"There Will Come Soft Rains" Quotes
After humanity's demise, an automated house continues to function until its inevitable end.
short stories | 30 pages | Published in NaN
Quotes
Today is August 4, 2026, today is August 4, 2026, today is August 4, 2026...
The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants.
The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places. Here the silhouette in paint of a man mowing a lawn. Here, as in a photograph, a woman bent to pick flowers.
It quivered at each sound, the house did. If a sparrow brushed a window, the shade snapped up.
The house was an altar with ten thousand attendants, big, small, servicing, attending, in choirs. But the gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.
The house began to die.
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound.
The fire burned on the stone hearth and the smoke talked to itself in the cold air above.
The house stood alone in a city of rubble and ashes. This was the one house left standing. At night the ruined city gave off a radioactive glow which could be seen for miles.
Ten-fifteen. The garden sprinklers whirled up in golden founts, filling the soft morning air with scatterings of brightness.
