August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains.
"In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk."(Bradbury, 906) Is this the house we have imagined? "There Will Come Soft Rains" says that, yes, we can build magnificent machines: beautiful houses to cater to our every need, a thousand servants at our beck and call, yet what benefit will they be at the end? When we fry ourselves into small radioactive fragments because we can sooner built houses fit for gods, then learn to live in peace with our fellow mortals, what good will our machines be to us then?
In this essay, the loyal family dog searched uselessly for his masters. …
