Bradbury, Ray - Chapbook 13 Read online

  Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines

  Ray Bradbury

  "Bradbury is an authentic original." —Time

  In the stories of Ray Bradbury, readers have journeyed beyond the boundaries set by their imaginations, and have reveled in fantastic realms created by "one of the world's outstanding storytellers" (Toronto Globe & Mail). Mow this prolific writer spins an enchanting fable about a lost boy who makes the acquaintance of a long-forgotten, though very powerful, ancient god.

  When Ahmed, the twelve-year-old son of a caravan leader, falls from his camel, he is lost in a vast desert, and his situation looks ominous. Isolated and alone, the young boy begins to :ry and his tears awaken the ancient god Gonn-Ben-Allah, Keeper of the Ghosts of the Lost Names, who lies beneath the sand.

  Rising to full form for the first time in tens of thousands of years, the majestic Gonn tells his frightened savior that fate has brought them together. To comfort Ahmed, the god bestows the gift of flight upon the boy, and the pair sets off on an evening of spectacular adventures. Traveling through time and space, Gonn shows the fascinated Ahmed the wonders of the world—past and present—and its sorrows. Within each startling revelation, Ahmed finds wisdom—and learns to accept life for all it has to offer.

  A wondrous fable for children of all ages, AHMED AND THE OBLIVION MACHINES is yet another glorious testament to the remarkable gifts of master storyteller Ray Bradbury.

  Books by Ray Bradbury

  Dandelion Wine

  Dark Carnival

  Death Is a Lonely Business

  Driving Blind

  Fahrenheit 451

  The Golden Apples of the Sun and Other Stories

  A Graveyard for Lunatics

  Green Shadows, White Whale

  The Halloween Tree

  I Sing the Body Electric! and Other Stories

  The Illustrated Man

  Kaleidoscope

  Long After Midnight

  The Martian Chronicles

  The Machineries of Joy

  A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories

  The October Country

  Quicker Than the Eye

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  The Stories of Ray Bradbury

  The Toynbee Convector When Elephants Last in the Dooryard Bloomed

  Yestermorrow Zen in the Art of Writing

  AHMED

  And the

  OBLIVION MACHINES

  A FABLE

  Ray Bradbury

  illustrated by

  CHRIS LANE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Axwi Books, Inc. 1350 Avenue of the Americas New York, New York 10019

  Text copyright © 1998 by Ray Bradbury Illustrations copyright © 1998 by Chris Lane

  Interior design by Kellan Peck

  Visit our website at http://www.AvonBooks.com

  ISBN: 0-380-97704-4

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U.S. Copyright Law. For information address Avon Books, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data:

  Bradbury, Ray, 1920-

  Ahmed and the oblivion machines : a fable / written by Ray Bradbury;

  illustrated by Chris Lane.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  I. Title.

  PS3503.R167A68 1998 98-22746

  813'.54—dc21 CIP

  First Avon Books Printing: December 1998

  AVON TRADEMARK REG. US PAT. OFF AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES. MARCA REGISTRADA, HF.CHO EN U.S.A.

  Printed in the U.S.A. FIRST EDITION

  QPM 10 987654321

  With Lowe and Gratitude

  to Chris Lane, whose imaginative sketches for

  LITTLE NEMO IN SLUMBERLAND

  caused this book to be born.

  It was the night following the day when the seagull was seen over the desert that Ahmed, the son of Ahmed, fell from his camel and was lost as the caravan moved on into the dusk.

  The gull had flown over at noon, coming from somewhere, going nowhere, circling back toward some invisible land that, they said, was rich with grass and water and had known nothing but water and grass for nine thousand years.

  Looking up, Ahmed said:

  "What does that bird seek? Here is no water and no grass, so where does it go?"

  His father had answered:

  "It was lost but now found again, returns to the sea from whence it came."

  Afaned, son of Afaned, fell from fas camel

  The gull circled a final time, crying.

