There Will Come Short Rains ☔️ - A Slightly Creepy Short Story

 There Will Come Soft Rains


I recently read the short story There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury and thought it was interesting, so I wanted to write my thoughts about it. You may know Bradbury from some of his other well known works such as Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An important detail to note about There Will Come Soft Rains is that it was written during the Cold War, when the fear of nuclear destruction was everywhere, and that’s something to consider when thinking about the story’s mood. 

There Will Come Soft Rains is a short story about an automated modern day house that continues to function even though it’s completely untenanted. The story is told by descriptive scenes that are set by the house itself, especially the talking clock that announces reminders and daily routines that were once meant for the family who lived there. It says things like “Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o'clock, off to school, off to work, run, run, eight-one!” and "Rain, rain, go away; umbrellas, raincoats for today...” 


The house is full of cool features, such as an automated breakfast maker (that can make sunny side up eggs, coffee, toast, and cold milk), bed warmer, dishwasher, poem reader, and fastidiously neatnik robot mice that clean up literally everything. At first the house seems perfect, but soon gets unsettling as there are no humans to use any of it.


It’s implied a few moments prior to the story that a nuclear bomb exploded, killing the family and everyone else on Earth, leaving only the house standing. One of the creepiest images described in the story is the silhouette of the family burned onto the side of the house by the blast. The father is shown mowing the lawn, the mother picking flowers, and the children playing catch. One child is depicted mid-throw as the other reaches up for the ball that never came down. As time passes, the house begins to decay; the once delicious homemade breakfast rots, filling the house with a strange scent, and the family dog wanders inside and dies from starvation, leaving the robot mice to dispose of its body. Eventually, the house catches on fire and despite its advanced technological features, it's unable to save itself and everything turns to ashes. 



One of the most interesting details in the story is right at the beginning, when a voice from the ceiling says, “Today is August 4, 2026”. Bradbury wrote this in 1950, over 67 years ago. This doesn’t relate directly to the plot, but when I was reading this, I was curious as to what the people reading this back then thought about it. Obviously, this story isn’t meant to be a direct prediction of the future, but people from the past might have believed we would have self boiling and watering bath tubs and automated french toast makers by 2026. 


Overall, I thought this was a very interesting short story and I recommend it to everyone, especially those who like short sci-fi reads. 


-Lauren K



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

An Analysis of Mackie 2007 (through the lens of Gen Alpha)

Image
  Hey chat, I welcome you to my yap sesh about bivalves (clams, mussels, etc.) and Mackie’s book about some of them. Please excuse the slang for real for real, I need a way to keep y’all engaged because the topic I’m writing on is traditionally rather boring and not skibidi sigma. To start, Corbicula and Sphaeriidae are two types of small clams that live in freshwater habitats like ponds, rivers, lakes, etc. There is a third group, Unionidae, which is a group of mussels (not “clams”) that also lives in freshwater. In North America, Unionidae and Sphaeriidae are native. Both groups play an essential role in filter feeding and nutrient cycling. Without them, freshwater habitats would be more stagnant, murky, and overrun with algae suffocating most life. Basically, native bivalves are unpaid janitors.  Corbicula , on the other hand, is invasive and was introduced to the United States in the 1920s–1930s. In terms of using up resources, Corbicula solos, no diff, straining native...
Read more

Review of the I survived series

Image
I Survived is a book series written by Lauren Tarshis. Each book in this series features a different historical event following the perspective of a child protagonist who is usually 8-12 years old. I discovered I Survived  in elementary school when my friend recommended it to me. Each book had a captivating story that was hard to put down. Not only was it entertaining, but it also provided an educational experience about historical events that I probably wouldn't have known much about before reading these books. What I did and didn't like about the series      Something I liked about these books were the amount of detail they each had. The high level of descriptions in the books made it easier to imagine and even picture yourself in the position of the main character. For example, in the book, I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005, an example of the great detail can be seen on page 5,  " Wind howled around him. Rain hammered down. And all Barry could see was water....
Read more

Eric Carle and his amazing book The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Image
      I don’t remember how old I was when I first read The Very Hungry Caterpillar , but I do remember that it was my favorite childhood book. I always kept it on my nightstand, right next to my bed. My mom had a tan colored tote bag with The Very Hungry Caterpillar drawing on it and I would constantly steal it from her and carry my copy of the book around in it.       My favorite part of The Very Hungry Caterpillar has always been the fruit page with the little cut out holes. I thought it was so cool how Eric Carle designed it so it almost looked like a flip book to show how much the caterpillar ate each day. I always found it satisfying how the holes lined up perfectly as I turned the pages.       Eric Carle was an outstanding American author who wrote and illustrated many books that are still loved by children all over the world today. Carle was born in 1929 in New York, to two German immigrant parents. He moved back to St...
Read more