"The Toynbee Convector" by Ray Bradbury

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hi, I'm Lavar Burton and this is Lavar Burton Reads.

spk_0 In every episode I have hand picked a different piece of short fiction and I've read it to you.

spk_0 The only thing these stories have had in common is that I love them.

spk_0 And we hope you have too.

spk_0 This is indeed the final episode of season 13 of Lavar Burton Reads, y'all.

spk_0 But here's the thing. You know how much I love reading aloud and so rest assured,

spk_0 I'll figure out how to continue to engage with you in storytelling that we love.

spk_0 And as it's the final episode, it really made sense to read something today by one of the greats.

spk_0 A speculative storyteller whose work has endured for decades, the great Ray Bradbury.

spk_0 Ray Bradbury's stories are so powerful and appealed to so many people partially because they are

spk_0 lyrical and colloquial, often playful, while all the time engaging with difficult truths.

spk_0 The story that I've chosen for today is one of Bradbury's tales about time travel.

spk_0 I think it's about human destiny and hope for the future.

spk_0 More than anything. I think it's about the power of human storytelling.

spk_0 The Toin B Convector was written in 1983 and first published in Playboy magazine.

spk_0 And then later featured in a collection of short stories by the same title,

spk_0 a Toin B Convector. And it's still in print today.

spk_0 Go Ray.

spk_0 As one of the characters explains, the Toin B in the name refers to the historian Arnold J. Toin B,

spk_0 who said, any group, any race, any world that did not run to seize the future and shape it

spk_0 was doomed to dust away to the grave in the past.

spk_0 Can't wait for you to hear this story.

spk_0 You'll find a content advisory for this story in the written episode description.

spk_0 And now if you're ready, let's take that deep breath.

spk_0 Yeah.

spk_0 Yeah, us.

spk_0 The Toin B Convector by Ray Brandbury.

spk_0 Good.

spk_0 Great.

spk_0 Bravo for me.

spk_0 Roger Shumway flung himself into the seat, buckled himself in,

spk_0 revved the rotor and drifted his dragonfly super six helicopter up to blow away on the

spk_0 summer sky heading south toward Lauea.

spk_0 How lucky can you get for he was on his way to an incredible meeting.

spk_0 The time traveler after a hundred years of silence had agreed to be interviewed.

spk_0 He was on this day 130 years old. And this afternoon at four o'clock sharp Pacific time,

spk_0 was the anniversary of his one and only journey in time.

spk_0 Lord, yes, one hundred years ago Craig Bennett styles had waived, stepped into his immense

spk_0 clock as he called it and vanished from the present. He was and remained the only man in history

spk_0 to travel in time. And Shumway was the one and only reporter after all these years to be invited in

spk_0 for afternoon tea. And the possible announcement of a second and final trip through time.

spk_0 The traveler had hinted at such a trip.

spk_0 Oh, man said Shumway. Mr. Craig Bennett styles, here I come.

spk_0 The dragonfly obedient to fevers seized a wind and rode it down the coast.

spk_0 The old man was there waiting for him on the roof of the time

spk_0 lamissary at the rim of the hang gliders cliff in lollia. The air swarmed with crimson, blue,

spk_0 and lemon kites from which young men shouted while young women called to them from the lands edge.

spk_0 Styles for all his 130 years is not old. His face blinking up at the helicopter was the

spk_0 bright face of one of those hang gliding Apollo fools who veered off as the helicopter sank down.

spk_0 Shumway, covered his craft for a long moment, savoring the delay.

spk_0 Below him was a face that had dreamed architectures known incredible loves,

spk_0 blueprinted mysteries of seconds, hours, days, then died in to swim upstream through the

spk_0 centuries a sunburst face celebrating its own birthday. For on a single night 100 years ago,

spk_0 Craig Bennett styles freshly returned from time had reported by tell star around the world to

spk_0 billions of viewers and told them their future.

spk_0 We made it. He said we did it. The future is ours. We rebuilt the cities,

spk_0 freshen the small towns, clean the lakes and rivers, wash the air, save the dolphins,

spk_0 increase the whales, stopped the wars. Tossed solar stations across space to light the

spk_0 world colonize the moon, moved on to Mars, then Alpha Centurri. We cured cancer and stopped death.

