A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury Page A

nights—smelling the electricity, his dark eyes moving over the advertisements, feeling the wheels rumble under him, watching the little sleeping houses and big hotels slip by. Besides that, he had gone to large restaurants, where he had eaten many-course dinners, and to the opera and the theater. And he had bought a car, which later, when he forgot to pay for it, the dealer had driven off angrily from in front of the rooming house.
    “So here I am,” said Mr. Ramirez now, “to tell you I must give up my room, Mrs. O’Brian. I come to get my baggage and clothes and go with these men.”
    “Back to Mexico?”
    “Yes. To Lagos. That is a little town north of Mexico City.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Ramirez.”
    “I’m packed,” said Mr. Ramirez hoarsely, blinking his dark eyes rapidly and moving his hands helplessly before him. The policemen did not touch him. There was no necessity for that.
    “Here is the key, Mrs. O’Brian,” Mr. Ramirez said. “I have my bag already.”
    Mrs. O’Brian, for the first time, noticed a suitcase standing behind him on the porch.
    Mr. Ramirez looked in again at the huge kitchen, at the bright silver cutlery and the young people eating and the shining waxed floor. He turned and looked for a long moment at the apartment house next door, rising up three stories, high and beautiful. He looked at the balconies and fire escapes and back-porch stairs, at the lines of laundry snapping in the wind.
    “You’ve been a good tenant,” said Mrs. O’Brian.
    “Thank you, thank you, Mrs. O’Brian,” he said softly. He closed his eyes.
    Mrs. O’Brian stood holding the door half open. One of her sons, behind her, said that her dinner was getting cold, but she shook her head at him and turned back to Mr. Ramirez. She remembered a visit she had once made to some Mexican border towns—the hot days, the endless crickets leaping and falling or lying dead and brittle like the small cigars in the shop windows, and the canals taking river water out to the farms, the dirt roads, the scorched scape. She remembered the silent towns, the warm beer, the hot, thick foods each day. She remembered the slow, dragging horses and the parched jack rabbits on the road. She remembered the iron mountains and the dusty valleys and the ocean beaches that spread hundreds of miles with no sound but the waves—no cars, no buildings, nothing.
    “I’m sure sorry, Mr. Ramirez,” she said.
    “I don’t want to go back, Mrs. O’Brian,” he said weakly. “I like it here, I want to stay here. I’ve worked, I’ve got money. I look all right, don’t I? And I don’t want to go back!”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Ramirez,” she said. “I wish there was something I could do.”
    “Mrs. O’Brian!” he cried suddenly, tears rolling out from under his eyelids. He reached out his hand and took her hand fervently, shaking it, wringing it, holding to it. “Mrs. O’Brian, I see you never, I see you never!”
    The policemen smiled at this, but Mr. Ramirez did not notice it, and they stopped smiling very soon.
    “Good-by, Mrs. O’Brian. You have been good to me. Oh, good-by, Mrs. O’Brian. I see you never!”
    The policemen waited for Mr. Ramirez to turn, pick up his suitcase, and walk away. Then they followed him, tipping their caps to Mrs. O’Brian. She watched them go down the porch steps. Then she shut the door quietly and went slowly back to her chair at the table. She pulled the chair out and sat down. She picked up the shining knife and fork and started once more upon her steak.
    “Hurry up, Mom,” said one of the sons. “It’ll be cold.”
    Mrs. O’Brian took one bite and chewed on it for a long, slow time; then she stared at the closed door. She laid down her knife and fork.
    “What’s wrong, Ma?” asked her son.
    “I just realized,” said Mrs. O’Brian—she put her hand to her face—“I’ll never see Mr. Ramirez again.”

Embroidery
    T he dark porch air in the late afternoon was full of needle flashes,