  "Oh," whispered Ahmed. "Shall we fly one day?"

  "In another year," said his father, "but no one knows its name. Come. You must walk before you ride and ride before you fly. In the night, will your camel grow wings?"

  And it was during that night that Ahmed stared at the sky and counted the stars until he was dizzy with counting. Then, drunk with light, he swayed as he inhaled the night wind. Crazed with delight at all that he saw in the heavens, he toppled and fell and was buried in the cooling sands. So, unseen by his father or the caravan of marching beasts, he was left to die among the dunes in the hours after midnight.

  When Ahmed swam up through the sands, there were only the hoofprints of the great camels sifting away down the wind, at last gone, whispering.

  I die, thought Ahmed. For what am I punished? Being only twelve, I do not recall any terrible crimes I committed. In another life, was I evil, a devil unseen and now discovered?

  It was then that his foot scraped something beneath the shifting sands.

  He hesitated, then fell to his knees to plunge his hands deep, as if searching for hidden silver or buried gold.

  Something more than treasure rose to view as he swept the sand to let the night wind blow it away.

  A strange face stared up at him, a bas-relief in bronze, the face of a nameless man or a buried myth, immense, grimacing underfoot, magnificent and serene.

  "Oh, ancient god, whatever your name," whispered Ahmed. "Help this lost son of a good father, this evil boy who meant no harm but slept in school, ran errands slowly, did not pray from his heart, ignored his mother, and did not hold his family in great esteem. For all this I know I must suffer. But here in the midst of silence, at the desert's heart, where even the wind knows not my name? Must I die so young? Am I to be forgotten without having been?"

  The bronze bas-relief face of the old god glared up at him as the sand hissed over its empty mouth.

  Ahmed said, "What prayers must I offer, what sacrifice must I give, so that you, old one, may warm your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your mouth to speak?"

  The ancient god said only night and time and wind in syllables that Ahmed understood not.

  And so he wept.

  Just as all men do not laugh or all women move alike, so all boys do not weep alike. It is a language that the ancient gods know. For the tears that fall come from the soul out of the eyes unto the earth.

  And the tears of Ahmed rained upon the bronze bas-relief face of the ancient spirit and rinsed its shut lids so they trembled.

  Ahmed did not see, but continued weeping,

  And so he wept.

  and his small rain touched the half-seen ears of the buried god and they opened to hear the night and the wind and the weeping, and the ears—moved!

  But Ahmed did not see and his last tears watered th
e mouth of the god, to anoint the bronze tongue.

  So at last the entire face was washed and shook to let bark a laugh so sharp that Ahmed, shocked, flailed back and cried:

  "What!"

  "Indeed, what?" said the gaped mouth of the god.

  "Who are you?" cried Ahmed.

  "Company in the desert night, friend to silence, companion to dusk, inheritor of the dawn," said the cold mouth. But the eyes were friendly, seeing Ahmed so young and afraid. "Boy, your name?"

  "Ahmed of the caravans."

  "And I? Shall I tell you my life?" asked the bronze face gazing up from the moonlit sands.

  "Oh, do!"

  "I am Gonn-Ben-Allah. Gonn the Magnificent. Keeper of the Ghosts of the lost names!"

  "Can names be ghosts and lost?" Ahmed wiped his eyes to bend closer. "Great Gonn, how long were you buried here?"

  "Hark," whispered the bronze mouth. "I have been to my own funeral ten thousand times your days."

  "I cannot count that far."

  "Nor should you," answered Gonn-Ben-Allah. "For I am found. Your tears move my eyes to see, my ears to hear, my mouth to speak long before the Sack of Rome or Caesar's death, back to the caves and the lions and the lack of fire. List! Would you save yet more of me and all of you?"

  "I would!"