spk_0 We did it. Oh Lord, much thanks we did it. Oh, futures bright and beauty aspires,

spk_0 arise. He showed them pictures. He brought them samples. He gave them tapes and LP records.

spk_0 Film and sound cassettes of his wondrous roundabout flight. The world went mad with joy.

spk_0 It ran to meet and make that future, fling up the cities of promise, save all and share with

spk_0 the beasts of land and sea. Old man's welcoming shout came up the wind.

spk_0 Shumway shouted back and let the dragonfly simmer down in its own summer weather.

spk_0 Craig Bennett styles 130 years old strode forward briskly and incredibly helped the young reporter

spk_0 out of his craft. Shumway was suddenly stunned and weak at this encounter.

spk_0 I can't believe I'm here. Shumway said, you are and none too soon.

spk_0 Left the time traveler. Any day now, I may just fall apart and blow away. Lunch is waiting.

spk_0 Hike. A parade of one styles marched off under the fluttering rotor shadows that made him seem

spk_0 a flickering newsreel of a future that had somehow passed. Shumway, like a small dog after a great

spk_0 army, followed. What do you want to know? Asked the old man as they crossed the roof, double time.

spk_0 First, gasped Shumway, keeping up. Why have you broken silence after a hundred years? Second,

spk_0 why to me? Third, what's the big announcement you're going to make this afternoon at four o'clock?

spk_0 The very hour when your younger self is due to arrive from the past. When for a brief moment,

spk_0 you will appear in two places, a paradox. The person you were, man you are, fused in one

spk_0 glorious hour for us to celebrate. The old man laughed. How you do go on? Sorry, Shumway blushed.

spk_0 I wrote that last night. Well, those are the questions.

spk_0 You shall have your answers. The old man shook his elbow gently, all in good time.

spk_0 You must excuse my excitement. Said, Shumway. After all, you are a mystery. You were famous.

spk_0 World acclaimed. You went, saw the future, came back, told us, then went into seclusion.

spk_0 Oh, sure, for a few weeks you traveled the world and ticker-taped parades, showed yourself on TV,

spk_0 wrote one book gifted us with one magnificent two hour television film. Then shut yourself away.

spk_0 Here. Yes, the time machine is on exhibit below. The crowds are allowed in each day at noon to see

spk_0 and touch, but you yourself have refused fame. Not so. The old man led him along the roof.

spk_0 Below in the gardens, other helicopters were arriving now, bringing TV equipment from around the

spk_0 world to photograph the miracle in the sky. That moment when the time machine from the past would

spk_0 appear, shimmer, then wander off to visit other cities before it vanished into the past.

spk_0 I have been busy as an architect helping build that very future I saw,

spk_0 as a young man I arrived in our golden tomorrow.

spk_0 They stood for a moment, watching the preparations belong.

spk_0 Vast tables were being set up for food and drink. Dignitaries would be arriving soon from every

spk_0 country of the world to thank for a final time perhaps. This fabled, this almost mythic traveler of

spk_0 years. Come along, said the old man. Would you like to come sit in the time machine? No one else ever

spk_0 has, you know. Would you like to be the first? No answer was necessary. The old man could see that

spk_0 the young man's eyes were bright and wet. There, there, said the old man. Oh dear, me there, there.

spk_0 A glass elevator sank and took them below and let them out in a pure white basement,

spk_0 at the center of which stood the incredible device. There, styles touched the button and the

spk_0 plastic shell that had for 100 years encased the time machine slid aside. The old man nodded.

spk_0 Go, sit.

spk_0 Shumway moved slowly toward the machine.

spk_0 Styles touched another button and the machine lit up like a cavern of spiderwebs.

spk_0 It breathed in years and whispered forth remembrance. Ghosts were in its crystal veins. A great

spk_0 god spider had woven its tapestries in a single night. It was haunted and it was alive. Unseen

spk_0 tides came and went in its machinery. Suns burned and moons hid their seasons in it. Here an

spk_0 autumn blew away in tatters. There, winters arrived in snows that drifted in spring blossoms to fall

spk_0 on summer fields. The young man sat in the center of it all, unable to speak, gripping the

spk_0 armrests of the padded chair.

