Ray Bradbury. The Veldt

                Ray Bradbury
                http://blogs.myspace.com/mysteryal

                The Veldt
                1950

     "George, I wish you'd look at the nursery."
     "What's wrong with it?"
     "I don't know."
     "Well, then."
     "I  just  want you to look at it, is all, or call a psychologist in to look
at it."
     "What would a psychologist want with a nursery?"
     "You  know  very well what he'd want." His wife paused in the middle of the
kitchen and watched the stove busy humming to itself, making supper for four.
     "It's just that the nursery is different now than it was."
     "All right, let's have a look."
     They  walked  down the hall of their soundproofed Happylife Home, which had
cost  them  thirty  thousand dollars installed, this house which clothed and fed
and  rocked  them  to  sleep  and  played  and  sang and was good to them. Their
approach  sensitized  a  switch  somewhere and the nursery light flicked on when
they  came  within  ten feet of it. Similarly, behind them, in the halls, lights
went on and off as they left them behind, with a soft automaticity.
     "Well," said George Hadley.
     They  stood  on the thatched floor of the nursery. It was forty feet across
by  forty  feet long and thirty feet high; it had cost half again as much as the
rest of the house. "But nothing's too good for our children," George had said.
     The  nursery  was  silent. It was empty as a jungle glade at hot high noon.
The  walls were blank and two dimensional. Now, as George and Lydia Hadley stood
in  the  center of the room, the walls began to purr and recede into crystalline
distance,  it  seemed,  and  presently  an  African  veldt  appeared,  in  three
dimensions,  on  all  sides,  in color reproduced to the final pebble and bit of
straw. The ceiling above them became a deep sky with a hot yellow sun.
     George Hadley felt the perspiration start on his brow.
     "Let's  get  out  of  this sun," he said. "This is a little too real. But I
don't see anything wrong."
     "Wait a moment, you'll see," said his wife.
     Now  the  hidden  odorophonics were beginning to blow a wind of odor at the
two  people  in  the  middle of the baked veldtland. The hot straw smell of lion
grass,  the  cool green smell of the hidden water hole, the great rusty smell of
animals,  the  smell  of  dust  like  a  red paprika in the hot air. And now the
sounds: the thump of distant antelope feet on grassy sod, the papery rustling of
vultures.  A  shadow  passed  through  the  sky.  The shadow flickered on George
Hadley's upturned, sweating face.
     "Filthy creatures," he heard his wife say.
     "The vultures."
     "You see, there are the lions, far over, that way. Now they're on their way
to the water hole. They've just been eating," said Lydia. "I don't know what."
     "Some  animal."  George  Hadley  put  his hand up to shield off the burning
light from his squinted eyes. "A zebra or a baby giraffe, maybe."
     "Are you sure?" His wife sounded peculiarly tense.
     "No, it's a little late to be sure," be said, amused. "Nothing over there I
can see but cleaned bone, and the vultures dropping for what's left."
     "Did you bear that scream?" she asked.
     'No."
     "About a minute ago?"
     "Sorry, no."
     The  lions  were coming. And again George Hadley was filled with admiration
for  the  mechanical genius who had conceived this room. A miracle of efficiency
selling  for an absurdly low price. Every home should have one. Oh, occasionally
they  frightened you with their clinical accuracy, they startled you, gave you a
twinge,  but  most  of the time what fun for everyone, not only your own son and
daughter, but for yourself when you felt like a quick jaunt to a foreign land, a
quick change of scenery. Well, here it was!
     And  here were the lions now, fifteen feet away, so real, so feverishly and
startlingly  real  that  you could feel the prickling fur on your hand, and your
mouth was stuffed with the dusty upholstery smell of their heated pelts, and the
yellow of them was in your eyes like the yellow of an exquisite French tapestry,
the  yellows  of  lions and summer grass, and the sound of the matted lion lungs
exhaling  on  the  silent  noontide,  and  the  smell  of meat from the panting,
dripping mouths.
     The   lions  stood  looking  at  George  and  Lydia  Hadley  with  terrible
green-yellow eyes.
     "Watch out!" screamed Lydia.
     The lions came running at them.
     Lydia  bolted  and ran. Instinctively, George sprang after her. Outside, in
the  hall,  with  the  door slammed he was laughing and she was crying, and they
both stood appalled at the other's reaction.
