A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury

the wind. And we shall build like a golden kite. The wind will beautify the kite and carry it to wondrous heights. And the kite will break the sameness of the wind’s existence and give it purpose and meaning. One without the other is nothing. Together, all will be beauty and co-operation and a long and enduring life.”
    Whereupon the two mandarins were so overjoyed that they took their first nourishment in days, momentarily were given strength, embraced, and lavished praise upon each other, called the Mandarin’s daughter a boy, a man, a stone pillar, a warrior, and a true and unforgettable son. Almost immediately they parted and hurried to their towns, calling out and singing, weakly but happily.
    And so, in time, the towns became the Town of the Golden Kite and the Town of the Silver Wind. And harvestings were harvested and business tended again, and the flesh returned, and disease ran off like a frightened jackal. And on every night of the year the inhabitants in the Town of the Kite could hear the good clear wind sustaining them. And those in the Town of the Wind could hear the kite singing, whispering, rising, and beautifying them.
    “So be it,” said the Mandarin in front of his silken screen.

I See You Never
    T he soft knock came at the kitchen door, and when Mrs. O’Brian opened it, there on the back porch were her best tenant, Mr. Ramirez, and two police officers, one on each side of him. Mr. Ramirez just stood there, walled in and small.
    “Why, Mr. Ramirez!” said Mrs. O’Brian.
    Mr. Ramirez was overcome. He did not seem to have words to explain.
    He had arrived at Mrs. O’Brian’s rooming house more than two years earlier and had lived there ever since. He had come by bus from Mexico City to San Diego and had then gone up to Los Angeles. There he had found the clean little room, with glossy blue linoleum, and pictures and calendars on the flowered walls, and Mrs. O’Brian as the strict but kindly landlady. During the war he had worked at the airplane factory and made parts for the planes that flew off somewhere, and even now, after the war, he still held his job. From the first he had made big money. He saved some of it, and he got drunk only once a week—a privilege that, to Mrs. O’Brian’s way of thinking, every good workingman deserved, unquestioned and unreprimanded.
    Inside Mrs. O’Brian’s kitchen, pies were baking in the oven. Soon the pies would come out with complexions like Mr. Ramirez’—brown and shiny and crisp, with slits in them for the air almost like the slits of Mr. Ramirez’ dark eyes. The kitchen smelled good. The policemen leaned forward, lured by the odor. Mr. Ramirez gazed at his feet as if they had carried him into all this trouble.
    “What happened, Mr. Ramirez?” asked Mrs. O’Brian.
    Behind Mrs. O’Brian, as he lifted his eyes, Mr. Ramirez saw the long table laid with clean white linen and set with a platter, cool, shining glasses, a water pitcher with ice cubes floating inside it, a bowl of fresh potato salad and one of bananas and oranges, cubed and sugared. At this table sat Mrs. O’Brian’s children—her three grown sons, eating and conversing, and her two younger daughters, who were staring at the policemen as they ate.
    “I have been here thirty months,” said Mr. Ramirez quietly, looking at Mrs. O’Brian’s plump hands.
    “That’s six months too long,” said one policeman. “He only had a temporary visa. We’ve just got around to looking for him.”
    Soon after Mr. Ramirez had arrived he bought a radio for his little room; evenings, he turned it up very loud and enjoyed it. And he had bought a wristwatch and enjoyed that too. And on many nights he had walked silent streets and seen the bright clothes in the windows and bought some of them, and he had seen the jewels and bought some of them for his few lady friends. And he had gone to picture shows five nights a week for a while. Then, also, he had ridden the streetcars—all night some