babyblue

Because of the Paybacks' penchant for crappy crappy local opening bands (see last entry), I decided to skip the show and stay home reading Bradbury short stories instead, while EnergyChannel sat through The Chronicles of Riddick. I'm halfway through the stories that eventually became known as the Martian Chronicles, and it's fun reading them again, as it's been about five years since last I cracked open the dusty tome.

They raise some interesting questions. Such as, what if you were the last man on the planet, having stayed on Mars when everyone else fled to Earth, and after partying it up in town, doing whatever you wanted, you become lonely? One day, you hear a phone ring in one of the houses, but by the time you pick it up, the line has gone dead. You convince yourself that the person on the other line must be a woman, something you've been longing for, and you wait for it to ring again in another house. When it does, you are ready. You answer the phone, hear the cool, sweet, feminine voice on the other end, and decide to find her.

You drive for thousands of miles, fantasizing over her beautiful body, her perfect face, that sensual voice. You find her in a beauty parlor.

And she's fat. Very, very fat. (Bradbury describes her legs as tree trunks.) Chocolate is smeared on her fingers. Her eyebrows are plucked to thin lines. Greasy red lipstick passes for a mouth. She's ditzy and annoying, and she's bearing something you suddenly dread...a wedding dress.

What would you do?


We leave for Bend tomorrow. Ah, sweet, sweet vacation. How I've longed for you.