弗吉尼亞州諾福克
大多技術上的進步實際上只是一種改良。每項技術都會得到進一步的發展:從劣質到耐用、從有所助益到令人驚嘆。一開始是輛四輪馬車,之後是一輛汽車,再之後是一架飛機;而現在,我們擁有的是噴氣式飛機。人們會對現有的技術產品進行改良。技術的進步就是這樣。
按圖放大
Mike McQuade
但登陸月球的技術是個例外。當人類前往月球,站在上面回顧地球,那是一種完全不同的突破。當尼爾·阿姆斯特朗(Neil
Armstrong)將雙腳踏入月球的塵埃,回眸注視我們,他實際上並沒有改變什麼。我們並未得到更快的輪子、更小的機器或是更有效的藥品。然而,我們自
身被徹底地改變了。我們知道了原來所不知道的,我們看到了原來不曾見過的。人類的視野拓展了32萬公里。我們審視地球的視角將永遠不一樣了,因為我們曾從
真正的異域觀察過它。
這就是火星如此重要的原因。美國國家航空航天局(NASA)預測,我們會在未來幾十年內把人類送入火星,那時,我們的視野會拓展得比現在還要遠1000倍,而且,我們不會再收回目光。
看着本月登陸火星的“好奇號”探測器傳回的第一張照片,我不禁想起了雷·布雷德伯里(Ray
Bradbury)的短篇小說《火星就是天堂》(MarsIs
Heaven)。故事裡,火星上居住着外星人,他們愚弄來到火星的地球人,讓地球人誤以為自己處在一個熟悉的環境中,之後殺害了這些地球人。這個故事闡述
了懷舊情緒是多麼的愚蠢,它是如何欺騙我們去追求原本就不那麼美好的事物。這個故事讓我動容的地方在於,僅在60多年前,還有人一本正經地撰寫着關於火星
人的故事。
Watching the first images from the rover,
Curiosity,
which landed on Mars early this month, I was reminded of a short story
by Ray Bradbury called “Mars Is Heaven!” In it, Mars is populated by
aliens who fool visiting Earthlings into thinking they’re in a familiar
environment before murdering them. It’s about how stupid nostalgia is,
how it tricks us into wanting things that were never that great in the
first place. What strikes me about the story is that, just over 60 years
ago, someone could seriously write about aliens on Mars.
Can you imagine what it was like
then? Mars was an impossible frontier; we wouldn’t even have decent
pictures of the planet until almost 20 years after the story was
published. Now it reads like a fairy tale in which the moon is made of
cheese, or the sun is a horse-drawn chariot bearing a god, or the stars
move in crystal spheres around the sky.
你能想像當年的情況嗎?火星曾是人類無法接觸的新領域;直到這個小故事發表了將近20年之後,我們甚至還無法獲得清晰的火星照片。現在來看,這個故
事簡直如同童話一般,一如在某些故事裡,月球是由奶酪構成的,太陽是一輛神靈駕馭的戰車,又或者星星就是在天空中旋轉的水晶球。
在人類早期,我們認為宇宙圍繞着我們旋轉。後來,哥白尼引領人類進入了日心說時代,讓我們意識到在太陽系的院牆內,地球只是行星家庭中的一員。臨近
的星星聚集在一起,就像一個小鎮,在我們的國家——銀河系內旋轉。而星團就像是大陸。我們逐步意識到自身的渺小。而後,我們彷彿像真正的大人一樣,穿上了
靴子,開始嘗試留下意義深遠的足跡。
待在家裡是不會帶來任何好處的。我們推着我們的小礦車在地球上轉圈,然後製造速度更快的小礦車。我們將長長的管子連起來相互溝通,然後創造更好的管
子以更響亮的方式呼喊,來蓋過別人。人類之間的所有爭吵、我們在地球擁有的所有財產、以及那些我們製造的、速度更快、更易操作、形狀更小的物件,所有這
些,真的沒有太大意義。宇宙如此之大,這些又能有什麼了不起的?重要的是科學——我不是指引領我們製造更好的礦車和讓我們的喊叫變得更有效的科學,而是指
引領我們產生更多新創意的科學。
你可能記得柏拉圖的洞穴寓言吧。在洞穴里,人們看見影子在牆上移動。他們看着影子的移動軌跡,認為這就是生活。如果他們能走到外面,看看太陽的話會
如何?我們就是走出洞穴的人,因為我們從地球移動到了月球。尼爾·阿姆斯特朗也是走出洞穴的人,他站在月球上回顧地球。阿姆斯特朗於上周末去世,享年82
歲。
關於洞穴的難題在於,不僅僅只有一個洞穴。洞穴越來越多,它們互相嵌套。月球是我們的第一個洞穴;火星將是下一個。然後還有下一個,和再下一個。
當人們嘲笑將人類送上火星的舉動,他們說,地球上有這麼多事情值得我們投入資金,人們不值得為了拍攝一張紅色沙漠上的輪跡照片而大動干戈。這讓我感
到產生了幽閉症的感覺。就好像我們因為罪惡感或羞愧感,試圖爬回洞穴,去看牆上的影子。我們住在父母的房間里,知道前路會將我們引向小鎮,然後是另一個小
鎮,而我們卻只想停留在孩提時代。我們在說,“看,我們做出了一個非常棒的自動沖洗式廁所!記得印刷機嗎?它可靈巧了。我們甚至建造了金字塔——那些巨大
的傢伙!我們就不能為了一個偉大廁所變得更偉大而興高采烈嗎?我們真的一定要去火星嗎?”
