When Bradbury Calls

It was late.

A storm had just passed and the intoxicating smell of a recent rain sizzled off the hot pavement, creating a humidity rare for late nights.

Her maroon kitten heels pounded against the sidewalk, her stride tested the limits of her pencil skirt. There was no time to dawdle. She had to get to the oddities shop before it closed. She needed another tarot reading.

The sidewalk was bare, not a soul for miles. The streets barren, no cars in sight. The emptiness drifting along the double yellow lines in the road reached her hollow soul. She felt missing. Lost.

She came upon a curious phone booth that pulsed with colors she’d not seen before: an inviting hue of turquoise beneath a crude glow of orange. She stepped closer to the booth—the phone was ringing.

She slipped inside.

She lost all senses studying the booth—a screen…since when did a phone need a screen? Pushbutton numbers…how would she dial? A peculiar slot beneath the buttons…for what? Was this phone from the future? One coming to rescue her from a vexing existence as a modern sixties woman?

The ring got louder, quicker, desperate.

She reached for the handset and brought it to her ear. “Yes, hello?”

“Oh! Finally! I have been trying to reach you for years, my dear!” the stranger said.

“Y-you have?”

“Yes! Listen, Joanne, we’ve not much time. I need you to check the slot beneath the—”

“I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I should say so! You’ve been with me since you were a girl; it’s high time you went back.”

“Back? Back…where? And, I beg your pardon, who is this?”

The man on the other end sighed into the receiver. Such a weight he seemed to carry; he sounded oh-so put upon.

“It’s Ray,” he said. “Now listen; I need you to look into the slot beneath the number pad and…”

His familiar voice faded and Joanne’s mind began to flip through books she’d read as a child—books she’d read as an adolescent, a young woman—to locate a stranger who didn’t feel so strange to her.

The only Ray she’d ever known existed in some far away land where dinosaurs traversed the rusted red edges of Mars and screens covered living room walls with living people and piles of books were burned and small towns were taken over by traveling carnivals, promising youth as it stole your essence and newborn babies attempted to murder their mothers and two strangers met on a deserted train track, planning to kill one another and—no, it couldn’t be…him.

No…impossible.

“Ray?” she asked.

“Yes…you know, Bradbury?”

It was him! The man she’d wished was her true father! She knew in her childish heart it was him, but…then…wouldn’t you know it? Her adult mind slithered its way through to stomp on the fantasies of her once-upon-a-time boundless spirit with the heel of her shoe.

“If this is your idea of a prank, I’m not amused!” She moved the handset from her ear, ready to slam it down and march to the shop for her reading.

Until she heard the despair in his voice.

“It’s not! I promise I’m not flimflamming you! This is Ray Bradbury—”

“Ray Bradbury, the author?”

“Yes, for Christ’s sake!”

“How do I know for certain?”

With a calm and even tone, he said, “Well…I suppose you’ll just have to have faith; like you did when you were a child. Why, I could tell you anything then and you took it as gospel. All I’m asking for now is the same courtesy.”

“Go on…”

“You’ve been weighed down, haven’t you, my dear?”

She didn’t answer. He took her silence and ran with it.

“I was with you; I know all about your mother, your father, and…that…pastor. The lonely nights you allowed me to cradle you in my paper arms.”

Joanne whimpered then swallowed the tears fighting to escape.

“Listen, Joanne. Check the slot beneath the number pad. There should be a slip of paper sticking out of the opening. Read what’s written aloud and you’ll be instantly transported—”

“Transported? Where?” Anywhere but here, she thought.

“Wherever you want to go. But don’t think too much about it, huh? Thought is the enemy of imagination.”

She sniffled.

“Are you ready to stuff your eyes with wonder, my dear?” he asked.

Joanne smiled.

What a very Ray Bradbury thing to say…