  "Then no more tears! No more cries! With your robes, sweep off the dunes from the pavements of my limbs. Rouse Gonn the Great to the stars. My funeral bones bring forth, and clothe them with your breath so that long before dawn, great Gonn will be reborn from your sighs and shouts and prayers! Beginl"

  And Ahmed rose and sighed and prayed and shouted with joy and used his robes as broom to sweep and quicken this newfound friend of such a size the stars, seeing him, danced in their pivots and shivered in their burning gyres.

  And what Ahmed's breath did not move, then his bare feet kicked away in the wind until the great bronze torso burst free. And then the snaking arms, the blunt fists, legs, and incredible feet, so that the naked god was unclothed of ancient dunes and lay under the burning gazes of Aldebaran, Orion, and Alpha Centauri. Starlight finished the revelation, even as Ahmed's breath, a fount, went dry.

  "I am!" cried Gonn-Ben-Allah.

  And he lay there, three men wide and two dozen tall, his torso a monument, his arms obelisks, his legs cenotaphs, his face a noble half-Sphinx, part sun god Ra, Arabian wits in fiery eyes, and a storm of Allah's voice in his cavern mouth.

  "I," said Gonn-Ben-Allah, "am!"

  "Oh, you must have been a great god," said Ahmed.

  "I strode the earth and shadowed continents. Now help me rise! Speak my hieroglyphs. The claw prints of the birds that from solstice to solstice touched my clay with prayers in codes, read and say!"

  And Ahmed spoke to the sands:

  "Now, Gonn of old, be young. Arise. Warm limbs, warm blood, warm heart, warm soul, warm breath. Come up, Gonn, up! Away from death!"

  The great Gonn stirred and settled and then with a great shout shot into the heavens to sway above Ahmed, his limbs sunk deep as architectural pilings in the tidal sands. Set free, he laughed, for now it was a goodness beyond reckoning or word.

  "There is reason, boy, why you stared and fell to print the dust and waken me. I have waited an eternity for you, the keeper of the skies, the inheritor of the dream, the one who flies without flying."

  And Gonn-Ben-Allah moved his arms to touch the horizons.

  "The dream has stayed forever. Oh, the clouds, men have said. Oh, the stars and the wind that moves not stars but clouds. Oh, the storms that wander Earth to seize our breath. Oh, the lightnings we would borrow and hurricanes race. What jealous despairs we lie with nights and angered, know not flight!

  "So you, boy, are the Storm Keeper."

  And Gonn touched Ahmed's brow.

  "Lead me with your dreams, which now must be remembered."

  "How can I remember what is not?" Ahmed felt his eyes, his mouth, his ears.

  "Step, walk, run. Then leap, bound, fly. ..."

  And as they watched, a great weather of

  darkness arose from that north from which all

  And Gomi touched Ahmed's brow.

  coldness comes, and that west which swallows the sun and that east which follows the death of the sun and darkens the sky. There were blizzards and hurricanes in the clouds and storms of lightning in its attics and the sounds of endless funerals lamenting as they fell off the edge of the world. The great blackness loomed over Ahmed and Gonn-Ben-Allah.

  "What is that?" cried Ahmed.

  "That," said Gonn, "is the Enemy."

  "Is there such a thing?"

  "One half of everything is the Enemy," said Gonn. "Just as one half of everything is the Saviour, the bright rememberer of noon."

  "And what is the name of that Enemy?"

  "Why, child, it is Time, and Time Again."

  "But, oh, mighty Gonn, does Time have a shape? I did not know you could see Time."

  "Once it happens, yes. Time has shapes and shadows to be seen. That, on the rim of the world, is Time to Be. A remembrance forward of things that will be erased, destroyed, if you do not grapple with it, seize it, shape it with your soul, sound it with your voice. Then Time becomes the companion to light and ceases to exist as the enemy of dreams."

  "It is so big," said Ahmed, "I'm afraid!"