然而,火星正在等待。它在人類遙不可及的地方旋轉着。我們必須認識到,成長不是在預算趨緊時就能予以削減的任務。這是至關重要的使命,為了物種的智慧發展、為了人類的未來,我們不能停滯不前,萎靡不振,而是必須超越自我、不斷追求、永不停歇地進取開拓。
Lydia Netzer著有小說“Shine Shine Shine”。
翻譯:張薇
June 6, 2012, 2:21 PM
The Last Night of the World
One of twelve short stories the late science-fiction legend wrote for Esquire. And, weirdly, perhaps the most lasting.
By Ray Bradbury
Originally published in the February 1951 issue of Esquire
"What would you do if you knew this was the last night of the world?"
"What would I do; you mean, seriously?"
"Yes, seriously."
"I don't know — I hadn't thought. She turned the handle of the silver
coffeepot toward him and placed the two cups in their saucers.
He poured some coffee. In the background, the two small girls were
playing blocks on the parlor rug in the light of the green hurricane
lamps. There was an easy, clean aroma of brewed coffee in the evening
air.
"Well, better start thinking about it," he said.
"You don't mean it?" said his wife.
He nodded.
"A war?"
He shook his head.
"Not the hydrogen or atom bomb?"
"No."
"Or germ warfare?"
"None of those at all," he said, stirring his coffee slowly and
staring into its black depths. "But just the closing of a book, let's
say."
"I don't think I understand."
"No, nor do I really. It's jut a feeling; sometimes it frightens me,
sometimes I'm not frightened at all — but peaceful." He glanced in at
the girls and their yellow hair shining in the bright lamplight, and
lowered his voice. "I didn't say anything to you. It first happened
about four nights ago."
"What?"
"A dream I had. I dreamt that it was all going to be over and a voice
said it was; not any kind of voice I can remember, but a voice anyway,
and it said things would stop here on Earth. I didn't think too much
about it when I awoke the next morning, but then I went to work and the
feeling as with me all day. I caught Stan Willis looking out the window
in the middle of the afternoon and I said, 'Penny for your thoughts,
Stan,' and he said, 'I had a dream last night,' and before he even told
me the dream, I knew what it was. I could have told him, but he told me
and I listened to him."
"It was the same dream?"
"Yes. I told Stan I had dreamed it, too. He didn't seem surprised. He
relaxed, in fact. Then we started walking through offices, for the hell
of it. It wasn't planned. We didn't say, let's walk around. We just
walked on our own, and everywhere we saw people looking at their desks
or their hands or out the windows and not seeing what was in front of
their eyes. I talked to a few of them; so did Stan."
"And all of them had dreamed?"
"All of them. The same dream, with no difference."
"Do you believe in the dream?"
"Yes. I've never been more certain."
"And when will it stop? The world, I mean."
"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."
They sat awhile not touching their coffee. Then they lifted it slowly and drank, looking at each other.
"Do we deserve this?" she said.
"It's not a matter of deserving, it's just that things didn't work out. I notice you didn't even argue about this. Why not?"
"I guess I have a reason," she said.
"The same reason everyone at the office had?"
She nodded. "I didn't want to say anything. It happened last night.
And the women on the block are talking about it, just among themselves."
She picked up the evening paper and held it toward him. "There's
nothing in the news about it."
"No, everyone knows, so what's the need?" He took the paper and sat
back in his chair, looking at the girls and then at her. "Are you
afraid?"
"No. Not even for the children. I always thought I would be frightened to death, but I'm not."
"Where's that spirit of self-preservation the scientists talk about so much?"
"I don't know. You don't get too excited when you feel things are
logical. This is logical. Nothing else but this could have happened from
the way we've lived."