     "George!"
     "Lydia! Oh, my dear poor sweet Lydia!"
     "They almost got us!"
     "Walls,  Lydia, remember; crystal walls, that's all they are. Oh, they look
real,  I  must  admit  -  Africa  in  your  parlor  -  but it's all dimensional,
superreactionary,  supersensitive  color  film and mental tape film behind glass
screens. It's all odorophonics and sonics, Lydia. Here's my handkerchief."

    
     "I'm  afraid."  She  came  to  him  and  put her body against him and cried
steadily. "Did you see? Did you _feel?_ It's too real."
     "Now, Lydia..."
     "You've got to tell Wendy and Peter not to read any more on Africa."
     "Of course - of course." He patted her.
     "Promise?"
     "Sure."
     "And lock the nursery for a few days until I get my nerves settled."
     "You  know  how  difficult Peter is about that. When I punished him a month
ago  by  locking  the  nursery  for even a few hours - the tantrum be threw! And
Wendy too. They _live_ for the nursery."
     "It's got to be locked, that's all there is to it."
     "All  right." Reluctantly he locked the huge door. "You've been working too
hard. You need a rest."
     "I  don't know - I don't know," she said, blowing her nose, sitting down in
a  chair  that  immediately  began  to rock and comfort her. "Maybe I don't have
enough  to  do. Maybe I have time to think too much. Why don't we shut the whole
house off for a few days and take a vacation?"
     "You mean you want to fry my eggs for me?"
     "Yes." She nodded.
     "And dam my socks?"
     "Yes." A frantic, watery-eyed nodding.
     "And sweep the house?"
     "Yes, yes - oh, yes!''
     "But  I  thought that's why we bought this house, so we wouldn't have to do
anything?"
     "That's  just  it.  I  feel like I don't belong here. The house is wife and
mother  now,  and  nursemaid.  Can I compete with an African veldt? Can I give a
bath  and  scrub  the  children as efficiently or quickly as the automatic scrub
bath  can? I cannot. And it isn't just me. It's you. You've been awfully nervous
lately."
     "I suppose I have been smoking too much."
     "You  look  as  if  you didn't know what to do with yourself in this house,
either.  You  smoke  a  little  more every morning and drink a little more every
afternoon  and need a little more sedative every night. You're beginning to feel
unnecessary too."
     "Am  I?"  He  paused  and tried to feel into himself to see what was really
there.
     "Oh,  George!"  She  looked  beyond  him, at the nursery door. "Those lions
can't get out of there, can they?"
     He looked at the door and saw it tremble as if something had jumped against
it from the other side.
     "Of course not," he said.

    
     At  dinner  they  ate  alone, for Wendy and Peter were at a special plastic
carnival  across  town and bad televised home to say they'd be late, to go ahead
eating.  So  George  Hadley, bemused, sat watching the dining-room table produce
warm dishes of food from its mechanical interior.
     "We forgot the ketchup," he said.
     "Sorry," said a small voice within the table, and ketchup appeared.
     As  for  the nursery, thought George Hadley, it won't hurt for the children
to  be  locked out of it awhile. Too much of anything isn't good for anyone. And
it  was  clearly indicated that the children had been spending a little too much
time on Africa. That _sun._ He could feel it on his neck, still, like a hot paw.
And  the  _lions._ And the smell of blood. Remarkable how the nursery caught the
telepathic  emanations  of  the  children's minds and created life to fill their
every  desire.  The  children  thought lions, and there were lions. The children
thought zebras, and there were zebras. Sun - sun. Giraffes - giraffes. Death and
death.
     That  _last_.  He chewed tastelessly on the meat that the table bad cut for
him.  Death  thoughts.  They  were  awfully  young,  Wendy  and Peter, for death
thoughts.  Or,  no,  you were never too young, really. Long before you knew what
death  was  you were wishing it on someone else. When you were two years old you
were shooting people with cap pistols.
     But  this  -  the  long, hot African veldt-the awful death in the jaws of a
lion. And repeated again and again.
     "Where are you going?"
     He didn't answer Lydia. Preoccupied, be let the lights glow softly on ahead
of  him,  extinguish  behind  him  as he padded to the nursery door. He listened
against it. Far away, a lion roared.
