All language subtitles for the_ray_bradbury_s03e09_to_the_chicago_abyss

People ask, where do you get your ideas?

Right here.

All this is mine.

I'll never starve here.

I'm Ray Bradbury.

And this is...

I have what seems to be total

recall from the moment of my birth.

But if it should falter, the toys, the
trivia that surround me in my workroom

help me remember back 60 years.

But what if I lost all these in a fire?

Then I'd be forced to rely on sheer
memory alone.

But what about everyone else?

Would they choose to remember or prefer
to forget?

Would my memories be a threat to them?
To find the answer, I wrote to the

Chicago Abyss.

Fine wool.

That's lambs, huh?

Oh, you don't see much of that now.

No lambs, huh?

Oh, please.

No, I didn't mean... You don't have
to... No, please. You mean... I didn't

mean...

Chesterfields. Rawleys. Lucky Strikes.

Kent's Cools. Those are the names.

Paul Malls. Old Golds.

White, Red, Amber Packs.

Grass Green. Sky Blue. Pure Gold.

Shut up!

Gently, gently.

Gently, he says. Gently.

He doesn't even know where he is.

And gently.

Look up, damn you!

What do you see out there?

Buildings? Ruined!

Bomb craters.

I'm sorry. Such a nice, friendly day.

Who knows friends?

Who had one?

Back in the 80s, maybe.

You must have been a baby then.

They still had Butterfingers that year.

In bright yellow wrappers. What's wrong
with you?

I remember limes and lemons. That's
what's wrong with me.

Do you remember oranges?

You try to make me feel bad?

Don't you know the law?

What would the police say?

They heard your oranges and lemons.

I ought to beat the living hell out of
you.

I ain't heard no one in so long.

Damn you!

Baby Ruth!

Butterfingers!

Yes!

Yes! Orange is coffee!

Cigarette! Remember!

Please.

It's my fault.

We won't be hungry forever.

We'll rebuild the cities.

There's no crying. I just want our
people to think where we're going, what

done. Police!

I said fool.

You saw.

You were there. You did nothing.

Fight one fool to save another?

No.

Come on.

Come on.

We're home. I don't want you stolen from
us.

I've heard of you for months.

And then just when I find you...

Good grief, what did you say that made
that guy mad?

I said about lemons and oranges.

I was just about to recollect wind -up
toys and back -scratchers. No wonder.

You bringing back the past.

I almost don't blame him, old man.

I could almost go mad myself.

Dangerous memories.

Dangerous memories.

There's food.

Food?

Well, I don't know. My mouth.

Well, wine, then, until your mouth feels
better.

Here.

Wine.

I can hardly believe it.

Aren't you having any?

We have only one glass.

You first.

To you, kind lady.

To you, kind sir.

To you.

The man to lead us out of limbo.

The man who tells us to rebuild.

To all of us.

To other years.

To old men who talk too much.

To pummelings, beatings, and locked
teeth.

Relax. No one follows it.

Old man.

Why do you behave like a... Like a
saint, panting after martyrdom?

And everyone's heard of you.

It makes you tick.

17, 18.

19 strands of spaghetti.

And, uh... 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... 20,

29 peas.

I shall pray over these like a fine
rosary.

How fine.

I remember.

I remember a motion picture I once saw
as a child.

National Police!

Police! We're looking for a criminal
fugitive.

If you turn him in, there's a week's
rations as a reward.

A week's rations? He must be much
wanted.

Plus a bonus of ten cans of vegetable
soup and five cans of beans.

Soup? Beans.

Think of it.

We have no information on the criminal.

Beans. Soup.

Fifteen solid pet cans.

Even I was tempted to turn myself in and
claim the reward.

Why didn't you?

You'll find out.

Eat. Eat.

My wife.

Go on. You know what to do. Go.

Your wife?

She's going to get everyone in the
apartment house.

And, old man, old man, if you're going
to remember, and you must remember, why

not do it in one fell blow? Why waste
your breath on one or two?

Old man.

You're no fool.

You have the truth.

Old man, please.

Please, tell us all.

It's like a theater.

Like motion picture houses.

Yes.

And the lights dim.

And the people will hold hands and
listen like in the old days with the

balconies in the dark.

And in the midst of the smell of popcorn
and orange crush,

my show begins.

Fool!

I accept the name.

Years ago, I looked at the ruined world,
at the dead states and the empty

nations, and I said, what can I do?

I'm a tired old man.

What?

Rebuild a devastation?

Lying half asleep one night, I
remembered an old photograph record I

It was an ancient vaudeville team.

The Duncan sisters.

Ah.

Do you hear that?

Remembering.

Ah. I sang the song.

And suddenly...

It wasn't a song anymore.

It was a way of life.

What could I offer a world that was
forgetting?

My memory.

How could my memory help?

By making comparisons.

By telling the children what once was.

By considering our losses.

And I found, the more I remembered, the
more I could remember.

Like...

Imitation flowers.

Dial telephone.

Jews, harps, harmonicas, kazoos.

And bicycle clips.

Not bicycles.

Bicycle clips.

And anti -macassars.

Giant snowflakes for furniture.

Once a man asked me to remember the
dashboard dials on a Cadillac.

I remembered.

He cried great tears, happy or sad, I
can't say.

But not literature.

No, I never had a head for plays or
poems.

They slip away.

They die.

All I am, really, is a trash heap of the
mediocre.

At a third rate, they hand me down
useless and chromed -over slush and junk

of a racetrack civilization that ran
last over a precipice and

still hasn't struck bottom.

All I can offer, really, is the
scintillant junk and absurd machineries

never -ending river of robots and robot
-mad owners.

Yet, one way or another, civilization
must get back on the track.

To those who can offer butterfly poetry,
let them remember, let them offer.

Those who can weave butterfly nets, let
them weave.

My gift is smaller than both.

Perhaps contemptible.

But I... I must dream myself worthy.

For the things... See, the things, silly
or not, that people remember are the

things they will search for again.

And I will ulcerate them so as to have
them inside of a good memory.

So that maybe then they'll... Rattle,
bang, the big clock together again.

Which is the city, the state, and then
the world.

Once I would have raved.

Only the best is best. Only quality is
true.

But roses grow from blood manure.

And mediocre must be so that most
excellent fine can bloom.

And I shall be the best mediocre there
is.

And I'll fight all those who say slide
back, slip under, dust wallow, let

brambles scurry over your living grave.

No, I shall protest.

The sheep people munching in the far
fields,

preyed on by the feudal land barren
wolves who rarify themselves in

summits and hoard unremembered foods.

And these villains I shall kill.

With can opener and corkscrew.

I'll run them down.

I'll thrash them with licorice whips.

Until they cry, mercy.

Can one do this?

can only try.

Do they understand?

This way, this way.

Each month, one train crosses the
country.

Here.

Where's the ticket?

One way to the Chicago abyss.

It's the crater where the city once was,
looking into nothing.

Nothing?

No.

Not nothing now.

And on that edge, old man, on the very
rim, you'll find people.

People gathering, collecting, living.

Tell them not to forget.

And please, after you leave here,
remember what you must, but forget you

know us.

Forget me?

For God's sake, for the next year in the
open, keep your fine mouth shut.

Did they hear?

Do they know?

Yes. They heard and remembered.

Thank you.

Now call that in.

Why are you doing this?

I wanted to remember.

But I couldn't.

Chicago Abyss.

Nighttime. Cold train.

Old cars.

Crammed people.

Remember, be quiet.

Shut up.

Be careful.

Sheesh.

Joseph.

Joseph.

Well,

Joseph, once upon a time...