Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1

‘What was that?’ Richard raised himself, startled. He didn’t quite believe what he had heard. He repeated it to himself just the way he had heard it:

‘We who knew and loved him are grieved at the passing of Richard Braling.’

That’s what the voice had said.

‘Richard Braling,’ said the man in the coffin. ‘Why. I’m Richard Braling.’

A slip of the tongue, naturally. Merely a slip. Charlie had meant to say ‘Charles’ Braling. Certainly. Yes. Of course. Yes. Certainly. Yes. Naturally. Yes.

‘Richard was a fine man,’ said the voice, talking on. ‘We shall see no finer in our time.’

‘My name again!’

Richard began to move about uneasily in the coffin.

Why didn’t Rogers come?

It was hardly a mistake, using that name twice. Richard Braling. Richard Braling. We are gathered here. We shall miss – We are grieved. No finer man. No finer in our time. We are gathered here. The deceased. Richard Braling. Richard Braling.

Whirrrr. Spung!

Flowers! Six dozen bright blue, red, yellow, sun-brilliant flowers leaped up from behind the coffin on concealed springs!

The sweet odor of fresh-cut flowers filled the coffin. The flowers swayed gently before his amazed vision, tapping silently on the glass lid. Others sprang up until the coffin was banked with petals and color and sweet odors. Gardenias and dahlias and daffodils, trembling and shining.

‘Rogers!’

The sermon continued.

‘—Richard Braling, in his life, was a connoisseur of great and good things—’

The music sighed, rose and fell, distantly.

‘Richard Braling savored of life, as one savors of a rare wine, holding it upon the lips—’

A small panel in the side of the box flipped open. A swift bright metal arm snatched out. A needle stabbed Richard in the thorax, not very deeply. He screamed. The needle shot him full of a colored liquor before he could seize it. Then it popped back into a receptacle and the panel snapped shut.

‘Rogers!’

A growing numbness, Suddenly he could not move his fingers or his arms or turn his head. His legs were cold and limp.

‘Richard Braling loved beautiful things. Music. Flowers,’ said the voice.

‘Rogers!’

This time he did not scream it. He could only think it. His tongue was motionless in his anaesthetized mouth.

Another panel opened. Metal forceps issued forth on steel arms. His left wrist was pierced by a huge sucking needle.

His blood was being drained from his body.

He heard a little pump working somewhere.

‘—Richard Braling will be missed among us—’

The organ sobbed and murmured.

The flowers looked down upon him, nodding their bright-petalled heads.

Six candles, black and slender, rose up out of hidden receptacles, and stood behind the flowers, flickering and glowing.

Another pump started to work. While his blood drained out one side of his body, his right wrist was punctured, held, a needle shoved into it, and the second pump began to force formaldehyde into him.

Pump, pause, pump, pause, pump, pause, pump, pause.

The coffin moved.

A small motor popped and chugged. The room drifted by on either side of him. Little wheels revolved. No pallbearers were necessary. The flowers swayed as the casket moved gently out upon the terrace under a blue clear sky.

Pump, pause, Pump, pause.

‘Richard Braling will be missed—’

Sweet soft music.

Pump, pause.

‘Ah, sweet mystery of life, at last—’ Singing.

‘Braling, the gourmet—’

‘Ah, at last I have the secret of it all—’

Staring, staring, his eyes egg-blind, at the little card out of the corners of his eyes:

THE BRALING ECONOMY CASKET …

DIRECTIONS SIMPLY PLACE BODY IN COFFIN – AND MUSIC WILL START.

A tree swung by overhead. The coffin rolled gently through the garden, behind some bushes, carrying the voice and the music with it.

‘Now it is the time when we must consign this part of this man to the earth—’

Little shining spades leaped out of the sides of the casket.

They began to dig.

He saw the spades toss up dirt. The coffin settled. Bumped, settled, dug, bumped and settled, dug, bumped and settled again.