spk_0 Now, let's get back to our story.

spk_0 Don't be afraid. Said the old man gently.

spk_0 I won't send you on a journey. I wouldn't mind. Said Shumway.

spk_0 The old man studied his face. No, I can see you wouldn't. You looked like me.

spk_0 100 years ago this day, damned if you aren't by

spk_0 honorary son. The young man shut his eyes at this. The lids glistened and the ghosts in the

spk_0 machine sighed all about him and promised him tomorrow's.

spk_0 Well, what do you think of my time being convector?

spk_0 Said the old man briskly to break the spell. He cut the power. The young man opened his eyes.

spk_0 The toine be convector. What? More mysteries. The great toine be. That fine historian who said

spk_0 any group, any race, any world that did not run to seize the future and shape it was doomed to

spk_0 dust away in the grave in the past. Did he say that? Or some such he did.

spk_0 So what better name for my machine? Huh? Toine B? Wherever you are. Here's your future seizing device.

spk_0 He grabbed the young man's elbow and steered him out of the machine.

spk_0 Yeah. Nothing that. It's late. Almost time for the great arrival.

spk_0 And the earth's shaking final announcement of that old time traveler's styles. Jump!

spk_0 Back on the roof, they looked down on the gardens which were now swarming with the famous

spk_0 and the near famous from across the world. The nearby roads were jammed. The skies were full of

spk_0 helicopters and hovering by planes. Hang gliders had long since given up and now stood along the

spk_0 cliff rim like a mob of bright tarot actors. Wings folded, heads up, staring at the clouds, waiting.

spk_0 All this, the old man murdered. My God, for me. The young man checked his watch.

spk_0 10 minutes to four and counting almost time for the great arrival. Sorry, that's what I called it

spk_0 when I wrote you up a week ago for the news. That moment of arrival and departure in the blink of an

spk_0 eye. When by stepping across time you changed the whole future of the world from night to day, dark to light.

spk_0 I often wondered what some way studying the sky. When you went ahead in time, did no one see you

spk_0 did anyone happen at all to look up the unknown and see your device hover in the middle of the air

spk_0 here and over Chicago a bit later and then New York and Paris. No one.

spk_0 Well, said the inventor of the Toine B. Convector. I don't suppose anyone was expecting me

spk_0 and if people saw they surely did not know what in blazes they were looking at.

spk_0 I was careful anyway not to linger too long. I needed only time to photograph the rebuilt cities,

spk_0 clean seas and rivers, the fresh, small free air, unfortified nations, saved in beloved waves.

spk_0 I moved quickly, photographed, swiftly and ran back down the years home.

spk_0 Today paradoxically, it's different. Millions upon millions of mobs of eyes will be looking up with great

spk_0 expectations. They will glance will they not from the young fool burning in the sky to the old fool

spk_0 here. Still glad for his triumph. They will. Said, shall we go indeed. They will.

spk_0 A court popped. Some way turned from surveying the crowds on the nearby fields and the crowds of

spk_0 circling objects in the sky to see that styles had just opened a bottle of champagne.

spk_0 Our own private toast and our own private celebration. They held their glasses up,

spk_0 waiting for the precise and proper moment to drink. Five minutes to four and counting.

spk_0 Why? Said the young reporter. Did no one else ever travel in time.

spk_0 I put a stop to it. Myself. Said the old man leaning over the roof, looking down at the crowds.

spk_0 I realized how dangerous it was. I was reliable, of course, no danger, but

spk_0 Lord, think of it. Just anyone rolling about the bowling alley, time corridors ahead,

spk_0 knocking ten panels headlong, frightening natives, shocking citizens somewhere else,

spk_0 fiddling with Napoleon's lifeline behind, or restoring Hitler's cousins ahead. No,

spk_0 no. And the government, of course, agreed. No, insisted that we put the toym be convector

spk_0 under sealed lock and key. Today, you were the first and last to fingerprint its machine.

spk_0 The guard has been heavy and constant for tens of thousands of days to prevent the machines being stolen.

spk_0 What time do you have?

spk_0 Someway glanced at his watch and took in his breath. One minute and counting down.

spk_0 He counted the old man counted. They raised their champagne glasses. Nine, eight, seven.

