A Pail of Air by Fritz Lieber. With a claim like that, it better be good. It is. Written in 1951, it starts with a startling premise: Earth has been ripped away from the sun by a 'dark star', the atmosphere lies in frozen layers on the ground, and everyone is dead. Well, not quite everyone. The tale is narrated by a boy who survives with his small family in a hand-built dwelling, valiantly staving off human extinction. The story owes its title to one of the boy's daily chores: donning a suit, going outside, and retrieving a pail of frozen air. The fire inside warms the air, it turns to gas, and thus sustains the family.
Why is this the best short story ever? Because, there is no hope, but the characters hope anyway, and fight on. It is this quirk of the human spirit that makes every post-apocalyptic story so compelling, and inspires me. It was stories like this one that drew me to the genre, and keeps me coming back.
You can read the story for free at the following link posted by the original publisher.
A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber
There is a short introduction, so just skip to the first line "Pa had sent me out to get an extra pail of air." Yep - still gives me chills.
God bless the internet! I just spent an hour trying to find a short story I read as a kid. No author's name, no title, no year... just the memory of a story that has stuck with me and haunted me for 40+ years. And then... here it was. I just reread it again with 57 year old eyes instead of a kid's eyes. Bliss. Thank you for posting this link.
ReplyDeleteI was as pleased as you were to find the story posted on-line. Glad you stumbled over it again after all these years! It is a one-of-a-kind.
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