I relate strongly with The Pedestrian. I love going for long walks at odd hours.

In the United State police's defence once I was walking all by myself at 3 in the morning in Mountain View, peeking and crouching among the bushes for good shots with my camera. A police car approached me. It ended up being a non-threatening conversation. It was early 2002. All in all quite surprising given my brown skin and then long beard.

https://ibb.co/j9XFgjDS

https://ibb.co/Y7VyGb1w

There Will Come the Soft Rains feels like it was written right after a visit to the World's Fair back in the Atomic Era. A critique of the unlimited promises about the future but virtually no thought put towards the possible consequences of said future. It's a very post-war story.

You know what, you're right - The Pedestrian hit me much harder this time around than the first time I read it.

God, I love Bradbury.

I have a friend who often goes for walks at midnight or later, around a rather nice part of town.

He gets the cops called on him regularly. It's insane.

What's the most unsettling to me is that the one thing that makes it less apt to modern life is the implication that at 8 PM, everyone is at home. Nobody still working or commuting.