spk_0 The crowds below were immensely silent. The sky whispered with expectation. The TV cameras swung

spk_0 up to scan and search. Six, five. They clinked their glasses. Four, three, two. They drank.

spk_0 One. They drank their champagne with a laugh. They looked to the sky. The golden air above the

spk_0 coastline waited. The moment for the great arrival was here. Now, cried the young reporter

spk_0 like a magician giving orders. Now, said styles gravely quiet. Nothing.

spk_0 Five seconds passed. The sky stood empty. Ten seconds passed. Heavens waited.

spk_0 Twenty seconds passed. Nothing. At last,

spk_0 Shumway turned to stare and wonder the old man by his side. Stiles looked at him, shrugged and said,

spk_0 I lied. You what?

spk_0 Cryed, Shumway. The crowds below shifted uneasily. I lied. Said the old man simply.

spk_0 No! But yes, said the time traveler. I never went anywhere. I stayed but made it seem.

spk_0 I went. There is no time machine. Only something that looks like one. But why?

spk_0 Cryed the young man, bewildered, holding onto the rail at the edge of the roof. Why?

spk_0 I see that you have a tape recording button on your lapel. Turn it on. Yes, there. I want everyone to hear this.

spk_0 Now, the old man finished his champagne and then said, because I was born and raised in a time

spk_0 in the 60s, 70s and 80s when people had stopped believing in themselves. I saw that disbelief,

spk_0 the reason that no longer gave itself reasons to survive and was moved, depressed and then

spk_0 angered by it. Everywhere I saw and heard doubt. Everywhere I learned destruction.

spk_0 Everywhere was professional despair, intellectual on weed. And what wasn't on weed and cynicism was

spk_0 rampant skepticism and inscipient nihilism. The old man stopped having remembered something.

spk_0 He bent from under a table brought forth a special bottle of red burgundy with the label 1984

spk_0 on it. This, as he talked, he began to open gently plumbing the ancient cork.

spk_0 You name it. We had it. The economy was a snail. The world was a cesspool.

spk_0 Economics remained an insoluble mystery. Melancholy was the attitude. The impossibility of change was the

spk_0 bog. End of the world was the slogan. Nothing was worth doing. Go to bed at night full of bad news

spk_0 at 11, wake up in the morning to worst news at 7. Trudge through the day underwater,

spk_0 brown at night and a tide of plagues and pestilence.

spk_0 For the cork, it softly popped. The now harmless 1984 vintage was ready for airing.

spk_0 The time traveler sniffed it and nodded. Not only the four horsemen of the apocalypse rode the

spk_0 horizon to fling themselves on our cities, but a fifth horsemen, worse than all the rest rode with them.

spk_0 Despair wrapped in dark troughs of defeat, crying only repetitions of past disasters,

spk_0 present failures, future cowlises. Bombarded by dark chaff and no bright seed,

spk_0 what sort of harvest was there for a man in the latter part of the incredible 20th century?

spk_0 Forgotten was the moon. Forgotten the red landscapes of Mars, the great eye of Jupiter,

spk_0 stunning rings of Saturn, we refused to be comforted. We wept at the grave of our child.

spk_0 The child was us. Was that how it was? One hundred years ago.

spk_0 Asked some we quietly. Yes. The time traveler held up the wine bottle as if it contained proof.

spk_0 He poured some into a glass, hid it, inhaled and went on.

spk_0 You have seen the newsreels and read the books of that time?

spk_0 You know it all. Of course there were a few bright moments. When sought, delivered the world's

spk_0 children to life, or the night when eagle landed and that one great step for mankind trod the moon.

spk_0 But in the minds and out of the mouths of many,

spk_0 fifth horseman was darkly chaired on with high hopes it sometimes seemed of his winning.

spk_0 So all would be gloomily satisfied that their predictions of doom were right from day one.

spk_0 So the self-fulfilling prophecies were declared.

spk_0 We dug our graves and prepared to lie down in them.

spk_0 And you couldn't allow that. Asked the young reporter.

spk_0 You know I couldn't.

spk_0 And so you built the Toinebeak convector. Not all at once, it took years to brood on it.

spk_0 The old man paused to swirl the dark wine, gaze at it and sip. Eyes closed.

