There Will Come Soft Rains

Ray Bradbury issued two versions of this short story. The first was published in Collier's and the second version was published in The Martian Chronicles. 

In the second version he includes a new metaphor: 

"The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly." 

This change is an important one. The house is now characterized as an altar while the technology are the choirs or servants in attendance. The house or "altar" is a place where rituals continue long after they are necessary. 

The stove continues to make breakfast even when there are no people left to eat it. In fact, immediately before the house is ruined, the house's technology goes into a frenzy. The stove makes breakfasts "at a psychopathic rate, ten dozen eggs, six loaves of toast, twenty dozen bacon strips." 

Not only does the stove misidentify the time--its well after 10 PM--the stove produces an enormous quantity of food. The stove would not need to cook ten dozen eggs for the four people living in the house--Mr. and Mrs. McClellan and their two children.  

The "gods" he spoke of in the altar metaphor are clearly the family who no longer need to eat breakfast. He said "the gods had gone away," a sly reference to the fact that the family are now silhouettes on a charred exterior wall of the house.

Though computers had not been invented in Bradbury's time, he gives the house a CPU--an "attic brain" that fails to correctly direct the pumps to put out the fire. 

The "choirs" that so obediently did the work of the humans fail all at once. The lawn mower begins cutting the grass, the front door opens and closes, the umbrella in the lawn opens and closes. Bradbury writes that there were "a thousand things happening" and that there was "maniac confusion" when the smart technology fails.  

He calls the end, when the house is in its death throes, a "rain of fire and timber."

The attic or brain has been overthrown causing all of the technology to malfunction. The technology continues to operate haphazardly, a voice continues to announce the day of the week. This ritual, like the poetry ritual, is no longer necessary since, unfortunately, there is no one left on earth. 

  

 https://medium.com/@chantal.walvoord

 

 

Barn Swallow

 

Last night, we saw this beauty in our back porch. I noticed the nest several days ago but finally got a glimpse of its owner. 

                

Looking forward to reading Adele Barger Wilson's Bonding with the Barn Swallows. 

I also found this website, Your Guide to Texas Birding, helpful,

Texas Swallow Species and How to Tell Them Apart | BirdingLocations

Liz Moore's Long Bright River

 

Mickey, a police officer, narrates the Long Bright River, a compelling story of two sisters on opposite sides of the law. Both Mickey and Kacey come from the same hardscrabble neighborhood in Philadelphia. They were raised by their taciturn grandmother, Gee. 

This part of the story is easily recognizable. Since their mother died of an overdose and their father abandoned them, they are raised by a bitter grandmother. She bitterly laments the death of her daughter who overdosed and left her to two children to raise.

Gee raised the girls without much joy or hope. The only bright spot in the girls' lives is their fierce bond and a secret hiding place where their girls share their favorite knick knacks and correspondence

The community Moore describes, Kensington, is a real community carefully researched by the author. Kensington is a working class district known for poverty, homelessness, and drug use.

What is the long, bright river? The reader does not know at first. Moore is writing about the "invisible people", the homeless and vulnerable, that most ignore.

Mickey has become a police officer whose job compels her to interact with this drug using crowd. Meanwhile, her younger sister, Kacey, has become one more of the nameless and invisible.

One of the working girls alerts Mickey that her sister has disappeared. Though she has a young son, Mickey does some investigating. At this point, the novel shifts into high gear and becomes a thriller. 

Mickey's choice to investigate her sister puts her in danger especially as there is a serial killer on the loose, one who is specifically targeting the ladies of the evening. 

Rumors circulate that the perpetrator may be one of Philadelphia's own PD. This puts Mickey in even more danger. She never knows who may be observing her or who may be hostile to her unendorsed investigation. 

The killer could be anyone on the force. She even suspects her ex and her former partner who frequent Kensington at odd times. To top it all, someone has been bothering her landlady and asking questions about her. 

Moore deliver a first-rate thriller while also drawing attention to poverty, drug abuse, prostitution and other social problems in the Philadephia community.

Long Bright River has recently been adapted into a miniseries on Peacock starring Amanda Seyfried.