or anything,’ he said.

‘Very funny,’ he said.

He felt bad. He wanted to sleep. And the fact that he was afraid of sleep made him want to lie down all the more and shut his eyes and curl up. ‘Comfy-cosy?’ asked his ironic censor.

‘I’ll just walk and look at the rocks and the geological formations and think how good it is to be alive,’ he said.

‘Ye gods!’ cried his censor. ‘William Saroyan!’

You’ll go on, he thought, maybe one day, maybe one night, but what about the next night and the next and the next? Can you stay awake all that time, for six nights? Until the rescue ship comes? Are you that good, that strong?

The answer was no.

What are you afraid of ? I don’t know. Those voices. Those sounds. But they can’t hurt you – can they?

They might. You’ve got to face them some time. Must I? Brace up to it, old man. Chin up, and all that rot.

He sat down on the hard ground. He felt very much like crying. He felt as if life was over and he was entering new and unknown territory. It was such a deceiving day, with the sun warm; physically, he felt able and well, one might fish on such a day as this, or pick flowers or kiss a woman or anything. But in the midst of a lovely day, what did one get?

Death.

Well, hardly that.

Death, he insisted.

He lay down and closed his eyes. He was tired of messing around.

All right, he thought, if you are death, come get me. I want to know what all this nonsense is about.