A Little Journey

I was prompted to read this by a friend’s review. I enjoy Ray Bradbury, and this short story sounded like an enjoyable frippery with added depth and beauty: the “gentle, mad dream” of feisty old ladies, taking flight. I expected something like a more philosophical version of Jenny Joseph’s humorous poem, Warning, which famously opens, “When I am an old woman I shall wear purple”.

It's all those things, but towards the end I read it very differently, and more personally. Unexpectedly cathartic.

Premise

Mrs Bellowes is 85, and has just blown most of her money on a return(!) trip to Mars, from where she will take another trip to be “Nearer My God To Thee”.

Bradbury considered himself a "delicatessen religionist", and “in show more her fervor to light a path for her delicate, tottering feet”, Mrs Bellowes had also tried various religions and philosophies.
“None of these people had ever shaken Mrs Bellowes' faith, even when she saw them sirened away in a black wagon in the night, or discovered their pictures, bleak and unromantic, in the morning tabloids. The world had roughed them up and locked them away because they knew too much, that was all.”

It's so like someone down the rabbit-hole of QAnon or other conspiracy theories. Despite evidence to the contrary, “she bit at the suspicion and whispered, ‘This time it's real’.”

The desire to believe is strong, and when you’ve nothing left to lose, why not take a(nother) chance?

Image: “My God, it’s full of stars.” (Source)

How it hit me

This mentions how the story ends:
Of course, she's been duped by yet another con man.
Thirkell’s rocket “was something like a battered copper pot. There were a thousand bulges and rents and rusty pipes and dirty vents on and in it.”. But the one hundred old ladies (why no men?), led by Mrs Bellowes, decide to go on it anyway, even though Thirkell admits he couldn’t find God even if he wanted to.
Of course, the rocket explodes.
“There was hardly a sense of motion at all, but she knew that she was traveling at fifty thousand miles an hour and would continue to travel at that speed for an eternity, until....”
In those moments, she convinces herself “we are going toward the Lord”.

The peaceful, beautiful bliss of that moment reminds me of the sensation of asphyxiation. I have a clear memory of nearly drowning when I was 14. I was trapped with my head underwater. I struggled to get free, but couldn’t. Initially, the pressure on my chest was agony, then it lifted and I felt no pain, just bliss and light-headedness. No white light or flashing memories; it was more of a soothing kaleidoscope of soft shapes and colours, but almost silent. It felt like an hour, but was probably a handful of minutes. It was so enjoyable, I was almost angry at the shock of being suddenly pulled free, gasping for air as the pain returned.

When my father unexpectedly (to us) ended his life, he chose asphyxiation. Strangely, I've never made the connection between the two events before, but I'm glad this story led me to do so. I cling to the hope it was a quick, painless, and - yes - blissful way for him to leave this world.

Quotes

• “She had spent the week bathing in limpid waters and erasing the care from her tiny bones, and now she was fidgeting, ready to be loaded into Mr Thirkell's own special private rocket.”

• “She was amazed at the other women in the auditorium. It was like wandering in a carnival mirror-maze, coming again and again upon yourself—the same floury face, the same chicken hands, and jingling bracelets. One after another of the images of herself floated before her. She put out her hand, but it wasn't a mirror; it was another lady shaking her fingers.”

• “It isn't quite the land of milk and honey here on Mars that they said it would be. My room is like a cell, the swimming pool is really quite inadequate, and, besides, how many widows who look like mushrooms or skeletons want to swim? And, finally, the whole Restorium smells of boiled cabbage and tennis shoes!”

Read it free, online

It was published in 1951, four or five pages long, and you can read it in a variety of formats on Gutenberg, HERE.

Note: Some readers may be uncomfortable at the exoticising stereotypes used to describe the Egyptian Mr Thirkell. show less