The Day It Rained Forever

Bittering wanted to cry. ‘You’ve got to work with me. If we stay here, we’ll all change. The air. Don’t you smell it? Something in the air. A Martian, virus, maybe; some seed, or a pollen. Listen to me!’

They stared at him.

‘Sam,’ he said to one of them.

‘Yes, Harry?’

‘Will you help me build a rocket?’

‘Harry, I got a whole load of metal and some blueprints. You want to work in my metal shop, on a rocket, you’re welcome. I’ll sell you that metal for five hundred dollars. You should be able to construct a right pretty rocket if you work alone, in about thirty years.’

Everyone laughed.

‘Don’t laugh.’

Sam looked at him with quiet good humour.

‘Sam,’ Bittering said. ‘Your eyes –’

‘What about them, Harry?’

‘Didn’t they used to be grey?’

‘Well, now, I don’t remember.’

‘They were, weren’t they?’

‘Why do you a

sk, Harry?’

‘Because now they’re kind of yellow-coloured.’

‘Is that so, Harry?’ Sam said, casually.

‘And you’re taller and thinner –’

‘You might be right, Harry.’

‘Sam, you shouldn’t have yellow eyes.’

‘Harry, what colour eyes have you got?’ Sam said.

‘My eyes? They’re blue, of course.’

‘Here you are, Harry.’ Sam handed him a pocket mirror. ‘Take a look at yourself.’

Mr Bittering hesitated, and then raised the mirror to his face.

There were little, very dim flecks of new gold captured in the blue of his eyes.

‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Sam, a moment later. ‘You’ve broken my mirror.’

Harry Bittering moved into the metal shop and began to build the rocket. Men stood in the open door and talked and joked without raising their voices. Once in a while they gave him a hand on lifting something. But mostly they just idled and watched him with their yellowing eyes.

‘It’s supper-time, Harry,’ they said.

His wife appeared with his supper in a wicker basket.