CARLOS ANDRES OCHOA ALVAREZ

SHAMARA JANETH PEREZ OVIEDO

THERE WILL COME SOFT RAINS

This is a futuristic story where there are no characters as they
all disappeared after the nuclear blast destroyed the rest of
Allendale, California.
It is the story of a day in the life of the only house standing.
The story is told passing the day

IN THE MORNING
The voice of the clock sang in the room: TIC-TAC image
At 7:00 am
"Seven o'clock, time to get up, time to get up, seven" image
It was time to get up, but the house was deserted, and the
clock kept ringing, repeating and repeating calls in a vacuum.

At 7:09
In the kitchen, the oven for breakfast preparing eight perfectly
golden toasts, eight fried eggs, sixteen ham slices, two cups
of coffee and two glasses of fresh milk. Image
-"Today is August 4, 2026,"
said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling,
-"in the city of Allendale, California."
It repeated the date three times for memory's sake.
- "Today is Mr. Featherstone's birthday.”
- “Today is the anniversary of Tilita's marriage.”
- “Insurance is payable, as are the water, gas, and light bills."
Somewhere in the walls, relays clicked, memory tapes glided
under electric eyes.
At 8:01
“Eight-one, tick-tock, eight-one o'clock, off to school, off to
work, run, run, eight-one!”
But no doors slammed, there was none. It started to rain, and
the weather box sang softly:
-"Rain, rain, go away; umbrellas, raincoats for today."
At 8:30
the eggs were parched and the toast hard as rocks. An
aluminum arm threw them into the dump, where the dirty
dishes fell into a washing machine and emerged shiny and
dry.
At 9:04
“cleaning time”. image
This is how the hidden mechanical voice boxes on the walls of
the house announce the date, the weather, and the notable
events of the day. A voice clock sings the hours that pass. The
mechanical stove prepares breakfast for family members who
will never eat it again, and the robot cleaning mice sneak out
of their burrows to take away any bits of debris.

At 10:04
“Here the white painted silhouette of a man who watered the
grass, a woman bent over picked some flowers, a boy with his
hands raised; above, the image of a ball in the air, and in front
of the boy, a girl, with her hands up, ready to catch a ball that
never fell "image
All that remains of the couple and the two children who once
lived there are four silhouettes painted on the otherwise
charred west exterior wall of the house.
“The house was an altar with ten thousand assistants, large,
small, attending, in choirs. But the gods were gone, and the
ritual of religion continued meaningless, useless” image

THE NOON
“The bony dog and covered in sores” image
The family dog, the only living creature left, starves to death
outside the kitchen door, while unconsumed breakfast is
swept away by the garbage disposal inside the kitchen. The
mice, feeling the decomposition, scurry again to take the
carcass and throw it into the incinerator.
“And between the following hours
2:35, 4:00, 4:30, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00.” image
The house prepares for a party on the bridge that never takes
place, prepares baths for its missing inhabitants, prepares
dinner, warms the beds, and even lights a pipe for its absent
teacher.
At 10
“the house began to die” image
A falling branch breaks a window and causes a bottle of
cleaning solvent to break through the kitchen stove.
Fire runs through the rooms as the house desperately
struggles to save itself.
Voice boxes shout warnings to residents for whom the
warning comes too late, chemical foam gushes from the attic,
and mechanical showers fall from the walls.
Eventually, however, the reserve water supply that has kept
the house running for days is depleted and the fire breaks out
uncontrollably.
As the house wiring, your nervous system begins to wilt and
burn, pandemonium is unleashed.
The stove produces huge amounts of breakfast as the flames
eat what has already been prepared, the mice rush to try to
carry away the rising mounds of ash, and the walls echo with
a crazy chorus of voices, one that reads poetry quietly. .
The study around him burns. When the house finally collapses,
the dawn is shown in the east, and from the wall a single last
voice still stands, repeats again and again:

 “Today is August 5, 2026, today is August 5, 2026, today

is. . . " image

The end
Andres opinios
This is pretty cool, considering it was written in 1950. This is a
story about an automated house doing all its programmed
chores on a house not affected by the nuclear apocalypse
that’s left the entire world empty. With things like Amazon’s
Echo & Alexa and other AI tech appearing on the market, you
can imagine this is the way people will live in the future, with
their house and technology doing everything for them.

This is quite a sad tale really. No matter how advanced our

technologies become doesn’t mean we’re able to escape
death and destruction