  "Yes," said Gonn, "for it's Time itself we fight, Time and the way the wind blows, Time and the way the sea moves to cover, hide, wipe away, erode, change. We fight to be born or not be born. The Unborn One is always there. If we can fire it with our souls, welcome it into living, its darkness will cease. I need you for that, boy, for your youngness is a strength, as your innocence is.

  "When I fail, you must win.

  "When I falter, you must race.

  "When I sleep, you must fix your eyes on the stars to learn their journeys. At dawn the stars will have left their celestial roads, their Kings highways as faint breaths printed in the air. Before the dawn erases it, you must print it in your mind to show the way!"

  "Can I do that?"

  "And win a world and change men's destinies in clouds and flight? Yes] If you fly high you cannot escape Time, but you can pace it, and in the pacing, finish as its keeper."

  "Still ... I have never flown!"

  "There was a day when you never lived. Would you have hid forever in your mother's womb?"

  "Ah, no!"

  "Well, then, before Time buries us, hear this—"

  Gonn stretched his arms to the sky.

  "I am the god of all the heavens and airs and winds that ever blew the earth since Time began, and all the dreams of men at night who wanted flight but lost their wings. So! I will summon windship ghost craft, to sail down Time to cross your sight and joy your heart! Now lo! hark, look, to truly see1."

  Gonn in that instant exploded up till his nostrils plumed the clouds to crack the sky:

  "Let all the kite machines arise, let storms of time erupt to summon ghosts. Hear me, all you north winds that haunt the lands. All the gales that rise from the south to fire summer around the globe. Hear me, east and west winds, full of flimsy skeletons of impossible machines] Hear!"

  Then Gonn the Magnificent gestured like a player of harps.

  "Ahmed, who knows the future but does not know he knows! Run, jump, fly!"

  And Ahmed ran, jumped, and then . . .

  "I fly!" gasped Ahmed.

  "Indeed!" Gonn wove his fingers to pull the strings of this puppet. "But if we go north we miss what lies south. If we go west we shun the mysteries of the east. Only if we fly in all directions can we find what we seek. Wings, boy. Wings!"

  Ahmed spun about, crazed and alarmed. "But if we fly in all directions, how can we arrive somewhere? Are there no maps?"

  "Only those written in your blood."

  "But," cried Ahmed, "oh, god of confusions, where are we going?"

  "i fly!" gasped Aljmed.

  '' Yestermorrow! '' Yestermorrow!?''

  "
That which once was and that which will be1. Locked in your heart, remembrances of lost time. Ghosts buried in the past. Ghosts buried to be awakened, in the future."

  "In what year?" cried Ahmed, upside down.

  "Any year; there are no such things as years. Men made up the names of years to keep track. Ask not the year."

  "What day, then, and what hour?" Ahmed felt the words spun from his mouth.

  "Clocks are machines that pretend at Time. There is only the rising and the setting of the sun. There are no such things as weeks and months and hours. Say only that we move in space."

  "Toward what once was? Toward what one day will be?"

  "Clever boy. That is all that Time truly is. The past we try to recall, or the future which is just as impossible and unseen!"

  "We move both ways, then?"

  "Truly, that is our motion. Witness!" And Ahmed looked down and saw: A vast sea of sand which lay shore upon shore upon shore, surfing itself, falling to lay itself out in shuffles of white, flourishes of stone and rock and pebble that had gone through the granary of the sea a million years ago, before the sea pulled back to leave this endless desert and men to stake their tents and drive their camels and raise the walls of cities. But now it was all stillness, a great blanket of silent dunes from which, here or there, soft liftings of sandbanks appeared as if, beneath the surface, the limbs and torsos of buried gods were hid. And here and there, half seen, the covered, the masked face of an ancient worshipper of the turning stars and the passing wind and the unseen years sifting like the merest veil of sandstorm, here a nose about to break through, there a chin waiting to tremble, a mouth to speak, though choked with dust. And beneath yet another dune, a blunt forehead, a brow lost in its own past, gone lunatic with silence.

  Beneath the surface . . . buried Gods were hid.