The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. "Look, Mom, look! A falling star!"
The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois.
"Make a wish," said his mother. "Make a wish."
* * *
The Illustrated Man turned in the moonlight. He turned again . . . and again . . . and again. . . .
* * *
The Other Foot
WHEN they heard the news they came out of the restaurants and cafes and hotels and looked at the sky. They lifted their dark hands over their upturned white eyes. Their mouths hung wide. In the hot noon for thousands of miles there were little towns where the dark people stood with their shadows under them, looking up.
In her kitchen Hattie Johnson covered the boiling soup, wiped her thin fingers on a cloth, and walked carefully to the back porch.
"Come on, Ma! Hey, Ma, come on--you'll miss it!"
"Hey, Mom!"
Three little Negro boys danced around in the dusty yard, yelling. Now and then they looked at the house frantically.
"I'm coming," said Hattie, and opened the screen door. "Where you hear this rumor?"
"Up at Jones's, Ma. They say a rocket's coming, first one in twenty years, with a white man in it!"
"What's a white man? I never seen one.
"You'll find out," said Hattie. "Yes indeed, you'll find out."
"Tell us about one, Ma. Tell like you did."
Hattie frowned. "Well, it's been a long time. I was a little girl, you see. That was back in 1965."
"Tell us about a white man, Mom!"
She came and stood in the yard, looking up at the blue clear Martian sky with the thin white Martian clouds, and in the distance the Martian hills broiling in the heat. She said at last, "Well, first of all, they got white hands."
"White hands!" The boys joked, slapping each other.
"And they got white arms.
"White arms!" hooted the boys.
"And white faces."
"White faces! Really?"
"White likethis, Mom?" The smallest threw dust on his face, sneezing. "This way?"
"Whiter than that" she said gravely, and turned to the sky again. There was a troubled thing in her eyes, as if she was looking for a thundershower up high, and not seeing it made her worry. "Maybe you better go inside."
"Oh, Mom!" They stared at her in disbelief. "We got to watch, we just got to. Nothing's going to happen, is it?"
"I don't know. I got a feeling, is all."
"We just want to see the ship and maybe run down to the port and see that white man. What's he like, huh, Mom?"