"It came on great, oiled, resilient striding legs. It towered thirty feet above half of the trees, a great evil god, folding its delicate watchmaker's claws close to its oily reptilian chest. Each lower leg was a piston, a thousand pounds of white bone, sunk in thick ropes of music, sheathed over in a gleam of pebbled skin like the mail of a terrible warrior. Each thigh was a ton of meat, ivory, and steel mesh. And from the great breathing cage of the upper body those two delicate arms dangled out front, arms with hands from which might pick up and examine men like toys, while the snake neck coiled. And the head itself, a ton of sculptured stone, lifted easily upon the sky. Its mouth gaped, exposing a fence of teeth like daggers. Its eyes rolled, ostrich eggs, empty of all expression save hunger. It closed its mouth in a death grin. It ran, its pelvic bones crushing aside trees and bushes, its taloned feet clawing damp earth, leaving prints six inches deep wherever it settled its weight. It ran with a gliding ballet step, far too poised and balanced for its ten tons. It moved into a sunlit arena warily, its beautifully reptillian hands feeling the air."
Oh but to be a fly on the geological wall as Pangaea was moving around on a malleable earth crust and animals of sizes beyond our worst nightmares, roamed the planet. To be able to watch our planet as Nature took her through her different phases...asteroids landing in the arctic, the tropics and other places; ice ages growing and then melting as oceans ebbed and waned, swallowing up shorelines and then leaving bare continental shelves as the temperatures plummeted...for centuries! Would we learn from such fantasian knowledge? Would we build a better society?
Maybe these questions are better left to talented writers who roam through an easier world of make-believe...with realistic overtones. Today, we can instead, read National Geographic articles about the ancient geologic epochs and merely 'consider' this information.
I can attest to the fact that it WAS very comforting - at 2 AM, to know I could put my book on the night table, turn off the light and sleep safely through the remaining hours of the dark-time.
Thank you Mr. Bradbury, for your talent, your vision and your imagination.
As always...Nature prevails, particularly, sixty-million years ago!
...Was that the sound of thunder?
Good stuff! Thanks.
ReplyDeleteOris
Watched this again this morning, because it was so compelling. I've always believed completely in the creationism theory, because it just makes more sense to me than any other theory... Biblically there are people who lived to be hundreds of years old (Methuselah), and since dinosaurs (lizards)grow and change their entire lives, it just makes sense.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this.