“A Pail of Air” is a science fiction short story by American writer Fritz Leiber. It originally appeared in the December 1951 issue of Galaxy Magazine and was dramatized on the radio show X Minus One in March 1956.
The story is narrated by a ten-year-old boy living on Earth after it has become a rogue planet, having been torn away from the Sun by a passing “dark star”. The loss of solar heating has caused the Earth’s atmosphere to freeze into thick layers of “snow”.
The dark star passed, bringing with it eternal night and turning history into incredible myth in a single generation!
You know, at first I thought it was a young lady. Yes, a beautiful young lady’s face all glowing in the dark and looking at me from the fifth floor of the opposite apartment, which hereabouts is the floor just above the white blanket of frozen air. I’d never seen a live young lady before, except in the old magazines—Sis is just a kid and Ma is pretty sick and miserable—and it gave me such a start that I dropped the pail. Who wouldn’t, knowing everyone on Earth was dead except Pa and Ma and Sis and you?
Fritz Reuter Leiber Jr. born December 24, 1910 and died September 5, 1992, was an American writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. With writers such as Robert E. Howard and Michael Moorcock, Leiber is one of the fathers of sword and sorcery.
In Public Domain
First Published 1951
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