spk_0 Being wild, I drowned. I despaired, wept silently, late nights thinking what can I do to save us

spk_0 from ourselves. How to save my friends, my city, my state, my country, the entire world from this

spk_0 obsession with doom. Well, it was in my library, late one night that my hand searching

spk_0 along shells touched at last on an old and beloved book by HG Wells. His time device called,

spk_0 ghost-like down the years. I heard. I understood. I truly listened.

spk_0 Then I blueprinted. I built. I traveled. Or so it seemed.

spk_0 Rest is, you know. His history. The old time-trailer drink is wine.

spk_0 Opened. Opened his eyes.

spk_0 Now, let's get back to our story.

spk_0 Good God. The young reporter whispered, shaking his head.

spk_0 Dear God, all the wonder, the wonder.

spk_0 There was an immense ferment in the lower gardens now, and in the fields beyond,

spk_0 and on the roads and in the air, millions were still waiting. Where was the great arrival?

spk_0 Well, now. Said the old man, filling another glass with wine for the young reporter.

spk_0 I made the machines. Built miniature cities, lakes, bonds, seas.

spk_0 Directed vast architectures against crystal water skies.

spk_0 Talked to dolphins, played with whales, fake tapes. Withologized films.

spk_0 Oh, it took years. Gears of sweating worked in secret preparation before I announced my departure.

spk_0 Left and came back. But good news.

spk_0 They drank the rest of the vintage wine. There was a hum of voices. All of the people below

spk_0 were looking up at the roof. The time-trailer weighed at them and turned.

spk_0 Quickly now. It's up to you from here on. You have the tape. My voice on it just

spk_0 freshly made. Here are three more tapes with fuller data. Here's a film cassette history of my whole

spk_0 inspired fraudulence. Here's a final manuscript. Take, take it all. Hand it on. I nominate you as son

spk_0 to explain the father. Quickly. Hustled into the elevator once more,

spk_0 Jumway felt the world fall away, but he. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. So game had last

spk_0 agreed hoot. The old man surprised hooded with him as they stepped out below and advanced upon

spk_0 the Toimbee convector. You see the point. Don't you son? Life has always been lying to ourselves.

spk_0 As boys, young men, old men, as girls, maidens, women to gently lie and prove the lie true.

spk_0 To weave dreams and put brains and ideas and flesh in the truly real beneath the dreams. Everything

spk_0 finally is a promise. What seems a lie is a ramshackle need wishing to be born here, thus and so.

spk_0 He pressed the button that raised the plastic shield, pressed another and started the time machine

spk_0 humming. Then, chaffled quickly in to thrust himself into the convector's seat.

spk_0 Throw the final switch, young man. But you're thinking if the time machine is a fraud,

spk_0 it won't work. What's the use of throwing a switch? Yes? Throw it anyway. This time, it will work.

spk_0 Shumway turned, found the control switch, grabbed hold, then looked at cragmented styles.

spk_0 I don't understand. Where are you going? Why? To be one with the ages, of course.

spk_0 To exist now only in the deep past. How can that be? Believe me, this time, it will happen.

spk_0 Goodbye, dear, fine, nice young man. Goodbye. Now, tell me my name. What? Speak my name and throw the

spk_0 switch. Time traveler. Yes. Now, the young man yanked the switch. The machine hung,

spk_0 roared, blazed with power. Said the old man shutting his eyes, his mouth smiled gently.

spk_0 Yes. His head fell forward on his chest.

spk_0 Shumway yelled, banged the switch off and leaped forward to tear at the straps,

spk_0 binding the old man in his device. In the midst of so doing, he stopped.

spk_0 Felt the time travelers risked, but his fingers under the neck to test the pulse there and groaned.

spk_0 He began to weep. The old man had indeed gone back in time and its name was dead.

spk_0 He was traveling in the past now, forever.

spk_0 Shumway stepped back and turned the machine on again. If the old man were to travel,

spk_0 left the machine, symbolically, anyway, go with him. It made a sympathetic humming,

spk_0 the fire of it, the bright sun fire burned in all its spider-grids and armatures and lighted

spk_0 the cheeks of the vast brow of the ancient traveler, whose head seemed to nod with vibrations,

spk_0 whose smile as he traveled into darkness is the smile of a child much satisfied.

