Read occasional books, thought occasional thoughts. [. . .] Are you so stale, flat, unbumped, untouched, unscarred, unmoved? Have you no nightmare dreams, secret murders, drugs, or drink in your soul? Is your heart missing, the pulse spent? Did you give over when you were thirty, or were you ever more than a dry biscuit, an unbuttered bun, flat wine? Pleasantly sensual, but never passionate. A good husband, fair friend, far traveler, without worry, coming and going so quietly that God himself never noticed. And when you die Redleigh, will even one horn sound? Will one hand flutter, one soul cry, one tear drop, one door slam? What's you sum? Let's finish it. There, there it is: zero. [. . .] Feed zero, get zero?—From Leviathan '99 by Ray Bradbury
Any wonder that the most people lead lives of quiet desperation?
John Redleigh, first Mate of the Cetus 7, a starship, pens the above in his log. Leviathan '99 is a reimagining and retelling of Herman Melville's Moby Dick as an interstellar adventure, transforming the great whale into a worlds-devouring comet.
You can read Leviathan '99 in the book: Now and Forever.
Another Ray Bradbury nugget: On Silence
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