     He unlocked the door and opened it. Just before he stepped inside, he heard
a faraway scream. And then another roar from the lions, which subsided quickly.
     He  stepped into Africa. How many times in the last year had he opened this
door  and  found  Wonderland, Alice, the Mock Turtle, or Aladdin and his Magical
Lamp,  or  Jack  Pumpkinhead  of Oz, or Dr. Doolittle, or the cow jumping over a
very  real-appearing  moon-all  the  delightful  contraptions  of a make-believe
world.  How  often  had  he  seen  Pegasus  flying  in  the sky ceiling, or seen
fountains  of  red  fireworks, or heard angel voices singing. But now, is yellow
hot  Africa,  this  bake  oven with murder in the heat. Perhaps Lydia was right.
Perhaps  they  needed a little vacation from the fantasy which was growing a bit
too real for ten-year-old children. It was all right to exercise one's mind with
gymnastic  fantasies, but when the lively child mind settled on _one_ pattern...
? It seemed that, at a distance, for the past month, he had heard lions roaring,
and  smelled their strong odor seeping as far away as his study door. But, being
busy, he had paid it no attention.
     George  Hadley  stood  on  the African grassland alone. The lions looked up
from  their  feeding,  watching  him. The only flaw to the illusion was the open
door  through which he could see his wife, far down the dark hall, like a framed
picture, eating her dinner abstractedly.
     "Go away," he said to the lions.
     They did not go.
     He  knew  the  principle  of  the room exactly. You sent out your thoughts.
Whatever  you  thought  would  appear.  "Let's  have  Aladdin  and his lamp," he
snapped. The veldtland remained; the lions remained.
     "Come on, room! I demand Aladin!" he said.
     Nothing happened. The lions mumbled in their baked pelts.
     "Aladin!"
     He  went back to dinner. "The fool room's out of order," he said. "It won't
respond."
     "Or--"
     "Or what?"
     "Or  it  _can't_  respond,"  said Lydia, "because the children have thought
about Africa and lions and killing so many days that the room's in a rut."
     "Could be."
     "Or Peter's set it to remain that way."
     "Set it?"
     "He may have got into the machinery and fixed something."
     "Peter doesn't know machinery."
     "He's a wise one for ten. That I.Q. of his -"
     "Nevertheless -"
     "Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad."
     The  Hadleys  turned. Wendy and Peter were coming in the front door, cheeks
like  peppermint candy, eyes like bright blue agate marbles, a smell of ozone on
their jumpers from their trip in the helicopter.
     "You're just in time for supper," said both parents.
     "We're  full  of  strawberry  ice  cream  and hot dogs," said the children,
holding hands. "But we'll sit and watch."
     "Yes, come tell us about the nursery," said George Hadley.
     The brother and sister blinked at him and then at each other. "Nursery?"
     "All about Africa and everything," said the father with false joviality.
     "I don't understand," said Peter.
     "Your  mother  and  I were just traveling through Africa with rod and reel;
Tom Swift and his Electric Lion," said George Hadley.
     "There's no Africa in the nursery," said Peter simply.
     "Oh, come now, Peter. We know better."
     "I don't remember any Africa," said Peter to Wendy. "Do you?"
     "No."
     "Run see and come tell."
     She obeyed
     "Wendy,  come  back  here!" said George Hadley, but she was gone. The house
lights  followed  her  like  a  flock of fireflies. Too late, he realized he had
forgotten to lock the nursery door after his last inspection.
     "Wendy'll look and come tell us," said Peter.
     "She doesn't have to tell _me._ I've seen it."
     "I'm sure you're mistaken, Father."
     "I'm not, Peter. Come along now."
     But Wendy was back. "It's not Africa," she said breathlessly.
     "We'll  see  about  this," said George Hadley, and they all walked down the
hall together and opened the nursery door.
     There  was  a green, lovely forest, a lovely river, a purple mountain, high
voices  singing,  and  Rima,  lovely  and  mysterious, lurking in the trees with
colorful  flights  of butterflies, like animated bouquets, lingering in her long
hair.  The  African  veldtland was gone. The lions were gone. Only Rima was here
now, singing a song so beautiful that it brought tears to your eyes.
