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"Mary A
She wasn't listening; she was talking. I wish I could remember what she said after that. Or maybe I don't; maybe it's just as well I can't remember, since none of it was very complimentary. Every once in a while I would manage a "But, Mary A
Actually, as I said, she's a very gentle creature and it's only when she gets excited that she's ever talkative or unreasonable. Of course, with red hair, she feels she ought to get excited rather often. That's my theory, anyway. She just feels she has to live up to her red hair.
Anyway, the next thing I do remember clearly is Mary A
Then Cliff yelled at us. Generally, he doesn't pay any attention to us, but this time he was shouting, "Why don't you ask her to marry you, you lunkhead?"
Mary A
Cliff was yelling in the background. I heard him as though he were a mile away. He was shouting, "I got it! I got it!" over and over again.
Then Mary A
She said, "Were you going to say something, Bill?"
Well, Cliff had put it in my head. My voice was hoarse and I said, "Will you marry me, Mary A
The minute I said it, I wished I hadn't, because I thought she would never speak to me again. Then two minutes after that I was glad I had, because she threw her arms around me and reached up to kiss me. It was a while before I was quite clear what was happening, and then I began to kiss back. This went on for quite a long time, until Cliff's banging on my shoulder managed to attract my attention.
I turned and said, snappishly, "What the devil do you want?" It was a little ungrateful. After all, he had started this.
He said, "Look!"
In his hand, he held the main lead that had co
I had forgotten about Junior, but now it came back. I said, "He's disco
"Cold!"
"How did you do it?"
He said, "Junior was so busy watching you and Mary A
I didn't like that remark because Mary A
I said to Mary A
Mary A
"You've been kicking my shins and stamping on my toes."
"I'd run out of everything else. I was desperate."
The logic wasn't quite clear, but I didn't answer because I remembered about the show. I looked at my watch and said, "Look, Mary A
She said, "Who wants to see the show?"
So I kissed her some more; and we never did get to see the show at all.
There's only one thing that bothers me now. Mary A
None of that's it.
You see, I talked to Cliff the next evening, to tell him Mary A
Of course, there was something else in the room with Cliff's voice.
I keep worrying Mary A
Anyway, what will she say if she ever finds out that I didn't have the sense to propose till a machine told me to?
We all have our lovable eccentricities and I have a few that are all my own. For instance, I hate nice days. Show me a day in which the temperature is just 78, and a light breeze has the lush foliage of June, or the just turning leaves of September, rustling with a soft murmur; a day in which there is a drowsy softness over the landscape, and a sweet freshness to the air, and a general peacefulness over the world, and I'll show you one unhappy fellow-namely, me.
There's a reason for it, a good one. (you don't think I'm irrational, do you?) As I said in the preface to "Sally," I am a compulsive writer. That means that my idea of a pleasant time is to go up to my attic, sit at my electric typewriter (as I am doing right now), and bang away, watching the words take shape like magic before my eyes. To minimize distractions, I keep the window-shades down at all times and work exclusively by artificial light.
No one has any particular objection to this as long as we have the sleet of a typical New England late fall day darting through the air, or the blustering wind of a typical New England early spring day, or the leaden weight of Gulf air that splats out over New England in the summer, or the dancing flakes of that third foot of snow that blankets New England in the winter. Everyone says, "Boy, you're lucky you don't have to go out in that weather."
And I agree with them. But then comes a beautiful day in May-June or September-October and everyone says to me, "What are you doing indoors on a day like this, you creep?" Sometimes out of sheer indignation they pick me up and throw me out the window so I can enjoy the nice day.
The niceness of being a writer, of course, is that you can take an your frustrations and a
For instance, I wrote a novel in 1953 which pictured a world in which everyone lived in underground cities, comfortably enclosed away from the open air.
People would say, "How could you imagine such a nightmarish situation?" And I would answer in astonishment, "What nightmarish situation?"
But with me everything becomes a challenge. Having made my pitch in favor of enclosure, I wondered if I could reverse the situation.
So I wrote "It's Such a Beautiful Day"-and did such a good job at convincing myself, that very often these days, sometimes twice in one week, when I feel I've put in a good day's work, I go out in the late afternoon and take a walk through the neighborhood.
But I don't know. That thing you people have up there in the sky. It's got quite a glare to it.
First appearance-Star Science Fiction Stories #3. Copyright, 1954, by Ballantine Books, Inc.