Wake of the Flood - Page 4

All Summer In a Day (1954) – excerpt

"It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands. A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again. And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus, and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives."

So wrote Ray Bradbury of Venus in 1954, in a heartbreaking yet beautiful short story. In that tale, Venus' clouds thin once every seven years, just enough for the sun to break through for about an hour. The native schoolchildren tease one Earth-born classmate, who remembers and yearns for the sun. They lock her in a closet as a prank, when the magic hour approaches. The precious sun has come and gone and, because of their despicable act, Margot has missed it. They walk slowly and silently towards the closet, and let her out.

This story is about Venus and the Sun. Coincidentally, author Ray Bradbury himself died the same day as a very rare celestial event, a transit of Venus across the Sun. [See Martian Author Dies During Venus Transit].