     George  Hadley  looked in at the changed scene. "Go to bed," he said to the
children.
     They opened their mouths.
     "You heard me," he said.
     They went off to the air closet, where a wind sucked them like brown leaves
up the flue to their slumber rooms.
     George Hadley walked through the singing glade and picked up something that
lay  in  the  comer  near where the lions had been. He walked slowly back to his
wife.
     "What is that?" she asked.
     "An old wallet of mine," he said.
     He  showed  it  to her. The smell of hot grass was on it and the smell of a
lion. There were drops of saliva on it, it bad been chewed, and there were blood
smears on both sides.
     He closed the nursery door and locked it, tight.

    
     In  the  middle  of  the  night he was still awake and he knew his wife was
awake. "Do you think Wendy changed it?" she said at last, in the dark room.
     "Of course."
     "Made it from a veldt into a forest and put Rima there instead of lions?"
     "Yes."
     "Why?"
     "I don't know. But it's staying locked until I find out."
     "How did your wallet get there?"
     "I don't know anything," he said, "except that I'm beginning to be sorry we
bought  that room for the children. If children are neurotic at all, a room like
that -"
     "It's supposed to help them work off their neuroses in a healthful way."
     "I'm starting to wonder." He stared at the ceiling.
     "We've  given  the  children  everything  they  ever  wanted.  Is  this our
reward-secrecy, disobedience?"
     "Who  was  it  said,  'Children  are  carpets,  they  should  be stepped on
occasionally'? We've never lifted a hand. They're insufferable - let's admit it.
They  come and go when they like; they treat us as if we were offspring. They're
spoiled and we're spoiled."
     "They've  been  acting funny ever since you forbade them to take the rocket
to New York a few months ago."
     "They're not old enough to do that alone, I explained."
     "Nevertheless, I've noticed they've been decidedly cool toward us since."
     "I  think  I'll  have David McClean come tomorrow morning to have a look at
Africa."
     "But it's not Africa now, it's _Green Mansions_ country and Rima."
     "I have a feeling it'll be Africa again before then."
     A moment later they heard the screams.
     Two  screams.  Two  people  screaming  from  downstairs. And then a roar of
lions.
     "Wendy and Peter aren't in their rooms," said his wife.
     He  lay  in  his bed with his beating heart. "No," he said. "They've broken
into the nursery."
     "Those screams - they sound familiar."
     "Do they?"
     "Yes, awfully."
     And  although their beds tried very bard, the two adults couldn't be rocked
to sleep for another hour. A smell of cats was in the night air.

    
     "Father?" said Peter.
     "Yes."
     Peter  looked  at his shoes. He never looked at his father any more, nor at
his mother. "You aren't going to lock up the nursery for good, are you?"
     "That all depends."
     "On what?" snapped Peter.
     "On  you  and  your  sister.  If  you intersperse this Africa with a little
variety - oh, Sweden perhaps, or Denmark or China -"
     "I thought we were free to play as we wished."
     "You are, within reasonable bounds."
     "What's wrong with Africa, Father?"
     "Oh, so now you admit you have been conjuring up Africa, do you?"
     "I wouldn't want the nursery locked up," said Peter coldly. "Ever."
     "Matter  of fact, we're thinking of turning the whole house off for about a
month. Live sort of a carefree one-for-all existence."
     "That  sounds dreadful! Would I have to tie my own shoes instead of letting
the  shoe  tier do it? And brush my own teeth and comb my hair and give myself a
bath?"
     "It would be fun for a change, don't you think?"
     "No,  it  would  be  horrid. I didn't like it when you took out the picture
painter last month."
     "That's because I wanted you to learn to paint all by yourself, son."
     "I  don't  want  to do anything but look and listen and smell; what else is
there to do?"
     "All right, go play in Africa."
     "Will you shut off the house sometime soon?"
     "We're considering it."
     "I don't think you'd better consider it any more, Father."
     "I won't have any threats from my son!"
     "Very well." And Peter strolled off to the nursery.

    
     "Am I on time?" said David McClean.
     "Breakfast?" asked George Hadley.
     "Thanks, had some. What's the trouble?"
     "David, you're a psychologist."
     "I should hope so."
     "Well,  then,  have  a  look at our nursery. You saw it a year ago when you
dropped by; did you notice anything peculiar about it then?"
