Wright Morris
MAN ON THE MOON
From this fair prospect no perceptible line divides the sea
from the sky. It is all of one piece. An orbiting spaceman might wonder
which is which, and mistake his element. The color
is
like that of the sea
in those paintings that hang in your mind rather than on the walls of
museums. The beach, not at all crowded, has few bathers in the water:
they lie basking in the sun or under umbrellas the color of shells. New
cars, gleaming like trophies, screen the bathers and the sea from the
highway where the traffic flows in one direction for Hollywood, in the
other Malibu.
A choice of pipedreams? This is the country of dream merchants.
A sense of affluence, even of leisure, of the peace that precedeth under–
standing, rises with the sound of the surf, the traffic hum. On the point
where I stand facing the sea one should build a dream house, and many
have. All around me are signs that the good work still goes on. Construc–
tion, in fact, is underway right at my back. It differs from the usual
sort of dream house in that it will not rise, but descend. It will also be
modest, dispensing with porches, windows, and light. While in it one
will also dispense with the view. It is the last word-the very last word–
in togetherness. One room less than ten feet square will sleep three,
plus a cat and a dog. And the view? That will be there to greet you
when you come out. That, perhaps, and very little else, since this dream–
house is a fallout shelter.
"I figure it's worth what it costs," the builder told me, "if it makes
the wife feel any better." Did he think it would? His eyes were on the
hole gaping at his feet. He tipped his head suddenly for a look at the
sky. From the shelter that would be his view. Up there, still visible, was
the moon. "You think we'll put a man on it first?" he asked.
I nodded. Yes, indeedy, I thought so. In fact, I thought we'd had
men on it for sometime. A lot of men. We had become a nation of
men on the moon.
Less than a year ago a neighbor and I found solidarity in "fallout"