spk_0 The reporter stood for a long moment more, wiping his cheeks with the backs of his hands,

spk_0 then leaving the machine on, he turned, crossed the room, pressed the button for the glass elevator.

spk_0 And while he was waiting, took the time travelers' tapes and cassettes from his jacket pockets,

spk_0 and one by one shoved them into the incinerator trash flu, set in the wall.

spk_0 The elevator doors opened, he stepped in, the doors shut.

spk_0 The elevator hummed now, I get another time device taking him up into a stunned world,

spk_0 a waiting world, lifting him up into a bright continent, a future land, a wondrous and surviving

spk_0 planet that one man with one lie had created.

spk_0 A lot of people ask me, why science fiction? What's your thing about speculative fiction,

spk_0 for me it's the hopeful nature of the genre. The idea that we can rise to our highest level of

spk_0 expression as a species, the hope that that inspires. So much good has come from our natural

spk_0 inclinations to look up. There's that image in the story where millions of people are looking up.

spk_0 This life has given me a lot of wonderful opportunities. I've actually become friends with a

spk_0 woman named Mae Carol Jemisin. She was the first African American woman in space. She's

spk_0 full on the space shuttle and she's got a project that she's been working on for several years and

spk_0 I've been a ten-genital part of it called the 100-Years Starship. It's an effort that gathers

spk_0 together all kinds of experts and all kinds of fields and they discuss what it will take

spk_0 in the here and now for us to create a future that will enable us to be a space-faring race.

spk_0 And the idea is that it's not going to happen today. It's not going to happen for us. We are planning

spk_0 for the next hundred years. And one of the things that Mae says about this journey that we're on,

spk_0 she stresses how important it is for us to look up, right, to actually connect to the stars,

spk_0 to acknowledge that we come from them and that there is a calling that lives inside of us to return

spk_0 to that which we came from. In this story, in the very, very brilliant, very rad-very,

spk_0 reminds us of that calling. As I've talked about on our way to now, this is indeed the final

spk_0 episode of the final season of the Barbara and Reeds. It has been my extreme and joyous

spk_0 pleasure to be with you on this journey. It has been well the honor of my life genuinely,

spk_0 to share these stories with you and sometimes my thoughts and feelings and to feel your response.

spk_0 I feel seen by you all. And I thank you for that.

spk_0 As my final words, I just want to encourage you to keep reading, keep expanding,

spk_0 keep living in your imaginations. That is the fuel that is going to power the commitment necessary

spk_0 to drink big and change the world. Keep looking up, y'all. I'll see you next time. But, you know.

spk_0 Our producer on this episode of Lavar Burton Reeds is Julius Smith. She is the best in the

spk_0 business, y'all. Our fabulous researcher is LD Lewis. Always happy to have you aboard my sister.

spk_0 We had additional research support this season from Talon Stradley and Josephine Marr-Hurana,

spk_0 editing and sound designed by the extraordinary Brendan Burns, who also created our theme music.

spk_0 My great thanks to the estate of Ray Bradbury for allowing me to read his story.

spk_0 You can find it in the collection entitled The Toon Bee Convector.

spk_0 If you enjoyed this podcast, please tell a friend about it or leave us a review on Apple podcasts,

spk_0 like I say, share the short fiction well. Lavar Burton Reeds is a production of Stitcher and

spk_0 Lavar Burton Entertainment. Our executive producers are Josephine Marr-Hurana and yours truly,

spk_0 Lavar Burton. And if you want to find me on the internet, I'm Lavar.Burton on Instagram,

spk_0 at LavarBurton on X or you can simply go to LavarBurton.com. You can also join my book club at fabel.co

spk_0 slash Lavar. I'll see you next time. But, you don't have to take my word for it.

spk_0 Dickic and

spk_0 Stitcher

spk_0 FILM

spk_0

"The Toynbee Convector" by Ray Bradbury

Interactive Transcript

Topics Covered

Related Episodes

212: How to manifest your dream home

Jessicas Food Reviews and Phone Check

Zac Young Serves Up Scares and Sweets on Halloween Baking Championship

What is Minecraft's Suspicious Stew?

Share Episode