     "Can't  say I did; the usual violences, a tendency toward a slight paranoia
here  or  there,  usual  in  children  because  they  feel persecuted by parents
constantly, but, oh, really nothing."
     They walked down the ball. "I locked the nursery up," explained the father,
"and  the  children broke back into it during the night. I let them stay so they
could form the patterns for you to see."
     There was a terrible screaming from the nursery.
     "There it is," said George Hadley. "See what you make of it."
     They walked in on the children without rapping.
     The screams had faded. The lions were feeding.
     "Run outside a moment, children," said George Hadley. "No, don't change the
mental combination. Leave the walls as they are. Get!"
     With the children gone, the two men stood studying the lions clustered at a
distance, eating with great relish whatever it was they had caught.
     "I  wish  I  knew what it was," said George Hadley. "Sometimes I can almost
see. Do you think if I brought high-powered binoculars here and -"
     David  McClean  laughed dryly. "Hardly." He turned to study all four walls.
"How long has this been going on?"
     "A little over a month."
     "It certainly doesn't _feel_ good."
     "I want facts, not feelings."
     "My dear George, a psychologist never saw a fact in his life. He only hears
about  feelings;  vague  things.  This  doesn't  feel good, I tell you. Trust my
hunches  and my instincts. I have a nose for something bad. This is very bad. My
advice to you is to have the whole damn room torn down and your children brought
to me every day during the next year for treatment."
     "Is it that bad?"
     "I'm  afraid so. One of the original uses of these nurseries was so that we
could  study  the  patterns  left on the walls by the child's mind, study at our
leisure,  and  help  the  child.  In  this  case, however, the room has become a
channel toward-destructive thoughts, instead of a release away from them."
     "Didn't you sense this before?"
     "I  sensed  only that you bad spoiled your children more than most. And now
you're letting them down in some way. What way?"
     "I wouldn't let them go to New York."
     "What else?"
     "I've taken a few machines from the house and threatened them, a month ago,
with closing up the nursery unless they did their homework. I did close it for a
few days to show I meant business."
     "Ah, ha!"
     "Does that mean anything?"
     "Everything.  Where  before they had a Santa Claus now they have a Scrooge.
Children prefer Santas. You've let this room and this house replace you and your
wife  in  your  children's affections. This room is their mother and father, far
more  important  in  their lives than their real parents. And now you come along
and  want  to shut it off. No wonder there's hatred here. You can feel it coming
out of the sky. Feel that sun. George, you'll have to change your life. Like too
many  others,  you've  built  it  around  creature  comforts.  Why, you'd starve
tomorrow  if  something went wrong in your kitchen. You wouldn't know bow to tap
an egg. Nevertheless, turn everything off. Start new. It'll take time. But we'll
make good children out of bad in a year, wait and see."
     "But  won't  the  shock  be too much for the children, shutting the room up
abruptly, for good?"
     "I don't want them going any deeper into this, that's all."
     The lions were finished with their red feast.
     The lions were standing on the edge of the clearing watching the two men.
     "Now  _I'm_  feeling  persecuted,"  said McClean. "Let's get out of here. I
never have cared for these damned rooms. Make me nervous."
     "The  lions  look  real,  don't  they?" said George Hadley. I don't suppose
there's any way -"
     "What?"
     "- that they could _become_ real?"
     "Not that I know."
     "Some flaw in the machinery, a tampering or something?"
     "No."
     They went to the door.
     "I don't imagine the room will like being turned off," said the father.
     "Nothing ever likes to die - even a room."
     "I wonder if it hates me for wanting to switch it off?"
     "Paranoia  is thick around here today," said David McClean. "You can follow
it like a spoor. Hello." He bent and picked up a bloody scarf. "This yours?"
     "No." George Hadley's face was rigid. "It belongs to Lydia."
     They  went  to  the  fuse box together and threw the switch that killed the
nursery.

    
     The  two  children  were  in hysterics. They screamed and pranced and threw
things. They yelled and sobbed and swore and jumped at the furniture.
     "You can't do that to the nursery, you can't!''
     "Now, children."
     The children flung themselves onto a couch, weeping.
     "George,"  said Lydia Hadley, "turn on the nursery, just for a few moments.
