Last Night of the World by Ray Bradbury, published in Esquire, 1951
Tuesday’s Tale of Terror August 23, 2016
What would you do if you knew that this night was the last night of the world? Would you meet it with grace? Bravery? A last indulgence? Panic? Would you examine yourself for a good or bad life?
A married couple are sitting at the dinner table talking.
She asks … “And when will it stop? The world, I mean.”
He replies … “Sometime during the night for us, and then, as the night goes on around the world, those advancing portions will go, too. It’ll take twenty-four hours for it all to go.”
In this sci-fi story (I’m not a sci-fi fan but I really liked this story because it provoked deep thinking), people have the same dream on the same date in February about the end of the world. If you were the characters in this story, would you believe the end was really coming? Or maybe, just maybe you might think it’s the beginning of a time loop … like in a parallel world? Or maybe it was true that death will strike soon after closing your eyes this night. What if?
Reading time on this story is 5 minutes. Got 5 minutes and cup o’ joe? Wow, this is a compelling dive into everyone’s greatest fear of knowing you will be the last conscious beings when the world ends on a cold night on February 30. Yes, February 30!
Read the short story here at Esquire.com.
Listen to the audio drama at Behance.net.
Watch the Ray Bradbury Theater on You Tube
FOR THE WRITERS HERE: Lit Reactor.com has Five Ray Bradbury stories that will tell you everything you need to know about writing.
Ray Bradbury, termed the “poet of the pulps,” said in an interview in the Paris Review, The Art of Fiction (2010) that he was “completely library educated. I’ve never been to college … I discovered me in the library.” He died in 2012 at the age of 91.
Book Review: Zen and the Art of Writing, by Ray Bradbury.
Don’t forget to view the INDEX above of more free Tales of Terror. This is a compendium of over 170 short stories by over 100 master storytellers of mystery, supernatural, horror, and ghost stories.
Follow my blog and join me in reading a short story every other week!
Comments are welcome.
Other Reading Web Sites to Visit
Slattery’s Art of Horror Magazine
Books & Such Bibliophilica Lovecraft Ezine Parlor of Horror
HorrorAddicts.net Horror Novel Reviews HorrorSociety.com
Monster Librarian HorrorNews.net HorrorTalk.com
Rob Around Books The Story Reading Ape Blog
For Authors/Writers: The Writer Unboxed
Paula Cappa 
I blogged about this story a few years back. I liked the eerie feeling that it gave me because of all the characters somehow just knowing that the end was coming but – at least as I recall – it isn’t specific about how they knew(?) Maybe I’m mis-remembering. I also liked the exchange of the couple: she says, “We haven’t been too bad, have we?” and he says, “No, nor enormously good. I suppose that’s the trouble.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Shirley Jackson also did an odd take on this theme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sundial
LikeLiked by 2 people
A GREAT WRITER. PAULA!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The man’s stories read effortlessly but he took great pains and devoted much time to create his works. He’s a hero of mine, and surely of many others writers as well. Not only did Ray Bradbury give us great works of fiction, but he also left behind miles of inspiration for other writers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m still discovering Ray Bradbury. I’m looking to read “That Woman on the Lawn,” which is a ghost story. I love the fact that Bradbury didn’t go to college. He wrote naturally from his heart and intuition and all that reading he did. What a guy!
LikeLike
I never officially blogged about it, but a couple years ago I did a mini-project where I read a “new to me” Bradbury story every time the full moon came around. 🙂 The Woman on the Lawn was one of the more memorable ones from that project. Enjoy. It’s also in “The Illustrate Man” collection, which has many other favorite Bradbury stories of mine.
LikeLike
Headed over to read it now!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Five-minute stories are the best, right? This one lingers in the mind a long time after.
LikeLike