Short Story Review || Morgue Ship (1944)
"This was Burnett's last trip. He would be among the living again with three more shelves to fill with space-slain warriors."
: 🌕 : SPOILER ALERT : 🌕 :
In the small hours of one’s day, perhaps in one’s life, the clock’s hand resounds like thunder. What has the mind accomplished? How far has the body wandered? What impact has the soul left on Earth? The reflection of an individual’s extroverted desires for fulfillment holds the probability of one being left disappointed if also utterly revolted with what one might deem, a life poorly lived.
“Ten years of it. Every hour of those ten years eating like maggots inside, working out to the surface of Burnett's face, working under the husk of his starved eyes and starved limbs. Starved for life".”
As has been well-documented in my previous reviews, I hold a soft spot for Bradbury. I have grown fond of the author through repetitive encounters, some with a striking nature of serendipity. Admittedly, not all of Bradbury’s work has left me feeling overjoyed. His stories cross genres, often leaning heavily in science fiction; some are written with an adult reader in mind while others approach a style that welcomes a younger audience. In none of these gifts have I found myself disappointed rather, I have fostered a greater appreciation for his talent & skill because I have on occasion, watched the procession wander past, admiring it from the sidelines.
What remains true of all of Bradbury’s stories is that he was a gifted storyteller who knew, from the most tender parts of his mind & heart, what he wanted to convey. This short story provides the ultimate example of this truth. Within the structure of a spaceship, Sam Burnett collects dead bodies floating through space. His despair at his profession—one that has been done out of necessity during a period of war—has left him drained of all quintessential aspects of his person.
The reader follows Sam as his ship collects the body of Lethla, a member of the opposition from Venus, who takes Sam & his shipmate, Rice, hostage in order to collect Lethla’s captain—Kirere. Within the short sequences that pass, the reader is given intimate knowledge about Sam. No background information nor any details about what might constitute his personal life; the reader is given the chair in the corner, to watch Sam, a man who has feelings & thoughts, as he sacrifices his life in the hopes of ending the intergalactic war that has ravaged the lives of countless individuals.
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Perhaps the reader is meant to wonder at the cost of war. During no period in human history has violence not been present. One notes the historians who account for quote, periods of peace, yet it is important to recall that violence in all her forms reigns through our species in abundance as though we fear weakness without her.
Sam exists in a time during which violence is at the forefront of life & has been for decades. The rotation of his work means he spends a few hours on Earth with those whom the reader may assume are his loved ones—family & friends. Bradbury welcomes the reader into Sam’s consciousness without impregnating the narrative with a false hope that Sam might become someone we know intimately. In fact, Bradbury seems to have shown his hand here, trusting the reader to be kind to Sam & his circumstances.
The gift that this position offers the reader is vital to their appreciation of the story as a whole. While at times the narrative seems to flounder with descriptions of the antagonist being a semi-propaganda-style villain, Bradbury rounds back on his words ensuring that the reader knows that the spider-like body of the alien does not make him a stranger to humanity, rather, his coxa are just like human hands & arms.
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Reaching into the soul of the story does not require deep reflection. Bradbury published this story during WWII, the world had come to know gruesome brutality in a semi-redundant & traditionally habituated fashion. In his world, bombs & bullets rained & threatened the glimmer of homestead calm that promised to return.
For the author, the inclusion of war within his fiction did not make clear the sheer terror of battle. Sam evokes the sentiments often attributed to war throughout his nostalgia for a time in which he was not sent out to space to collect corpses. With this, the reader can imagine their own lives, their societies, & the culture that is lost through destruction.
Keeping in line with these sentiments, Sam’s character acts as a driver for the events that follow. Without his courage of self-sacrifice, the leaders of the opposition, those causing destruction to Earth, may have gone on to create further catastrophe leaving peace as a faraway & impossible option. The reader may wonder how terrible the war had become for Sam to settle on death as the only suitable course of action.
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I would not wish for my pondering to tinge the reflection of the story with a tone of insensitive questioning, but I do ponder the details that have been hidden from the reader. At the same time, I believe that this story encumbers everything that is necessary for a reader to comprehend the depth of emotion & consequence that Bradbury describes in his writing, with words & punctuation alike.
What I found to be most enjoyable in this story was the illustration. Might these be unfair to the author; I mean this more so in the sense that the imagery provided me with a doorway in which Bradbury’s writing became real, it grew edges & shading & arose like The Monster whom Victor left to perish.
Certainly, without the writing, the illustration could survive on the back of any postcard or cute pin. However, in a pair, doubling as the fondness I have come to remember from stories read to me in childhood, the illustration offered me a moment to veer my round head into the world of space wars, killer alien spiders, morgue ships, & intergalactic mayhem.
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Ultimately, readers looking to engage with beautiful writing will always find in Bradbury the wonders all combinations of letters can provide. This story is tender & cruel just as humanity pretends to be otherwise, the narrator in his mumbling perturbed existence, reminds us of who we are; his friend, the stranger from down the road, the person who waits for Sam to return home.
Comedically timed to ensure that he had a safe passage home, Sam’s death provided freedom for everyone he never came to know. All the people Sam never knew & those yet to be born have been granted freedom from the devastation caused by conflict & in penance for the pain he carried, in something crafted through the divine, Sam succumbed to the memories of a time whence no wandering souls need collect the dead they knew when alive, as friends.
If you would like to read this story, please visit this link — « Morgue Ship » by Ray Bradbury
C. 💌