You can't be so abrupt."
     "No."
     "You can't be so cruel..."
     "Lydia,  it's  off,  and  it stays off. And the whole damn house dies as of
here  and  now.  The  more I see of the mess we've put ourselves in, the more it
sickens  me.  We've been contemplating our mechanical, electronic navels for too
long. My God, how we need a breath of honest air!"
     And  he  marched  about the house turning off the voice clocks, the stoves,
the  heaters, the shoe shiners, the shoe lacers, the body scrubbers and swabbers
and massagers, and every other machine be could put his hand to.
     The  house  was  full  of dead bodies, it seemed. It felt like a mechanical
cemetery.  So  silent.  None of the humming hidden energy of machines waiting to
function at the tap of a button.
     "Don't  let  them do it!" wailed Peter at the ceiling, as if he was talking
to  the house, the nursery. "Don't let Father kill everything." He turned to his
father. "Oh, I hate you!"
     "Insults won't get you anywhere."
     "I wish you were dead!"
     "We were, for a long while. Now we're going to really start living. Instead
of being handled and massaged, we're going to _live_."
     Wendy was still crying and Peter joined her again. "Just a moment, just one
moment, just another moment of nursery," they wailed.
     "Oh, George," said the wife, "it can't hurt."
     "All  right - all right, if they'll just shut up. One minute, mind you, and
then off forever."
     "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!" sang the children, smiling with wet faces.
     "And  then  we're going on a vacation. David McClean is coming back in half
an hour to help us move out and get to the airport. I'm going to dress. You turn
the nursery on for a minute, Lydia, just a minute, mind you."
     And  the  three  of them went babbling off while he let himself be vacuumed
upstairs  through  the  air  flue and set about dressing himself. A minute later
Lydia appeared.
     "I'll be glad when we get away," she sighed.
     "Did you leave them in the nursery?"
     "I wanted to dress too. Oh, that horrid Africa. What can they see in it?"
     "Well,  in  five minutes we'll be on our way to Iowa. Lord, how did we ever
get in this house? What prompted us to buy a nightmare?"
     "Pride, money, foolishness."
     "I  think  we'd  better get downstairs before those kids get engrossed with
those damned beasts again."
     Just  then  they  heard  the  children calling, "Daddy, Mommy, come quick -
quick!"
     They  went  downstairs  in the air flue and ran down the hall. The children
were nowhere in sight. "Wendy? Peter!"
     They  ran  into  the  nursery.  The  veldtland was empty save for the lions
waiting, looking at them. "Peter, Wendy?"
     The door slammed.
     "Wendy, Peter!"
     George Hadley and his wife whirled and ran back to the door.
     "Open the door!" cried George Hadley, trying the knob. "Why, they've locked
it from the outside! Peter!" He beat at the door. "Open up!"
     He heard Peter's voice outside, against the door.
     "Don't let them switch off the nursery and the house," he was saying.
     Mr.  and  Mrs.  George  Hadley beat at the door. "Now, don't be ridiculous,
children. It's time to go. Mr. McClean'll be here in a minute and..."
     And then they heard the sounds.
     The  lions  on  three  sides  of  them,  in the yellow veldt grass, padding
through the dry straw, rumbling and roaring in their throats.
     The lions.
     Mr. Hadley looked at his wife and they turned and looked back at the beasts
edging slowly forward crouching, tails stiff.
     Mr. and Mrs. Hadley screamed.
     And suddenly they realized why those other screams bad sounded familiar.

    
     "Well,  here I am," said David McClean in the nursery doorway, "Oh, hello."
He  stared  at  the two children seated in the center of the open glade eating a
little  picnic  lunch.  Beyond them was the water hole and the yellow veldtland;
above was the hot sun. He began to perspire. "Where are your father and mother?"
     The children looked up and smiled. "Oh, they'll be here directly."
     "Good, we must get going." At a distance Mr. McClean saw the lions fighting
and clawing and then quieting down to feed in silence under the shady trees.
     He squinted at the lions with his hand tip to his eyes.
     Now the lions were done feeding. They moved to the water hole to drink.
     A shadow flickered over Mr. McClean's hot face. Many shadows flickered. The
vultures were dropping down the blazing sky.
     "A cup of tea?" asked Wendy in the silence.