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DIMENSION X - Dwellers in Silence (Ray Bradbury)

DIMENSION X Dwellers in Silence July 19, 1951 The short story The Long Years by Ray Bradbury was originally published in Maclean’s Magazine on September 15, 1948. Later the story was included in Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, published in 1950, under the amended title: April 2026: The Long Years. George Lefferts adapted Bradbury's short story into a radio play, making some fundamental changes to the setting while keeping the character dynamics and the theme in tact. It was re-named Dwellers in Silence and aired on Dimension X, July 19, 1951. The 1950s fear of atomic fission is apparent in the setting. In the story Earth has been destroyed by an atomic dust cloud resultant from wars. Survivors fled to Mars. Twenty years after escaping the destruction of their home planet, a small crew returns to Earth looking for survivors. What they find will give them reason to assess the definition of, as the character in the story, Williams, describes it, "...life as we know it". HISTORICAL GLOSSARY As the ship from Mars is about to land on Earth, Evans responds to the Captain's question of their status with: "On parabola now. If we can hold, we should breach the heavy-side layer somewhere north of what used to be Murmansk." A "parabola" is the path of a projectile when being influenced by gravity. Essentially, it is the way calculate landing on a rotating body while being affected by gravity. And "Murmansk" is a city in northwestern Russia located north of the Arctic Circle. Evans says to the Captain, "Not a sign of life on four continents." In the 1950s a classical education followed the original Renaissance divisions of the landmasses of the Earth, and they only counted four continents. Poor Australia was considered a really big island, and Antarctica was thought to be like the Arctic, a collection of islands frozen together not warranting the designation "continent". You'd think they would be looking at landmasses and not politics, and if there is only four they would combine Europe and Asia since they sit on the same landmass. But NO. They combined North and South America. The Americas are connected by that narrow bit of land in Central America so they count as just one continent. Europe and Asia, on the other hand, which are literally all on one big blob of land, are separated into two continents. So the original four continents, and what Evans is referring to, were: Africa, America, Asia and Europe. When they are looking around the municipal building the Captain points out the desk which looks as though it was recently used and says, "Look at this desk. Papers crumpled. Inkstand. Just as if somebody came in and worked here every day." Before the invention of the fountain pen, and later the ballpoint pen, a pen had no ink in it, but rather the ink was external, kept in an "inkstand". The pen had to be dipped in ink before writing and then dipped again to refill it after a few words were down on the paper. When Hathaway asks his family to prepare a banquet for their guests he says, to Susan, Marguerite, "...get the best silverware and the damask napkins." Damask is defined as "woven, reversible patterned fabric", and to make a napkin out of damask would be luxurious, so he is asking then to bring out the best cloth napkins to honor their guests.