S is for Space

Ray Bradbury
S is for Space (1966)

Muito do escrevi acerca de R is for Rocket aplica-se igualmente a S is for Space. E, pelo paralelismo dos títulos, não é de admirar a existência de edições que agregam os dois livros. S is for Space recolhe outros 16 contos, datados entre 1946 e 1962, narrativas insólitas tantas vezes de final aberto, onde a FC é, quando muito, uma pequena porção na temática fantástica da obra de Ray Bradbury, como bem sabem os seus leitores. Daí o título que o jornal Libération fez em 2012, num artigo dedicado ao escritor, após a sua morte: “Ray Bradbury, l'homme qui aimait la fiction, pas la science.” O trecho escolhido pertence a “Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed”, publicado originalmente em 1949 sob o título “The Naming of Names”.

In the following days, Bittering wandered often through the garden to stand alone in his fear. As long as the rockets had spun a silver web across space, he had been able to accept Mars. For he had always told himself: Tomorrow, if I want, I can buy a ticket and go back to Earth.
But now: The web gone, the rockets lying in jigsaw heaps of molten girder and unsnaked wire. Earth people left to the strangeness of Mars, the cinnamon dusts and wine airs, to be baked like gingerbread shapes in Martian summers, put into harvested storage by Martian winters. What would happen to him, the others? This was the moment Mars had waited for. Now it would eat them.
He got down on his knees in the flower bed, a spade in his nervous hands. Work, he thought, work and forget.
He glanced up from the garden to the Martian mountains. He thought of the proud old Martian names that had once been on those peaks. Earthmen, dropping from the sky, had gazed upon hills, rivers, Martian seats left nameless in spite of names. Once Martians had built cities, named cities; climbed mountains, named mountains; sailed seas, named seas. Mountains melted, seas drained, cities tumbled. In spite of this, the Earthmen had felt a silent guilt at putting new names to these ancient hills and valleys.
Nevertheless, man lives by symbol and label. The names were given.
Mr. Bittering felt very alone in his garden under the Martian sun, anachronism bent here, planting Earth flowers in a wild soil.

Li anteriormente:
R is for Rocket (1962)
Crónicas Marcianas (1950)
O Homem Ilustrado (1951)