"We haven't been too bad, have we?"
"No, nor enormously good. I suppose that's the trouble. We haven't
been very much of anything except us, while a big part of the world was
busy being lots of quite awful things."
The girls were laughing in the parlor as they waved their hands and tumbled down their house of blocks.
"I always imagined people would be screaming in the streets at a time like this."
"I guess not. You don't scream about the real thing."
"Do you know, I won't miss anything but you and the girls. I never
liked cities or autos or factories or my work or anything except you
three. I won't miss a thing except my family and perhaps the change in
the weather and a glass of cool water when the weather's hot, or the
luxury of sleeping. Just little things, really. How can we sit here and
talk this way?"
"Because there's nothing else to do."
"That's it, of course, for if there were, we'd be doing it. I suppose
this is the first time in the history of the world that everyone has
really known just what they were going to be doing during the last
night."
"I wonder what everyone else will do now, this evening, for the next few hours."
"Go to a show, listen to the radio, watch the TV, play cards, put the children to bed, get to bed themselves, like always."
"In a way that's something to be proud of — like always."
"We're not all bad."
They sat a moment and then he poured more coffee. "Why do you suppose it's tonight?"
"Because."
"Why not some night in the past ten years of in the last century, or five centuries ago or ten?"
"Maybe it's because it was never February 30, 1951, ever before in
history, and now it is and that's it, because this date means more than
any other date ever meant and because it's the year when things are as
they are all over the world and that's why it's the end."
"There are bombers on their course both ways across the ocean tonight that'll never see land again."
"That's part of the reason why."
"Well," he said. "What shall it be? Wash the dishes?"
They washed the dishes carefully and stacked them away with especial
neatness. At eight-thirty the girls were put to bed and kissed good
night and the little lights by their beds turned on and the door left a
trifle open.
"I wonder," said the husband, coming out and looking back, standing there with his pipe for a moment."
"What?"
"If the door should be shut all the way or if it should be left just a little ajar so we can hear them if they call."
"I wonder if the children know — if anyone mentioned anything to them?"
"No, of course not. They'd have asked us about it."
They sat and read the papers and talked and listened to some radio
music and then sat together by the fireplace looking at the charcoal
embers as the clock struck ten-thirty and eleven and eleven-thirty. They
thought of all the other people in the world who had spent their
evening, each in their own special way.
"Well," he said at last. He kissed his wife for a long time.
"We've been good for each other, anyway."
"Do you want to cry?" he asked.
"I don't think so."
They went through the house and turned out the lights and locked the
doors, and went into the bedroom and stood in the night cool darkness
undressing. She took the spread from the bed and folded it carefully
over a chair, as always, and pushed back the covers. "The sheets are so
cool and clean and nice," she said.
"I'm tired."
"We're both tired."
They got into bed and lay back.
"Wait a moment," she said.
He heard her get up and go out into the back of the house, and then
he heard the soft shuffling of a swinging door. A moment later she was
back. "I left the water running in the kitchen," she said. "I turned the
faucet off."
Something about this was so funny that he had to laugh.
She laughed with him, knowing what it was that she had done that was
so funny. They stopped laughing at last and lay in their cool night bed,
their hands clasped, their heads together.
"Good night," he said, after a moment.
"Good night," she said, adding softly, "dear..."
四口之家晚上共聚一堂,媽咪在喝咖啡,爹地倒咖啡,兩個女兒在客廳地毯上排積木.
它假想的情境是:地球上所有的成年人都同時做了一個夢,
夢裡大家清楚知道,不久後的某一晚,就是地球的最後一夜了.
故事的主題,就是這一家如何度過最後一晚.
兩夫婦還是把碗筷洗得乾乾淨淨,還是把孩子送上床道晚安,
在此當中,兩人不停地對話,好像要把握機會把 話說完.
兩人上床時,特別感覺到:能夠睡在乾淨清爽的床單上,
其實就是一種幸福.
為妻的忽然想到廚房水龍頭沒扭緊,連忙奔下樓關水,
再回到床上時,兩人相對失笑:地球都要毀滅了,居然還忙著關水.
兩人最後的對話是,互道:Goodnight!
特別令人感動的是丈夫說的一段話:
妳知道嗎?除了妳和兩個女兒,其實也沒什麼好留戀的.
我從來不曾真正喜歡這座城市,也不喜歡我的工作,
或者任何妳們三個以外的事情.
如果真要說捨不得,
恐怕只有四季的轉換,
熱天裡一杯冰得透透涼涼的水.
還有,我喜歡熟熟睡著的時候,
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